Kelsey Berreth murder: Patrick Frazee sentenced to life without parole after he's found guilty of beating fiancee to death and burning her body
Colorado rancher Patrick Frazee has been found guilty of murdering his fiancee by beating her mercilessly with a bat. Frazee was engaged to 29-year-old Kelsey Berreth and the couple had a 2-year-old daughter together. He was sentenced to the maximum of life without parole plus 156 years.
Though Berreth's body was never found and police did not find the murder weapon, the prosecution proved that he battered her to death and burned her body on his property. According to authorities, she was killed in her Woodland Park, Teller County home on November 22, 2018 - on Thanksgiving. Their daughter is said to have been at the house at the time of the murder. Prosecutors say that after killing her he had stuffed her body into a black box and burned it on his property.
"Your actions were vicious, senseless, without reason nor explanation. … Kelsey spent her last night caring for you -- you repaid that kindness by viciously beating her to death," Judge Scott Sells said, according to ABC News. "After you beat her, you burned her body like a piece of trash. Your crimes deserve the absolute punishment available."
Prosecutors alleged that he knew about the murder because he stopped contacting her after November 25, 2018. He was also caught on surveillance video outside her home, even though his alibi said that he had been 40 miles away. Beth Reid, the prosecutor in the case, said that the black box in his red truck that was spotted in the video was used to transport the victims's body. Investigators believe it took approximately 10-15 blows to kill her.
"Her beaten and battered body is in that box, which he keeps on the back of the truck while he eats Thanksgiving dinner. The reality is," Reid told the jurors, "only one person knows why."
Frazee's ex-girlfriend Krystal Lee testified against him along with a former inmate. Lee said that he had asked her to come to his dead fiancee's home to clean up after the murder. She also admitted that she had thrown out the victim's phone, after taking it to Idaho. "I saw blood all over the floor and blood all over the wall," she testified. "There was blood on the front of the stove and the dishwasher, and on the floor there were bloody footprints."
Meanwhile, the unnamed inmate testified last week saying that Frazee had wanted to have the witnesses in the case killed. He had wanted to use the inmate's connections to remove them and had promised to take care of him once he got out.
"He would pass me notes if his information was too sensitive," the man said. Colorado Bureau of Investigation agent Gregg Slater also testified about some of the letters that were written on napkins. "They all need to disappear, unseen until 11/22 after the trial," he said and testified that it was in Frazee's handwriting. Another note said, "I'd really like to see Krystal with a bullet in her head".
A third one said, "No video, no weapon, no body, no forensics."
The inmate admitted that he had wanted a plea deal in exchange for the letters. "I was kind of torn about what to do. I decided to come forward. It seemed like the right thing to do," he said.