EP. 97 COLORADO - The Murder of Kelsey Berreth on Thanksgiving Day
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murder, and offenses against children. This podcast is not for everyone. You have been warned. On the morning of Thanksgiving 2018, a woman in Washington state named Cheryl decides to call her 29-year-old daughter Kelsey. Kelsey had moved to Woodland Park, Colorado years earlier, and because of the long distance, they didn't get to spend every holiday together like they used to.

But the mother and daughter were still very close, and they never went more than a few days without talking on the phone. That day, their phone call was like any other. They wished each other a happy Thanksgiving, they discussed what they ate for breakfast, and Kelsey told her mom that her fiancé, Patrick Frazee, hadn't been feeling very well, so she was going to get some groceries so she could make him his favorite Thanksgiving meal, a sweet potato casserole.

There was nothing in the phone call that stood out to Cheryl, nothing that would lead her to believe that this would be her very last conversation with her daughter. Shortly after this, Cheryl tried to contact Kelsey but she never returned her call and after a few days, she began to grow worried. Cheryl didn't know it at the time but no one had heard from 29-year-old Kelsey Bereth.

Surveillance footage on Thanksgiving Day showed her and her one-year-old daughter getting groceries for that sweet potato casserole. And her neighbor's security cameras show Kelsey going into her home, but never coming back out. Police would eventually go by her home to check on her, but she wasn't there. And to the naked eye, nothing led them to believe that Kelsey was met with foul play.

It wasn't until they returned a second time with crime scene investigators where they found traces of blood everywhere. It had seeped into the floorboards, it covered the appliances and furniture, and it was spattered across all of the walls of her home. It was clear that Kelsey had been brutally murdered and someone unexpected had cleaned it up.

This is the story of Kelsey Barrett and the Thanksgiving Day Murder. I'm Courtney Browen. And I'm Colin Browen. And you're listening to Murder in America. Murder in America

Kelsey Barrett was born on September 15th, 1989 to parents Cheryl and Daryl Barrett, and she and her brother Clint were raised on a farm. According to him, there wasn't a lot to do out there, so he and his sister grew really close.

Kelsey was described by her friends and family as shy and quiet, but once she warmed up to you, she was the kind of person everyone wanted in their life. She was kind, loyal, intelligent, and very passionate. At a young age, Kelsey discovered a love for aviation, and since she grew up on a farm, she had big dreams of becoming a crop duster pilot. After high school, Kelsey went to a flight school in Washington where she earned her pilot's license, and from there, flying planes was her main hobby.

There isn't a lot of information out there about what Kelsey's love life looked like in her early 20s, but in 2016 when she was 27 years old, she decided to join an online dating app. As most of us know, these sites are pretty hit or miss when it comes to eligible partners. But one day, Kelsey came across a profile that really stuck out to her.

The man's name was Patrick Frazee. He was born in 1986, so he was a few years older than her, and he was very attractive. Patrick was tall, around 6'2". He had brown hair, pretty hazel eyes, and more importantly, Kelsey loved that he was a country boy.

His dating profile showed pictures of him on a farm working with cattle. And Kelsey loved this because she too grew up on a farm. The only issue was that Patrick lived in Colorado, hours away from Washington state. But either way, the two began to chat and after a while, they fell in love. And it seemed like they really had a lot in common.

They were both a little shy, hard workers, pretty laid back, and Kelsey could really see a future with him. So much so that in May of 2016, she decided to leave her hometown and move out to Colorado so they could be closer. Kelsey was excited to start this new chapter of her life, but once she arrived, things seemed to get off to a rocky start.

The first night in Colorado, Kelsey spent the night with Patrick, who happened to still share a home with his mom. Kelsey expected everyone to be excited about her arrival, but the next morning, his mother accused her of being a hooker. Kelsey was obviously offended by this, but she brushed it aside, and eventually they would move past this little hiccup. Now, it's important to note that Kelsey didn't move to Colorado so she and Patrick could move in together.

Yes, she wanted to be closer to him for their relationship, but she was independent. And after she arrived, she actually got her own place and quickly started looking for a job. Eventually, Kelsey was hired as a flight instructor at DOS Aviation in Pueblo, Colorado. It was a bit of a drive from where she lived, but everything seemed to be falling in place for her. She and Patrick were doing well, she had a career in her dream profession, and soon enough, she found out that she was pregnant.

By October of 2017, Patrick and Kelsey would welcome their daughter Kaylee into the world. Then, shortly after that, the two would get engaged.

But they still didn't live together. Patrick lived on his ranch and Kelsey was content in her cozy little townhome. And together, they co-parented Kaylee to the best of their abilities. But shortly after the birth of their daughter, Kelsey started to become really overwhelmed.

Balancing motherhood, her job, and her relationship was a lot of work. And to make matters worse, it was very obvious that Kelsey cared more about Patrick than he cared about her. Kelsey didn't have a lot of free time, but anytime she did, she made sure to spend it with her daughter and her fiancé. She wanted them to be a happy family, but Patrick didn't make much of an effort.

And at first, it seemed like he wasn't too crazy about the fact that they had a baby together. One of his friends, Joseph Moore, would later say that after Patrick found out Kelsey was pregnant, he playfully told the friend, quote, The friend found the comment a little off-putting, but he brushed it off.

On the other hand, Kelsey was so excited about having a daughter. She would have done anything for her baby, and she wanted Kaylee to grow up with parents who were in love. But in the months after Kaylee's birth, Kelsey could feel her fiancé growing more distant, and it wasn't just Kelsey that noticed.

Friends of the couple recalled that Patrick would blow up on Kelsey over the smallest things. Joseph Paul Moore said that right when Kelsey moved to Colorado, he was visiting them at Patrick's ranch and Kelsey was trying to assist him with the cattle, when all of a sudden Patrick started screaming in her face, cussing at her, all because she didn't know how to help. Kelsey's own friends knew Patrick to be emotionally abusive as well, and everyone knew deep down that he wasn't the best man for her. And they were right.

unbeknownst to Kelsey. Patrick had been going around telling everyone lies about her. Multiple people would later claim that Patrick would talk horribly about his fiancée behind her back. He would say that her alcoholism was so bad she couldn't properly care for their daughter, or that she was unstable. He also made claims that Kelsey never wanted to be a mom and that she abused their daughter by making up bogus stories about how she had intentionally shut the refrigerator door on Kaylee's hand.

And the worst part about it is that Patrick was telling this to people who didn't really know Kelsey, so they believed him. But according to literally anyone that was lucky enough to cross Kelsey's path, they knew that none of this was true. Kelsey was an amazing mother who would never harm her child. From what we could find, there was an instance where she went to rehab and she was known to have some mental health struggles, but that doesn't make someone a bad person or a bad mother for that matter.

And more importantly, Kaylee never showed any signs of abuse whatsoever. She was a happy and healthy baby, with a mother who loved her more than anything in the world. And as for the claims that Kelsey was an alcoholic who couldn't function, that just wasn't true either. Kelsey seemed to have control of her alcohol consumption. At DOS Aviation, where she worked, she was very close with her co-workers, and they all said that they would have known if she was drinking on the job or even coming to work hungover.

At the end of the day, no one could back up any of these claims Patrick was making about his fiance. And that's because they simply weren't true. - So why was Patrick making up lies about his fiance? Is it just because he's a shitty person? Or was there something darker at play? In the months before Thanksgiving of 2018, Kelsey started to confide in people at her work that her fiance was quote, "mistreating her."

The couple was obviously having problems, but despite everything, she was still wanting to make things work for the sake of their daughter. And at the end of the day, she loved him. Now, about a month before Thanksgiving of 2018, Kelsey's parents came to Colorado to celebrate Kaylee's first birthday.

They spent the afternoon in Kelsey's townhome celebrating and enjoying their time together. And on this trip, nothing led them to believe that there were any problems between Kelsey and Patrick. Everyone seemed happy. And although Kelsey's parents' stay was brief, they weren't too worried because they all planned to meet back up again in a few months for Christmas. Little did they know that would never happen.

Fast forward to Thanksgiving Day. That morning, Kelsey and Patrick agreed to meet at her townhome later in the afternoon. He told her that he had been having some stomach issues that he thought was a stomach ulcer. And being the good partner she was, Kelsey told him that she was going to get him some medicine and then go get groceries so she could make him his favorite Thanksgiving food, sweet potato casserole.

Shortly after this, Kelsey called her mother to wish her a happy Thanksgiving. The two always talked on the phone and this phone call was like any other. Kelsey seemed happy and excited for the future. She even talked about the Christmas presents she had been buying everyone. And the two talked on the phone for a few more minutes before Kelsey said she had to go. Kaylee's diaper was dirty and she needed to leave soon. And with that, they said their goodbyes. Cheryl had no idea that that would be the last conversation she would ever have with her daughter.

At 12:05pm, surveillance footage from a local Safeway shows Kelsey and her daughter walking inside. Kelsey puts Kaylee into a stroller and they walk around the store gathering ingredients for Patrick's sweet potato casserole.

Then, the next time she's seen is around 1:30pm on her neighbor's security cameras. The footage shows both Patrick and Kelsey walking into her townhome. Kelsey is holding a poinsettia in the groceries and Patrick is carrying Kaylee's car seat. And from here, the two walk inside. And this is the last known footage of 29-year-old Kelsey Bereth.

To this day, she has never been seen again. Now, two days after this, her mother Cheryl tried to get in touch with her but Kelsey wasn't answering the phone. A few minutes later, however, she received a text from Kelsey that read, "I'll call you back in a bit." Cheryl waited and waited for that phone call but it never came. Over the next week, she continued to call Kelsey but she still hadn't heard from her.

And eventually, her call started going straight to voicemail. At this point, Cheryl decides to call Patrick. When he answers, she says, have you heard from Kelsey? I haven't been able to get in touch with her for nearly a week and I'm starting to get worried. I don't know where Kelsey is. She broke up with me because she said she needed some space. She left Kaylee here with me.

Over the next 20 minutes, Patrick rambled on and on about how Kelsey left him and he said she mentioned something about moving away but never told him where she planned to go. And as Cheryl is listening to all of this, she's shocked.

When she and Kelsey spoke earlier that week, she never mentioned anything about leaving Patrick. And there was just no way she would have moved somewhere without telling her. And she definitely wouldn't have left without Kaylee. So Cheryl asks Patrick, "Well, will you just go by her place and make sure she's okay? She's not answering her phone and I'm worried."

Patrick is apprehensive at first, but he ultimately agrees to go and check on her. But after Cheryl got off the phone, she knew in her gut that something bad had happened to her daughter. So she quickly calls the Woodland Park Police Department to report her missing. Later that day, police officers would go by Kelsey's townhome to see if she was there. They ended up entering the residence, but there was no sign of Kelsey.

The officers also walked through the home and they couldn't see any obvious signs of foul play either. So with that, they left. Investigators were also sent to Patrick's ranch. He told the officers that Kelsey had actually broken things off with him the day before Thanksgiving. But we know that isn't true. Kelsey spoke to her mom on Thanksgiving and she told her she was going to make Patrick a casserole.

You don't usually do that for someone when y'all are broken up." And Cheryl said Kelsey sounded happy. She never mentioned anything about a breakup.

Patrick also told the officers that their breakup was very civil. They had just sort of drifted apart and Kelsey was ready to move on. But they were both fully committed to co-parenting Kaylee. He even said that Kelsey told him they could split custody 50-50. Patrick went on to tell the officers that on Thanksgiving Day, he went over to her townhome to pick up Kaylee and to give Kelsey all of her stuff back since they were breaking up. The items included a purse, keys to her car, a key to her townhome, and her gun.

Patrick claimed that he had taken her gun from her because Kelsey had depression and he always feared she would kill herself. He was trying to paint a picture of Kelsey as this unstable woman who most likely left town and abandoned her child. And hearing this, the officers had no reason not to believe him. In the search of her home, there was no sign of foul play, and her purse and phone were missing. Maybe she did run away.

Patrick went on to tell the officers that after he picked Kaylee up on Thanksgiving Day, he left her home and went back to his house for Thanksgiving dinner with his family, and that was the last he saw her. Patrick even went as far as to let the investigators have his phone, telling them that he had nothing to hide and he wanted to cooperate in the investigation.

The fiance of a mom from Woodland Park who has been missing since Thanksgiving is cooperating with police. That's according to Patrick Frazee's lawyer, who says his client has been interviewed by law enforcement, given them access to his phone, and been swabbed for DNA. It is important to note that Frazee hasn't been named a suspect or even a person of interest in Barrett's disappearance. His lawyer says he will continue to cooperate with law enforcement and be a parent to the child he shares with Kelsey.

And at this point, Kelsey's family is still standing behind Patrick. After all, Kelsey loved him and she never alluded to the fact that he was ever violent. Cheryl would later tell the media that Kelsey and Patrick were even looking at ranches to buy later that year and that the two were happy. None of this was making any sense. Even further, investigators looked through Kelsey's search history on her laptop

And they didn't find anything about plane tickets, hotels, events, nothing to suggest that she would have just up and left. They did however find searches like "how to soothe stomach ulcers" and "what are bleeding ulcers". And given the fact that Patrick was having stomach problems at the time, it's clear that Kelsey was trying to figure out what was wrong with him.

which again is not something people would normally do if they just went through a breakup. Now after this, investigators look through Patrick's phone and they find a conversation between him and Kelsey two days after Thanksgiving. - Are you awake? - Sorry, I didn't hear my phone. Going to jump in the shower. I'll call you guys when I get out. - Okay, if this is truly what you want, I'll respect your wishes and give you space.

The following day, Kelsey's phone records show that she texted her boss. Ray would later say that getting this text message was weird. Kelsey was never known to miss work.

Looking at her phone records again, it shows that after she sent this message, Kelsey's phone was suddenly leaving Colorado and along the drive she and Patrick talked on the phone multiple times. In fact, they called each other 19 times that weekend. And the last text message she sends to Patrick is, "Do you even love me?" After this, Kelsey's phone cannot be traced.

Now, something to note is that Patrick's phone showed that he was still at his ranch in Colorado, while Kelsey's phone was pinging off cell towers in Gooding, Idaho, over 800 miles away. So with this, it looks like Patrick was right. Maybe Kelsey did just pick up and leave. But Kelsey's mom, Cheryl, knew that that just wasn't the case.

And I can't even imagine what families feel in these types of situations, especially when their missing family member is across the country. Cheryl and her family knew that they just needed to get to Colorado, so the very next day, she and Kelsey's brother Clint book a plane ticket and make their way over. After Kelsey was reported missing, the entire community of Woodland Park gathered together to help find her.

Everyone, including law enforcement, was worried. It wasn't like her to just pick up and leave without telling anyone. So once word spread about her disappearance, the police department held a press conference. Good afternoon. I'm Chief Miles DeYoung, Chief of Police for the city of Woodland Park. I want to give you a brief timeline and kind of bring you current with where we're at right now.

I would first like to start off by just thanking everybody that took the time out to come forward and spread this message of Kelsey being missing and helping us to find her. Kelsey's been missing and been reported missing by her mother, Cheryl, since Sunday, December 2nd at about 1237 p.m.

Mountain Standard Times. Officers were able to contact her place of employment at Doss Aviation down in Pueblo, Colorado and were advised that they had received a text from Kelsey's phone on the 25th of November stating that she would not be into work the following week. Officers from the Woodland Park Police Department did respond to Kelsey's residence on December 2nd and performed a community caretaker search of her residence to see if they could locate her. She was not inside her residence. Cheryl did reach out to Kelsey's fiance, Patrick Frazee,

and he called her back saying that he hadn't heard from her since November 25th when Kelsey texted him. Patrick told officers that he hadn't seen her since Thanksgiving, November 22nd, when he exchanged their daughter, Kelsey, correction, Kaylee Barrett. Kaylee is currently with her father, Patrick. We've reviewed video from the local Safeway grocery store, and it showed Kelsey shopping with her daughter, Kaylee, on November 22nd at about 12:27 p.m. That's the last time Kelsey was seen. Reports are correct that Kelsey's phone

gave a location near Gooding, Idaho on November 25th at about 5:13 in the afternoon. We've executed search warrants on Kelsey's home as well as both of her vehicles. We are treating Kelsey's disappearance as a missing persons case at this time. We have not identified anyone as a suspect and are asking the public for any information that might help us find her. Here is Kelsey's mom, Cheryl. I'd just like to talk to you a little bit about Kelsey. She's not the kind that runs off.

This is completely out of character. Kelsey loves her God, she loves her family and friends, and she loves her job. She's reliable, considerate, and honest. We've created the Facebook page Missing Mother Kelsey Barrett as a site that gets her face out there, that's used to spread the word that she's missing. Our sole goal is to get Kelsey out in front of everyone. Like I said, she doesn't run off, and someone knows where she's at. Kelsey, we just want you home. Call us if you can, and we won't quit looking for you.

Now, something that stuck out to everyone about this press conference was that Patrick was not in attendance. Chief, I understand that Patrick was invited today. Why is he not here? That is a question you'd have to ask him. Is he being cooperative? Yes, at this time, yes. Any other questions? A couple more questions. Why did Patrick not report on his name? That's a question we'll have to ask Patrick.

Was she supposed to pick up her kid at any point, or when was that supposed to happen? They did exchange their daughter on Thanksgiving Day. Beyond that, I don't know what their child custody exchange plans were. Is there any reason the community should believe that there's someone to be worried about on the loose? That's a great question. At this time, we have no indication that there's any threat or any danger to our community.

Were there any records of domestic violence issues between them that you have reports for or any other agency has reports for? I don't have any records of that. So I think, and again, this is a missing person case, and I know you have many, many questions. With this investigation, we have a number of agents and officers who are working this case asking the same questions that you are.

conducting many interviews in the community. There have been multiple canvases that have been conducted since she's been missing. And so what we're going to do today is obviously we're focused on finding Kelsey. We've got the updated release with her information, actually the release that provides her information. We will share updates as we receive them. But right now, today's purpose was just to get this out in front of you. We're going to let the investigators continue to do what they're doing on this case. Thank you.

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And as they step inside, there isn't anything that immediately stands out to them. But as they start to look around, they know something isn't right. Patrick claimed that Kelsey moved, skipped town. But if that was the case, then why was all of her stuff still here? Her toothbrush and makeup was still in the bathroom. Her clothes and suitcase were still in the closet. Kelsey didn't move away.

And if she did, why didn't she bring anything? As they continue to look around her home, more things start to stick out. There were cinnamon rolls sitting on the stove hard as rocks. A plug-in candle was still on. In the kitchen, stale bread was lying on the counter. There were dying flowers, a bottle of sparkling cider, and a laptop. Cheryl also noticed that everything looked like it had been freshly cleaned.

she could still see the white marks on the kitchen appliances. But even more concerning, in the living room, Cheryl noticed that some of Kelsey's furniture was missing and the furniture that was there was all rearranged. In one of the downstairs bathrooms, Cheryl noticed that a floor mat was missing and as she and Clint walked room to room, their anxiety grows stronger. Something wasn't right here.

and I'm sure part of them was still trying to hold on to hope. But all of that would go away when Clint notices something in the bathroom. There, on the base of the toilet, was blood. And as soon as they saw it, they knew deep down that something horrible happened inside of this home. So they quickly call the police to tell them about their discovery.

Law enforcement would soon make their way back over to the home, this time with crime scene investigators. The first time they walked through, they didn't see any blood. To the naked eye, it would have been nearly impossible to notice it, especially if someone had cleaned it up. But this time, they brought a special chemical called Blue Star Forensic Blood Regent.

And what they do is they turn off all of the lights, spray it over a surface, and if there was blood there, it will illuminate this glowing bright blue color. So that's exactly what they did in Kelsey's home. In the living room, they spray the chemical on the floor, and immediately, they see a huge pool of glowing blue.

They then spray it on the walls, where they see spatters of blood all over the white paint. In the bathroom, it's covering the floor. In the kitchen, it's all over the appliances. There's blood everywhere. In nearly every room, someone was killed inside of this home, and their killer spent a lot of time cleaning it up.

Investigators quickly take a sample of the blood for testing and it came back as a positive DNA match for a human female. And with this, everyone's greatest fears came true. Kelsey Barreth had been murdered inside of her townhome. After this discovery, a candlelight vigil was held for Kelsey, where everyone in their community came together. Except Patrick Frazee, Kelsey's fiancé.

Patrick also never posted anything about Kelsey's disappearance on social media, nor did he volunteer to help search for her. And when investigators look into Patrick's story, they start to notice some discrepancies. For one, when they looked at the neighbor's security cameras, they saw that on Thanksgiving Day, Patrick was leaving Kelsey's townhome by himself. But cell phone records show that he and Kelsey's phones were traveling together.

And a couple days later, we know that Patrick's phone stayed at his ranch in Colorado while Kelsey's phone was in Idaho. So as investigators are looking at all of this, they quickly realize that if Patrick did kill Kelsey, he couldn't have acted alone.

We know that Kelsey died on Thanksgiving Day because of the blood and the surveillance footage. So that couldn't have been Kelsey using her phone in Idaho three days later. It also couldn't have been Patrick because his phone was still at his ranch. So who was it? As investigators continue to look through Patrick's phone records,

they see that on Thanksgiving weekend, he was also in contact with someone else, an Idaho phone number linked to a woman named Crystal Lee.

The next step in the investigation is to obviously contact this woman and see what her business was with Patrick Friese. Idaho FBI agents quickly show up at Crystal's door and start asking her questions about Kelsey. But Crystal plays dumb, telling them that she had no idea who Kelsey is. She even goes as far as to say she doesn't know Patrick either. But they had come with receipts. Investigators showed Crystal the phone records between she and Patrick, proving that she did in fact know him.

And it was here where she knew she had to come clean. But she wasn't going to just freely give out information that could later land her in jail. So she made a plea deal. Once it was all finalized, she told the detectives, Patrick killed her and I helped clean it up.

Crystal Lee and Patrick Frazee had a long history. The two met after they graduated high school and quickly formed a bond. They had a lot in common. Patrick was a country boy who worked with animals on his ranch, and Crystal was a horse girl through and through. But from what we could tell, their relationship was pretty rocky, and they were on and off for years. Crystal recalled that Patrick was definitely known to be emotionally abusive. There were times when he even threatened to kill her animals if he didn't get what he wanted.

Then in 2007, Crystal met another man, but she continued to see Patrick on the side. The chemistry that the two had was something they had never felt before, and it was difficult for her to completely cut Patrick off. But in 2010, she got engaged to the other man, and she and Patrick lost contact for a while.

It wasn't until the day before her wedding when Patrick reached out to her again. He left her a voicemail begging her to reconsider the marriage so that they could be together. Crystal was conflicted. She still loved Patrick but she ultimately decided to follow through with the wedding. Over the next five years, Crystal became a nurse. She had two children and life seemed to be going pretty well for her.

But in October of 2015, when she started having issues in her marriage, she decided to give Patrick a call. He ended up inviting her to Colorado and she took him up on the offer. Crystal knew it was wrong but she would later say that as soon as they saw each other, it was as if nothing changed. The two continued their affair for over a year and then in 2016, she finally divorced her husband.

Not long after, Crystal found out she was pregnant with Patrick's child. He was excited, but she wasn't ready to have another baby, so she ended up getting an abortion. And Patrick seemed to be really upset by this. In fact, the two would go nearly a year without speaking to each other. And during that time, Patrick would meet Kelsey Bereth.

Now, as we know, Kelsey and Patrick started having issues after the birth of their daughter in October of 2017. And it's around this time when Patrick reconnects with Crystal Lee. It's been said that Kelsey was aware Patrick had an ex who still had feelings for him, but she wasn't really worried that there was an affair going on. After all, he was engaged to her, and she was the mother of his child.

In the meantime, Patrick was in love with Crystal, and more than anything, he wanted Kelsey out of the picture.

Crystal would later tell investigators that he constantly talked about how horrible of a mother Kelsey was. He said she was an alcoholic and drug addict, who was constantly in and out of rehab. He said that she was mentally unstable, and she didn't even want to be a mom. He would also tell Crystal that Kelsey physically abused their daughter. And after months and months of painting Kelsey out to be this horrible person, Patrick started talking about ways he could get rid of her. As Crystal is telling all of this to investigators, they're shocked.

and then she drops a bombshell. Crystal tells them that Patrick did in fact kill Kelsey, but they had attempted to take her life on multiple occasions before Thanksgiving Day, three times to be exact. And the first one started with the coffee incident. - In October of 2018, just a little over a month before Kelsey went missing, Patrick asked Crystal what would happen if someone mixed a large amount of Ambien and Valium

Being a nurse, Crystal knew that it could cause someone a lot of harm or even death if you use enough. So Patrick comes up with a plan. Kelsey's favorite Starbucks drink was a caramel macchiato and he suggests that Crystal go and buy the drink, poison it with a lethal amount of Ambien Invalium and then somehow give it to Kelsey. And believe it or not, Crystal was down for the job.

She admitted to investigators that she drove 12 hours from her home in Idaho to a Starbucks near Kelsey's house and she ordered the caramel macchiato. From here, she drove to Kelsey's townhome and knocked on her front door. When Kelsey came to the door, she was confused to see a stranger holding a coffee.

Crystal goes on to tell her that she was new to the neighborhood and she wanted to thank her for helping her dogs. Kelsey was confused and she told her, I think you may have the wrong person. I never helped anyone with any dogs. So Crystal says, oh, I must have been mistaken, but here, you can have the coffee anyway. And surprisingly, Crystal said that Kelsey actually took the coffee and

Now, Crystal claims she never actually poisoned the drink, but we don't know if that's true. Maybe she did poison it and Kelsey just didn't drink it. What we do know is that it obviously didn't do the job. When Patrick found out that his plan didn't work, he was pissed, telling Crystal, We have to get rid of her. It's the best thing for Kaylee.

Patrick continued to manipulate Crystal into thinking Kelsey was this horrible person, and according to her, she was conflicted. When she had spoken to Kelsey that day on her front porch, she didn't seem like the monster Patrick had made her out to be. But on the other hand, she loved Patrick and would have done anything for him. And shortly after, they started coming up with another plan. This time, he gave Crystal a metal pipe and told her to drive to Kelsey's house, wait for her to come home, and then attack her with it from behind.

And he told her, make sure there isn't a lot of blood and make sure no one else sees you. And again, Crystal takes the pipe and drives to Kelsey's townhome. In her confession, Crystal would later say that she sat outside of Kelsey's home in her car with a metal pipe right beside her.

Kelsey was already home. She didn't look like the abusive, horrible mother like Patrick had described, and as she sat there, she knew she couldn't go through with it, so she left. The next morning, Patrick called her and asked how it went, and she made up an excuse that there were too many people in the neighborhood.

so she couldn't follow through with it. And again, Patrick was angry, telling her, "It's not that hard. You just have to do it." And it's around this time when Crystal calls up her best friend, Michelle Stein, and she confides in her about what was going on. According to Michelle, Crystal was crying on the other end of the phone.

saying that Patrick was trying to have her "take care of his baby mama." Michelle said she was shocked. "What do you mean take care of her?" she said. To which Crystal responded, "He wants me to kill her." Now, Crystal would later say that it seemed like Kelsey was catching on to the fact that she and Patrick's relationship was coming to an end.

And Kelsey told Patrick that if they broke up, she was going to take him to court to get custody of their daughter. Kelsey wasn't going to go down without a fight, and Patrick knew this. He didn't want to go through all of the legal battles. So instead, he wanted to take her out.

When the metal pipe attack didn't work, Patrick told Crystal that she had one more chance. While at his ranch, he handed her a metal bat and told her to swing away. He came up with a plan for Crystal to attack her with the bat, then put her in a garbage can in the back of her car, and then he instructed her to take the body to Idaho and figure something out.

Now, it's obvious that Patrick was just using Crystal to get what he wanted. He knew that she was madly in love with him and would have done anything for him. And if he killed Crystal himself, then he would be the obvious suspect. A woman 12 hours away in Idaho would never be on the suspect list. But Patrick obviously wasn't very bright because he didn't account for cell phone records. Crystal told investigators that after Patrick came up with a third murder plan, she was in tears and she told him that she couldn't do it.

He then became visibly angry, screaming at her that if anything happened to his child, it would be her fault. But Crystal can't help him. She just couldn't bring herself to kill Kelsey. With that, she heads back to Idaho. Now, she says that after this, they didn't speak for a couple of weeks. That was until Thanksgiving Day. Crystal said that around 4.30 p.m. that day, Patrick called her several times. Then he sent her a text that read, Answer the fucking phone.

When Crystal called him back, she said he sounded flustered. "You need to come to Colorado now. You have a mess to clean up." "What mess?" "How fast can you get here?" "I don't know. I can ask my friend if I can use her car, and I can try and leave in a couple of days."

Crystal told investigators that she took off work that weekend, borrowed her friend's car, and quickly got on the road to make the 12-hour drive to Colorado. Along the way, she talked to Patrick on the phone, and he told her that Kelsey's body was in the back of his truck, but her townhome was covered in blood, and he needed her to clean up the mess. And throughout this entire story, Crystal likes to make herself seem like the victim, but she had a heavy hand in this crime.

You see, when she heard that Patrick had killed Kelsey, she ran to the store and bought bleach, trash bags, hairnets, shoe coverings, and even a sort of hazmat suit so that no skin, hair, or clothing fibers would be at the scene. Those are not the actions of an innocent victim. And now we're going to take our second ad break.

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According to Crystal's confession, once in Colorado, she drove by Patrick's house to grab a set of keys to Kelsey's home. And with that, at around 7 a.m., she made her way over to her house. Crystal told investigators that as she opened the door to Kelsey's home, it was unlike anything she had ever seen. There was blood everywhere.

As soon as she walked inside, there was a huge puddle of it on the floor in the living room. Blood spatter covered all of the walls. It was in the kitchen, in the bathroom, all over the floors, and Patrick's bloody footprints were tracked all throughout the home. Crystal had a lot of cleaning up to do, and she quickly got to work.

She said she started by putting on her gloves, shoe coverings, hair net, and suit. And then she got down on her hands and knees and began cleaning up the blood. By then, a lot of the blood was dried and congealed, so it wasn't easy to clean. It took her hours. She soaked up a lot of the blood with towels and threw them into trash bags.

Then, once the blood was gone, she covered the surfaces in bleach. She did the same with the walls, but they proved to be harder to clean because there was blood spattered nearly six feet above her head. There was also blood covering the furniture and all over Kaylee's toys and stuffed animals that were in the living room. Rugs and mats around the home were soaked in blood.

A family photo had drops of blood all over the glass frame, and if Crystal wasn't able to clean it, she just put them in trash bags to be thrown away. She was inside of the home for hours, cleaning up all of Kelsey's blood. And just as she was finishing up, Patrick calls her and tells her to look for a tooth in the living room. Disturbingly, when he was killing her, one of her teeth broke off.

And what do you know, Crystal finds it and puts it in the trash bag. Now, she would later tell investigators that she purposefully left traces of blood so that when detectives came looking, they would know something happened. But take that with a grain of salt. Anyways, after Crystal was finished, she had six large trash bags that she loaded into the back of her car before she drove over to Patrick's ranch.

The two of them together disposed of all of the evidence, including Kelsey's body. Now, the biggest question here is what exactly happened on Thanksgiving Day? Well, ATM surveillance footage shows Patrick withdrawing money at around noon. And as he drives away, you can see a large black tote in the back of his truck.

Then from here, we know that at 1.24 p.m., security footage shows Patrick and Kelsey entering her townhome. And then two hours later, we see Patrick leaving the home with their daughter Kaylee. So what happened within those two hours? Patrick was still being tight-lipped with investigators, so they asked Crystal. And she gave a detailed account of how Patrick murdered his fiancée.

That afternoon, Kelsey went by the store to buy the ingredients for his sweet potato casserole. She even texted him afterwards, saying that she was going to make it for him. The two of them had been having some issues, but at the end of the day, she still loved him, and so much so that she was making him food and picking up his stomach medication, and she was happy to spend some time with him on Thanksgiving.

but Kelsey could have never known what he had been planning. With the three failed murder attempts behind him, Patrick knew that if he wanted Kelsey dead, he was just gonna have to do it himself. - Once he arrived at Kelsey's townhome that day, the two of them went inside and put away all of the groceries. Little did Kelsey know, Patrick had a metal bat tucked into his sweater. He had also brought with him some candles.

Kelsey then grabbed their daughter and put her down for a nap, and when she walked back into the living room, Patrick turns to her and says, "How about we play a little game?" Kelsey smiled at him. Over the past year, Patrick had been very distant, and I'm sure she was excited to see him loosen up. "What kind of game?" she asks.

Patrick then pulls out a sweater. I'm going to blindfold you with this, and I want you to guess the scents of these candles. Kelsey was excited and up for the challenge. And from here, Patrick ties the sweater around her head. He then grabs the first candle and holds it under her nose. Kelsey takes a whiff. Vanilla? Yep, you got it. Okay, now for the second one.

But Patrick didn't grab the second candle. Instead, he grabbed the metal bat. Kelsey was standing there with a big smile on her face, ready to guess the next scent.

But Patrick is now gripping the bat with both hands and he takes a batter's position, waving it over one of his shoulders. He takes the swing. The first blow sent Kelsey stumbling backwards as dark red blood started soaking through the sweater wrapped around her face. And before she could react, Patrick delivered the second blow. This one knocked her to the ground.

Blood was pooling beneath her as she tried to crawl away from him. She even managed to yell out, "Please stop," before Patrick began repeatedly slamming the bat down on her head. With each blow, Blood painted the room. It was on the walls, the floor, the furniture, Kaylee's toys, everywhere.

At one point, he beat her in the face so hard, a tooth went flying across the room. And after about 15 blows, Kelsey was dead. From here, Patrick walked all through the home, tracking bloody shoe prints in nearly every room. He then grabbed the big black plastic tote that was seen in the back of his truck of the ATM footage. Patrick brings it inside, puts Kelsey's body in it, and loads it into the back of his truck.

although he was able to do all of this without being seen on the neighbor's security footage. Then he goes back inside, cleans himself off, grabs his daughter Kaylee, and leaves the home without ever raising any suspicion. It's haunting to think that he was capable of doing all of this with his one-year-old daughter in the next room. And then he had to walk her through the home to bring her outside. From here, Patrick calls Crystal and tells her to come to Colorado to clean up the crime scene. And disturbingly, he then goes back to his ranch and

and his Thanksgiving dinner with his entire family, all while Kelsey's dead body is in the tote bag outside. His family would later recall that he was a couple hours late to dinner, and he was acting nervous. He would later tell Crystal that it was incredibly hard to eat a Thanksgiving meal knowing that his family was walking right past Kelsey's body in the back of his truck. That night, Patrick put the tote onto some hay bales in his barn until he figured out what to do with her.

A few days later, Crystal would arrive in town and clean Kelsey's townhome. Patrick made sure to give her specific instructions, telling her to "make it look like she left on her own free will." And Crystal did a good job. After spending four hours cleaning the crime scene, she picked up some Sonic and went over to Patrick's ranch where he told her everything. A few hours later,

The two would use a tractor to haul the black tote into a burn pit on the ranch. Once it was in the right position, Patrick opened up the lid and there inside was Kelsey's dead and battered body. He then grabbed a gallon of gasoline and poured it all over her. Crystal would later admit that she even helped gather firewood to help it burn faster. And with that,

Patrick lit a match and threw it on his fiance's body. Over the next few minutes, a massive flame consumed the burn pit and the smell of flesh filled the air. As Kelsey's body burned, Crystal grabbed the six trash bags full of cleaning supplies and bloody items from Kelsey's home and she threw them into the fire pit, destroying all of the evidence.

Crystal would later testify that it took all night long for Kelsey's body to burn.

Now, from here, we don't know exactly what happened with Kelsey's remains. Apparently, Patrick was able to burn most of her, but he never revealed where he disposed of everything afterwards. As for Crystal, however, she and Patrick started making plans to make it look like Kelsey fled Colorado. He gave Crystal Kelsey's phone, car keys, and gun, and told her to drive as far away as she possibly could. He also told her to text Kelsey's boss off of her phone and tell him that she wouldn't be at work that week.

And of course, Crystal did as she was told. During the drive back to Idaho, she also called and texted Patrick multiple times, pretending to be Kelsey. The last message she sent to him pinged off a cell tower in Idaho, and it read, Do you even love me? Then from here, Crystal turned off her phone, drove to a canyon, and got rid of all of Kelsey's belongings. Both she and Patrick thought that they had covered their tracks, but they didn't. At least, not as well as they thought they did.

the two never accounted for investigators finding out about their secret relationship and they didn't even really make an effort to cover it up in fact between november 25th and december 4th patrick and crystal called each other 46 times

Now keep in mind, Crystal's confession of all of this lasted about four and a half hours. And a part of her plea agreement was that she had to take investigators to the crime scene to show them exactly what she witnessed that day. The following audio is video of her walking around Kelsey's townhome with investigators.

Okay, it's 11:15 again on the 21st December 2018. We're inside Kelsey's apartment with Crystal. Her attorney is with us. So tell me when you came in, what did you see? When I first walked in, I saw blood all over the floor. I saw blood up the wall. I saw blood on the lift wall.

Can you tell me what the position, where the couch was and

Where the coffee table was? The tap was right here by the door. Okay. And the coffee table was lengthwise about two feet from the fireplace. And when you say two feet from the fireplace, was it in front of it? Was it to the side? To the side of it. Okay. And then what else was in here? I know it's kind of torn up right now, but... There were two chairs right there with a TV on top of it. All right. There was a bunch of...

From here, Crystal talks about how she suited up in her protective gear before she started cleaning. Where did you start putting on all the stuff you brought? Right here at the door. Okay, what'd you do with your bag? I set it right here. Okay, and you put your stuff on, and what'd you start cleaning with first?

Earlier in Crystal's confession, she said she purposefully left blood at the scene so investigators would find it. Here she is explaining exactly where she left the blood.

In the interview you told us that you had left blood spots. Can you show me where you left those? And then I'd like Eric to go ahead and take a photograph of those areas. Okay. Alright.

Here, Crystal is seen pointing to spots on the fireplace as crime scene investigators photograph the area. They then walk her over to a back room where she talks about blood being on the baby gate.

Did you leave blood anywhere else that you didn't clean up? Yeah. Okay. There was a baby gate and I put it back here but I don't see it. Okay.

Okay, so they took the baby game. Okay, is this where you put it? I put it back here, yes. All right. Did you touch or manipulate anything in here while you were in here? Yeah, I put laundry detergent in the washing machine and towels in there. I had been instructed to try to wash things. Okay. And I...

From here, they moved to the bathroom, where Kelsey's family found the blood on the toilet.

So moving into the bathroom here, can you tell me what you saw in here and what you cleaned up? I didn't see anything. I was specifically told to clean the bathroom. Okay. So, but I didn't see anything. There might have been blood. There was a lot of blood. So there on the floor, all over the floor.

And so there may have been bloody footprints in here, but I don't specifically remember. Okay. I wiped the sink now. I wiped the toilet, the top of the toilet. I turned on the shower just in case there was stuff in the bottom. I didn't see anything in the bottom of the shower. Next, they make their way towards the kitchen.

Did you say, correct me if I'm wrong, did you say that you cleaned off some of the appliances? I did. I wiped the front. There was blood on the front of the dishwasher. There was blood on the front of the stove. There was, that cinnamon roll pan had blood on the tin foil on top of it. Okay, so let me go back. There was tin foil on top of it? On top of the cinnamon roll pan and it was sitting right there. And what did you do with the tin foil? I put it in the...

Crystal points way up above the cabinets in the kitchen, indicating that there was blood some 10 feet up the walls. There was blood on top of the coffee maker. There was blood. In fact, I had to climb up. There was blood spattered up high. How'd you climb up? I just climbed up right here and...

on the counter. If you take down that stuff, if you look in that stuff, there may be, I didn't go through it, there may be stuff up in that. There was blood spatter on the side here and on the front of the cabinet. So when you say blood spatter on there, can you go ahead and point to the areas around here? Down this. Okay, hold on, let me get a picture of it. Go ahead and put your thing.

Have somebody went through all that now? Because there may be blood in there. I didn't know that. Alright. Is there blood anywhere else? There were, there was, I noticed some on some of these appliances and so I wiped it and pitched it in the sink. So any of those, anything that was in the sink, I don't know, I don't remember exactly, but I put it in the sink.

Now the blood on the walls was so high up that they actually gave Crystal a big stick so that she could point to all the places where she found blood. So if we were to use that piece of wood trim there, can you use that piece of wood and point to where that blood is that you cleaned up? It's got nails sticking out so be careful on the back.

She then walks over to the window in the living room. Yes.

Is that the condition it was in? Do you remember? No, it was not. Tell me what you know. It was straight, but to get the curtains off, I had to climb up and undo, and it was straight. And after I got done with it, it wasn't straight anymore. Okay. Go ahead. There were just bloody footprints all up the stairs.

Anywhere else in here? Not that I saw. Did you go on the other side of the bed? No, I did not. Okay. Alright.

So you're talking about that pumpkin thingy, really? So can you tell me the condition of the blinds when you were here, the drapes?

They were open and hanging and blood splattered. Okay, so when you say open, how far open were they? They were all the way up. They were able to have blood splattered from here all the way across to here. Okay, so when you talk of blood splatter, I mean...

How much are you talking about? There wasn't much here. It was just spots that I was able to wipe.

Next, she walks over to the stairs and investigators hand her a broom so she can point to where the blood spatter was on the walls.

So with this broom, can you point to the area where you saw and cleaned blood up on the wall? Just hold it there so we can picture that. Okay, anywhere else? Oh, it was the spray of...

From here all the way. I had to clean up underneath here. Then it was all down here. And I know that I didn't get... I don't know that I got some of this underneath here because I didn't move the chair so to get it.

Now they make their way up the stairs. Do you remember the fireplace and where about on the fireplace it? Because I think you said in the interview there was some blood. I don't see it now, but I just remember just leaving it alone because...

What vents did you clean? That one. That vent right there. And can you point, if you remember, where the tooth was? I'll use the broom. Around the tooth, what was there, if anything? Spot. Is there anything else that you remember?

I moved the couch. I wiped the couch off. There was blood behind the couch, down the wall. There was a stand, some sort of stand right there by the couch, and the lamp and that basket were on it. I worked from that side all the way around, did the upstairs.

and then I did the bathroom and the kitchen and mopped the floor. So if I understand you correctly, you kind of were in this area first in the living room and then from the living room you went upstairs and then you came back downstairs, went into the bathroom and then came in and cleaned the floor and then left. And did you point out to where the baby gate was when you saw it?

It was right here, right against the wall. And there was blood on the wall here, there was blood on the wall here, and there was blood right here. Was there any blood on the TV, do you remember? Yeah, there was blood on the TV. There was blood on the chairs, there was blood on this chair, there was blood on the table, there was blood on the Hobby Lobby bag that was sitting there. Okay.

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And now, let's get back and finish out today's story. After walking through Kelsey's townhome, investigators take Crystal by Patrick's ranch. Here is the audio from that. Crystal, can you, again, kind of just describe to us right now, first the container. If you can describe the container that we talked about yesterday again. The container...

After arriving at the ranch, Patrick sat Crystal down and told her everything about the murder.

When you came up, where did you park the Jetta? I parked it right there. I got out. I spoke with him. We talked for probably an hour, hour and a half. From here, they walk over to the burn site, where the dirt was discolored. And this is where the burn occurred. Okay, so, real quickly...

Were you able to tell by looking at this now, as you can see there's a discoloration in the dirt?

Was this the same way it was when you were up here, if you remember? Is this the same looking dirt here, or...? Prior to the burn, no, the dirt was this color. The dirt was the red color? Yeah. Off in the distance, there are black totes identical to the one that Kelsey's body was in. Is there anything here that resembles the container...

the the the tote if you will that you've described those black totes that are sitting up there okay and tell me what as far as those containers are concerned how similar are those

to the one that you saw Patrick take off from the barn? After I've seen those, I believe that they're identical. I thought that maybe the clamps were on the side earlier, but I'm positive that the totes are identical to that one. Okay. Do you know what's in those? I do not know what's in those. Were those there when you were here? I believe so. We brought the tote here. Okay. We unloaded the tote. Okay.

I got in his truck. I drove his truck back to the Conoco. All right. And got in the Passat. Okay. I left his truck at the Conoco. All right. I brought the Passat up here. Okay. I removed belongings from the trunk and put them into the burn. Was the fire going at the time? Yes. Were you present when he started the fire? Yes, I was. Okay. This has all been cleaned up better since I was here. Okay. There was a pile of...

Correct me if I'm wrong. I believe yesterday you said that you also collected wood and put into the burn pit? Yes, I did. Where did you collect the wood from? Here. What about the accelerant?

Do you know what that... obviously that... It was gas. Okay. And then he also threw in motor oil. Are you able to show us where he got those from? Um, I can't show you where he got those from. Okay. He had them sitting out here next to the trailer. Okay, and is there anything here that looks like the containers that anything was in? That gas can may have been used. I don't remember exactly what the gas can looked like that he was using. Okay.

What about the oil? The oil was just in a quart oil jug. You had mentioned that there was a corrugated, a metal roof type thing put over top of the flame? Like tin, tin corrugated roof that was put over top of the trough. Okay, and where did that come from? I don't know where he got it. I'm imagining he got it from the pile of...

of stuff back up the hill. I didn't see him bring it down. Okay. Did you see him put it on there? I did see him put it on there. And where were you when you saw him put that on? I was... I had just pulled up in the car and was standing...

Sanding vacuum. Can you describe what else went into the fire? Pallets went into the fire. The materials from her home. And those were in what? Garbage bags. Black garbage bags, white garbage bags. Two white garbage bags and I believe four black garbage bags.

Um...

the gasoline, the motor oil. There were a couple of buckets. He poured gasoline in the bucket and pitched it into the fire. - Okay. And the whole bin, that black bin went in? - The whole tote went in. - Did you see what any of this looked like after the burn? - No, I was not present. I left. - What did he use to start the fire? - Gasoline. - I know, but I mean, what was the, was it a match? Was it a book of matches, a flare, a lighter or what? - A match.

Here, Crystal talks about what she did with Kelsey's phone, purse, and car keys. So the things that were thrown into the fire by me were the...

the belongings from Kelsey's house, the curtains, the pillows, the stuffed animals, the cleaning supplies, the towels, everything that I said on record prior to everything that I took from her house. Okay. I also threw in all the clothing that I was wearing, plus a pair of shoes that I had been wearing.

And I believe that that's all that I had with me that I threw into the fire. Any kind of hair netting? A hair, yeah, a cover for my hair and shoe coverings also. And gloves. And just to clarify, the Kelsey's purse and contents, you said that you had taken those out and threw those in? No, those went to Idaho.

The person, its contents, and the film went to Idaho. At my property. There were stuffed animals.

I honestly don't recall which. I know that there were quite a few. There were some little building block things. There were two big stuffed animals. The stuffed animals, can you say the size? Can you show us the size that they were? Yeah. Okay. They were big stuffed animals. And what kind of stuffed animals? What were they?

What type of animal? Well, I can remember that the one was a horse. Okay. And I don't remember what the other one was. All right. The building blocks, what were they made of? Wood. Okay. And you... Did you say yesterday that there were some books as well? Yes. Okay. They were in her belongings. In whose belongings? Kelsey's. And where were those... They got put in the burn, too. Okay. Any particular... Do you remember what the books were by just... Um... Uh...

One of them was her, I would imagine it was a Bible, and I don't know what the other one was. The cleaning supplies, what cleaning supplies did you bring and burn? I brought, the cleaning supplies I brought to here. Right. Bleach and Windex.

At this point, Crystal's confession was officially over.

And it was now time to zero in on the killer himself, Patrick Frazee. Good afternoon and thank you everybody for coming. Based on information developed during the course of this investigation, and because of the length of time, it's been 23 days that has passed since Kelsey was last seen, our investigators believe that Kelsey's disappearance is more suspicious and that she is not intentionally avoiding efforts to find her. We are looking at all avenues and our focus is on finding Kelsey.

Investigators obtained a search warrant today, correction yesterday, on a property nearby in Teller County, Colorado. That search is currently being conducted. This property is where Patrick Frazee is known to reside. There are no details available about the search as this warrant has been sealed. This is a multi-state task force with numerous research resources working tirelessly to find Kelsey, which is why I'm here today. We are asking Patrick

to sit down with investigators since he is the last person to talk with Kelsey face to face based on our investigation. There have been numerous questions about whether Patrick is a suspect or a person of interest. At this point, we are considering every possibility and I'm not willing to jump to conclusions or label people involved in this highly complex investigation. So this search warrant just started this morning. It's going to take a number of days to finish, so I can't comment on that. I haven't received a briefing on what they found so far.

During the search of Patrick's ranch, they found a lot of damning evidence. Etched in the grass were burn marks from the flames, an oily dark substance assumed to be from Kelsey's body burning. They also found remnants of melted plastic from the black tote she was in. But even more damning, they found a human female tooth fragment, just like the one Crystal claimed she found at Kelsey's townhome.

when investigators headed out to the barn. Cadaver dogs alerted to traces of human decomposition in the exact spot where Crystal said her body was being stored. And up on the bales of hay, they found a large indentation surrounded by a brown and reddish stain. The case against Patrick Frazee was piling up with evidence.

And on top of everything we just mentioned, they also found surveillance footage of him filling up gas containers at a local gas station shortly before her body was burned. And after finding all of this evidence, Patrick goes into a panic. You see, for weeks now, he was able to keep his cool and he stuck to a story that Kelsey ran off.

But as all of this evidence continues to pile against him, he realizes he's not as invincible as he once thought. Detectives speak with him shortly after this, and he even slips up, telling one of them, quote, "...if I knew it was going to get this big, I never would have..." And then he just stops.

But even without a confession, investigators have enough evidence to arrest Patrick for the murder of his fiancée. We're holding this morning's news conference to update you on recent developments in this case. Today we arrested Patrick Frazee on charges of first-degree murder of Kelsey Barreth, and he is currently being held in the Teller County Jail. As a reminder, Patrick Frazee is presumed innocent until proven guilty.

Patrick Frazee was taken into custody this morning in Florissant, Colorado just after 7 o'clock this morning Mountain Standard Time. Kelsey's daughter Kaylee is in protective custody and will be reunited with Kelsey's family. This has been a methodical and time-consuming multi-state operation with investigators working nearly around the clock to find Kelsey. While we have not found Kelsey at this time, information has been developed that is helping to narrow down our search.

As you can tell from the arrest, sadly, we do not believe Kelsey is still alive. Our work is just beginning. You will be seeing a great deal of law enforcement activity in our community in the coming days and even weeks as we continue our relentless pursuit of justice for Kelsey and her family. As stated previously, this case has involved highly technical work involving cell phone records and other data that has led to today's arrest.

We've also conducted multiple searches at Kelsey's home and other locations as part of this comprehensive investigation. Investigators have recovered a number of items that make us suspicious that the crime did occur at Kelsey's residence. And that's why we have been coming back to her residence as we get additional information that leads us to various locations.

Patrick Frazee's trial started on November 1st, 2019, nearly a year after Kelsey Barrett's murder. Outside of the courtroom, people lined the streets hoping to get a seat at the trial. That morning, Patrick entered the courthouse through a tent to avoid the media, and he was facing a lot of charges, including first-degree murder, solicitation to commit murder, tampering with a deceased human body, and a crime of violence. At the start of the trial, the prosecution opened with,

This is the face of a cold, calculating manipulator. This face, this man, is a killer. Over the next few days, they brought forward many witnesses. Some were friends of Patrick's, who had heard him say some concerning things over the years. For instance, he told one of his friends before the murder, I figured out a way to kill her. No body, no crime, right? He told another friend that Kelsey had a nosebleed in his car once, and he was worried about how long DNA would last.

Patrick even went to a Verizon store after her murder and asked the employee if information could still be taken from a phone after it was destroyed. Other witnesses claimed that Patrick told them, "...people go missing every day all across the United States and this is national news. It's coast-to-coast coverage. I don't even understand why there's such a big deal over this."

There were plenty of other people who claimed Patrick said some concerning things, but that alone isn't enough for a conviction. And the prosecution knew that this wouldn't be an easy case because they didn't have a body or a murder weapon.

So their entire case pretty much rested on the testimony of Crystal Lee. As you can imagine, the defense was ready to tear into her. They told the jury that Patrick Frazee couldn't be convicted because there was nothing to tie him to the scene, there was no body and no murder weapon, and that the person they should be looking at is Crystal Lee. After all, she participated in the crime, and she initially lied to law enforcement when they questioned her about her involvement.

Many people also believed that Crystal was the one who came up with the murder plot. These people didn't think that Patrick, a country cowboy, would come up with a plan to blindfold Kelsey and have her smell candles. And I can understand why some people would think that, but men can like candles too, let me tell ya. But anyways, Crystal would end up taking the stand and her testimony lasted two days. And she cried as she told the jury, The most important thing I have to say is how sorry I am.

I'm sorry that I did not save Kelsey. Her mom and that little girl never needed to see what Patrick did to her. I didn't know he was capable of that. I didn't think he was capable of what happened, and I didn't do anything to stop it. And even though Crystal wasn't the best witness, a lot of her testimony matched up with the evidence found at both Kelsey's townhome and the burn pit at Patrick's ranch. This, paired with the cell phone records from that weekend, made it very clear that Patrick murdered his wife.

The jury didn't even need a body or a murder weapon to know that. Towards the end of the trial, it was clear that Patrick was going to be convicted for murder, but the prosecution had one more trick up their sleeve. Right before the trial ended, prosecutors brought in their final witness, Patrick's cellmate from prison. His name was Jacob Bentley, and he had been previously affiliated with the prison's gangs.

When Patrick found out about this, he asked him for a favor. Jacob told the jury that Patrick offered to pay his bail if he could find someone to kill a few people before his trial. You see, Patrick thought that if the witnesses in his trial were dead, then he would have to be let go. In hearing this, Jacob took the opportunity. He knew that if he gave this information to detectives, he could be given a pretty good deal.

So he agreed to help Patrick out and he tells him, "Why don't you write their names down on a piece of paper and I'll give them to my guys to take care of it." Patrick was excited but he didn't want to get caught so he tells Jacob that once he gives them the pieces of paper, he has to flush them down the toilet so no one can find it. Jacob agreed but instead of flushing them, he kept them stored away as evidence.

On the notes, Patrick wrote out several names of witnesses, including Crystal Lee and Kelsey's mother, Cheryl. He also gave a very detailed description of where these people were located and how he wanted them killed. And after all of this, Jacob would gather all of the notes and bring them to detectives so they could use it in their trial. And it's interesting because a lot of the time an inmate's credibility is questioned.

But in this case, they did a handwriting analysis on the notes, which proved that they were in fact Patrick Frazee's handwriting. Some of these notes were read at his trial. Here are a few of them.

You know where to find Crystal Jean Lee Kenny, Chad Lee, Michelle Stein, John Moore, Wendy Clark? They all need to disappear until at least November 22nd. My life and my little girl's life depends on you. If I walk out, you and me could pull all kinds of shit. I know all sorts of rich ranchers around the West. In this next note, he wrote about his friends that were to testify in his trial. Kidnap and hide him until you're done. South Florissant, guy and chick, 55 to 60 years old.

Do you have funds or resources to go to Idaho and back? I was thinking if you could cap him in the desert. I'm excited if we can pull this off. And this was really the nail in his coffin. These notes proved that Patrick was willing to do anything to get what he wanted.

At the end of the trial, the prosecution said "While Kelsey Barreth is planning a future, this man is planning to kill her for months." They went on to talk about Kelsey's actions before her disappearance, saying "This is not consistent with someone about to walk up and leave their child. This is not consistent with someone who's suicidal.

It's consistent with someone who believes she has a future. The courtroom is where the truth is revealed and the truth is laid bare and the courtroom is where the cover-up, secrecy and deceit come to light. Ladies and gentlemen, the evidence compels you to one verdict and one verdict only and that is that the defendant is guilty of first-degree murder.

And with that, the jury was sent off for deliberation. And after three and a half hours, they came back with a verdict. Patrick Frazee was sentenced to life in prison plus 156 years. At his sentencing, a note from Kelsey's mother was read to the court. It said, quote, "'He sent me a text message that morning, wishing me a happy Thanksgiving. What a sick man.'"

"Patrick chose Thanksgiving to execute his plan, forever tainting this holiday for us. We have taken additional steps to protect ourselves, as Frazee said he had a hitman, and we have his daughter against his will." Cheryl went on to talk about the many sleepless nights they had since Kelsey's murder, and how this case has even caused them to question their faith. Their main goal moving forward is to gain full custody of Kaylee.

and they even hope to start an aviation scholarship in Kelsey's name.

And with that, Patrick was taken away to prison to serve out his life sentence. But what about Crystal Lee, you may ask? Well, in exchange for her testimony, prosecutors agreed to completely drop all murder charges, and she only had to plead guilty to evidence tampering. So even though she literally cleaned up the crime and helped dispose of Kelsey's body and all of the evidence, Crystal Lee only went to prison for three years before she was paroled on January 28th, 2020.

And just about everyone who hears this case is completely baffled that she got the deal of a lifetime. The prosecution themselves say that they made a deal with the devil, and they aren't proud of it. But they also recognize that without Crystal's confession, they would have never been able to send Patrick to prison, especially since they never found Kelsey's body.

To this day, no one knows where she is. And Patrick Frazee definitely isn't going to give anyone those answers. And I feel like the scariest part about this case is that if Crystal would have never confessed, we probably wouldn't be telling you this story right now. Patrick would be walking around a free man, having sole custody of Kaylee. There still aren't a lot of answers here, even with the conviction.

Kelsey was a beautiful person inside and out, and Patrick did everything in his power to drag her name through the dirt. And he started planning her murder, claiming that it was all for the sake of his daughter. He brutally took Kelsey's life by beating her with a baseball bat just feet away from his one-year-old child. Every daughter needs their mom, and by taking Kelsey's life, he wasn't looking out for Kaylee.

He was looking out for himself and from now until the end of his life, he will be paying for what he did. As for Kelsey's family, they are still struggling every single day dealing with the grief from this horrible tragedy. And to end this episode, we want to talk about the letter Cheryl wrote to Patrick at his sentencing.

She told him that one day, Kaylee is going to find out what happened to her mom, and she's going to learn that her father murdered her for his own selfish reasons. Cheryl's note concluded with, quote, End quote. A question he will have to ponder for the rest of his life.

As of now, Kelsey's parents have full custody of Kaylee, so she will be in good hands, and they will always make sure she knows just how much her mom truly loved her.

Hey everybody, it's Colin here. And Courtney. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Murder in America. Now this case was a very interesting one, wasn't it, Courtney? Yeah, a few years ago when I saw it and I heard Crystal talking to investigators, I knew I wanted to cover it because you don't usually have that in cases. And I cannot believe that she was given such a short amount of time, you know, in prison. And she's literally walking around right now, so...

Yeah, there's a lot to think about when it comes to this case, but I want to shout out our new patrons this week.

I don't know how you do that every week. You read them so fast. I could never. Well, I'm sorry if I ever mess anybody's names up, but thank you all for being patrons. You can sign up to become a patron at patreon.com. And again, follow us on Instagram. If you want to see the pictures of every episode every week, we upload them there and also follow us on our Facebook group.

And yeah, with the Patreon, you get the ad-free versions of every single episode. They go live on there as soon as they go live on all streaming platforms. But we have quite the episode. If you're like me, you're constantly thinking about the safety of the people and things you value the most. After doing this podcast for years and reading about home invasions and robberies gone wrong and all sorts of tragedies, I knew I needed to secure my home with the best. My research led me to SimpliSafe.com.

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Just visit simplisafe.com slash in America. That's simplisafe with an I dot com slash in America. There's no safe like SimpliSafe. And now let's get back to our story. Next week that we are so excited to share with y'all. I'm so excited. It's a little different than what we're used to doing, but I'm so excited and I put in so much time. You're going to love it. We love you guys. And thanks for listening.