TELLER COUNTY, Colo. — The Idaho woman who took a plea deal in order to help prosecutors put a now-convicted murderer behind bars for the rest of his life will face her own sentencing on Tuesday.
Idaho resident Krystal Lee Kenney, who had a relationship with murderer Patrick Frazee of Florissant, agreed in early 2019 to plead guilty to tampering with physical evidence, a Class 6 felony, as part of the plea deal. Now that the Frazee trial has ended, she will be sentenced at 9 a.m. Tuesday in the Teller County courthouse, which is located in Cripple Creek.
At minimum, Kenney would get probation for her involvement. And at maximum, she could see three years behind bars.
Currently, the plea agreement is suppressed, and the charge alone carries a maximum of 18 months in prison, but the judge may consider aggravators in the case, which could bump her sentence up to three years, according to Rob McCallum with the Colorado Justice Department.
During her sentencing hearing, the court will hear about Kenney’s character and actions surrounding the murder of 29-year-old Woodland Park mother Kelsey Berreth, who was Frazee's fiancée. In addition, prosecutors said they expect the Berreth family to deliver victim impact statements.
Kenney took a plea deal from prosecutors in February 2019, pleading guilty to tampering with physical evidence in the case of the murder of Berreth. Kenney also agreed to testify in court against Frazee, who was found guilty of first-degree murder in November 2019 — almost exactly a year after he killed Berreth in her home by blindfolding her and striking her with a baseball bat.
As part of the plea deal, Kenney provided prosecutors with precise details about how Frazee had asked her to kill Berreth on multiple occasions, and then demanded that she leave Idaho to come clean up the murder scene after Thanksgiving. Kenney obeyed this command and in court, explained the horrific scene she found at Berreth’s home in Woodland Park. She also described that Frazee said he had beat Berreth to death with a baseball bat and put her in a black tote, and that she joined him as he burned the tote on his property in Florissant.
READ MORE: Inside the Patrick Frazee Trial
After 10 days of testimony, Frazee was found guilty of first-degree murder, among other charges, and sentenced to life in prison, plus 156 years.
After the verdict, prosecutors said they were happy with the outcome and satisfied that Kenney’s testimony had helped the case, but knew that they had “made a deal with the devil” by offering Kenney a plea agreement. At that time, May said she deserved “every single day” she is sentenced to, should she receive jail time.
Had she not taken the plea deal, she could have been charged with three counts of attempted murder, which could have carried a minimum sentence of 48 years in prison, according to the defense in the Frazee trial. The maximum would have been 144 years. On three separate occasions, Frazee asked Kenney to kill Berreth — with poisoned coffee, then a metal pipe, then a bat — and each time, she started to carry out the plan before backing out.
While Kenney was on the witness stand during the trial, Frazee’s defense team made sure to remind her that she could have spent the rest of her life in prison, noting that the prosecution had allowed her to plead guilty to a lesser charge in exchange for her testimony. It was only after she had taken this deal that she spilled the details of the murder, the defense pointed out.
It’s a statement that hit a nerve with many people who have kept up with the case. Denver7 frequently received comments and messages throughout Frazee’s trial about how Kenney deserves more time behind bars than the maximum sentence.
At the time, Kenney said she did not know if she was planning on asking for probation.
Like the Frazee trial, cameras, recordings and live reporting is not allowed from inside the courtroom. Denver7 will post updates during breaks in court.
Click here to read all of Denver7’s coverage on the Kelsey Berreth case.