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Patrick Frazee murder trial: ‘I figured out a way to kill her,' friend testifies Frazee told him

Investigators find tooth in burn scar on Frazee ranch

Denver7

By: Stephanie Butzer , Blair Miller

Posted

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CRIPPLE CREEK, Colo. — At the end of the day Friday, the man at the witness stand in the Teller County courthouse said he recalled alleged murderer Patrick Frazee wondering why the case of his missing fiancee had gone national and saying, "if I had known it would have blown up this big, I never would have —" before trailing off.

The man's testimony came after the afternoon recess on Friday.

It wasn't clear by the end of the day Friday how many more witnesses the prosecution planned to bring up, or how many the defense had in their pocket ready to take the stand. But prosecutors started the day by having two K-9 handlers testify, both of whom said their dogs hit on items at different locations that were involved in the murder plot. Later in the morning, a Sonic employee and Conoco employee testified and provided information about Krystal Lee Kenney at the fast food restaurant's drive-through, and both Kenney and Frazee entering and leaving a parking lot at a Florissant Conoco. Both occurred after the alleged murder and the prosecution brought up surveillance video showing their movements.

Early on Friday afternoon, several FBI agents testified about their searches of the Frazee and Berreth properties, about the burn pit and the plastic remnants, and about their discovery of a partial tooth, which prosecutors tested for DNA earlier this summer.

Frazee, 33, of Florissant, is accused of murdering Berreth, his 29-year-old fiancée, on Thanksgiving Day 2018 in Woodland Park. He is also accused of soliciting Kenney, an Idaho resident whom he had dated, to help him carry out the murder.

He faces eight charges, including first-degree murder, tampering with a deceased body and solicitation. While he pleaded not guilty to the charges, Kenney took a plea deal, pleading guilty to a tampering charge and agreeing to testify at Frazee's trial.

On Thursday, the Teller County courthouse was somber throughout the day as Kenney, who claimed Frazee demanded she help him kill Berreth before allegedly doing so himself, continued her testimony. The defense repeatedly asked why she never contacted police or told her family or friends about the murder plot. While she was excused for the day, she was ordered that she must stay available to the court.

Prosecutors decided in July to not file a motion in pursuit of capital punishment, meaning Frazee will not face the death penalty in this case if he is found guilty.

Here is Denver7's coverage from previous days of the trial:

K-9 handler testifies that bloodhound hit on hay bale

Court started at 8:30 a.m. Friday, with Judge Scott Sells reminding the court that it will not be in session Monday because of Veterans Day. Fourth Judicial District Attorney Dan May then picked up with questioning.

Julie Nash, who co-owns Nash Ranch, told May that she leased grazing rights to Frazee and that he had a lease for the area, including the barn, as well as a key to the ranch, in November 2018. Nash said nobody else was leasing the ranch at the time and that she knew Frazee kept items in the barn, including a tractor and hay.

She told Frazee’s defense attorney, Adam Stiegerwald, that she found law enforcement on her property on Dec. 21, the day Kenney said they toured the property.

May then called Elizabeth Police Department Officer Mike Hurst, who also previously worked for the Teller County Sheriff’s Office and who specializes in working with K-9s – including bloodhounds, tracker dogs and cadaver dogs.

Hurst introduced his 140-pound bloodhound cadaver dog, Radar, who is trained to detect human decomposition and can pick up scents from a body, fluids, and other human remains like teeth, tissue, hair, feces, urine and skeletal remains. Hurst said he and Radar have spent more than 5,000 hours training and have been in the field to find bodies or scents 30 to 40 times. Radar has never had a false hit, Hurst testified.

Hurst and Radar were asked to assist in the case in February this year. The two went to Nash Ranch along with CBI agents and Woodland Park police. Radar searched around the red barn on the property, including the tractor inside.

He said Radar sat —indicating a positive hit for the smell of human decomposition — after smelling the hay bales.

Hurst said it was only after Radar indicated that he noticed small stains toward the top of the 12-foot hay bales, so he decided to get on top of them. He said it was "quite an adventure" getting to the top of the stack of bales with Radar.

Prosecutors showed a picture of the top of the hale bale taken on Dec. 21, showing indented hay that was discolored – brown or possibly dark red – and which looked wet. Hurst said that spot is where Radar indicated again once he and Hurst were atop the hay bale. May showed a video of Radar sniffing around on top of the hay bales and sitting by the stained area of hay. Hurst said that even though the tote had been removed from the bale months earlier, he believed Radar could still smell something there because the barn had protected the hay from weather.

May also asked Hurst about Radar's training differentiating between the smell of a decomposing human body versus a decomposing body of another animal, and Hurst confirmed that is a big part of Radar's training.

When Hurst was cross-examined by defense attorney Ashley Fridovich Porter, he said he could not confirm that the hit was definitely due to a decomposing body and that he had never asked Radar to sniff hay bales for decomposition before.

Another handler says his K-9 hit on truck, inside townhome

May then called Brian Eberle, who has a bloodhound named Lucy and who previously trained with a Jefferson County bloodhound trainer.

Lucy is trained to find different types of decomposing human matter in different places – including elevated areas and places where remains have been buried or hidden, Eberle testified. She will lay down at the source of a hit, he said.

Ebrele said he was asked to come out with Lucy to Woodland Park on Dec. 4, 2018. He said he was "asked if he could run Lucy around the vehicles" in Berreth's driveway.

Lucy found no indication on a Chevrolet truck which was registered to Berreth's parents, then moved over to Berreth's Toyota sedan, where the K-9 gave a positive indication of a decomposing human scent on the back corner of the driver’s side.

May explained that Kenney had previously testified that she put bloody items from the murder cleanup in trash bags and placed them near the Toyota sedan for a few minutes. He asked if Lucy could find a possible hit from that area and Eberle said that was possible.

May asked if Lucy could pick up that scent if it was from 10 days earlier — Nov. 24, 2018 — and Eberle again said it was possible.

She, like Radar, had never given a false positive, Eberle said, and was in the 90-95 percentile for accuracy.

Eberle said Lucy also gave an indication on a pair of underwear in the upstairs bathroom of Berreth’s home. At the time of the search, Kenney had not yet come forward to authorities with her testimony, so Eberle did not know she had allegedly cleaned the home with bleach and other chemicals.

When cross-examined by Porter, Eberle would “potentially” expect Lucy to pick up scents inside the home if blood had sat in the condo for a day or two, even if it had been cleaned with bleach. He told her that Lucy did not indicate on any of the other objects that Kenney said had been spattered with blood, including areas where she said she left spatter like the fireplace and baby gate.

The judge asked Eberle questions from the jury about how the bleach could have affected Lucy’s scent-finding. Eberle said that they don't train their K-9s with bleach or other harmful chemicals because they don't want to expose those hazards to the dogs. So it was possible that impacted Lucy's ability to smell for decomposition, he said.

Security director shows Kenney was at work around Thanksgiving

Prosecutor Beth Reed called Abbey Abbondandolothe, senior director of the security department for the health system for which Kenney worked in Idaho, to have him testify about Kenney’s badge usage at the hospital on Nov. 21 and 23.

He said on Nov. 21, her schedule and movements were fairly normal, and that he had no reason to believe somebody else was using her badge. The same went for Nov. 23.

Kenney’s father testifies

Reed then called Kenney’s father, Sidney Kenney, to the stand.

She asked him a few questions about their relationships, where Sidney Kenney explained that they were close and she had been living with him on and off for the past year. He said she was easy to please as a child and was always good at what she tried to do.

“She likes people and she likes people to like her," he said.

She asked him about the events surrounding Nov. 22. He said the plan was for all the family to sit down for Thanksgiving dinner in the afternoon. He said he saw both Kenney and her ex-husband that day and was at their house — they still mostly lived together at the time — until around 6:30 p.m. that day. He said Kenney was there the whole time aside from an hour she said she went to help gather up her ex-husband cows that had escaped their pen.

But he said she did not mention going out of town that weekend. He said he saw Kenney again the evening of Nov. 23 around 7 p.m. but that she again never said anything about plans for the weekend. He said he then saw her again sometime late on Nov. 25 or on Nov. 26.

Sidney Kenney said he did not know Frazee personally, but was aware that Kenney had spoken about Frazee 8 to 10 years earlier. He testified Friday that he remembered he didn’t think he liked what he was hearing about Frazee at the time. Upon cross-examination, Sidney Kenney told Stiegerwald that it was not unusual for Kenney to go to Colorado to visit her mother.

Court went into recess just before 10 a.m. and was back at 10:15 a.m.

Sonic video shows Kenney stop at drive-through after alleged cleanup

Court resumed at 10:26 a.m. with Prosecutor Jennifer Viehman calling Sonic employee Shannon Kadiuraus to the stand. Kadiuraus explained that she now works at a Sonic in Colorado Springs, but in November 2018, was a general manager at the Sonic in Woodland Park.

While working there, she was asked by law enforcement to provide video from Nov. 24, 2018 from the fast food restaurant’s surveillance cameras.

Woodland Park Police Department’s Commander Chris Adams contacted her on Dec. 20, 2018 about the footage, she said. She gave him the videos he requested.

Fourth Judicial District Attorney's Office Investigator Stephanie Courtney was called to the witness stand next and said she reviewed those Sonic videos, which she received from Adam. She said she looked around the 1 p.m. timestamp in the footage for a black Volkswagen, which would have been the car Kenney had borrowed from a friend in Idaho to drive to Colorado.

Courtney said she was able to find this vehicle and captured stills from it, which were displayed on the PowerPoint in the courtroom.

One photo, from the inside of the Sonic, showed an employee leaning out the door toward a drive-through customer. Courtney said she believes she could tell it was Kenney based on the picture.

A second picture showed the same scene from the exterior of the building. Courtney said she knew the car in the photo was Kenney’s car based on information she had received earlier.

The final photo showed a blonde woman in a gray sweatshirt leaning over toward the foot of the passenger side seat as she drives away from the drive-through window. Courtney said she still believed this was Kenney.

The defense and jury did not have any questions.

Former commander with Woodland Park police analyzes Conoco footage

Prosecutor Beth Reed called up William David Stover, who is an IT manager for the Florissant Conoco at 2636 W. Highway 24 in Florissant. He confirmed that he was asked by law enforcement in December 2018 to retrieve images from Nov. 24, 2018 from the outdoor cameras at the Conoco. He did so, he said, and was excused by the prosecutor.

Reed then called Chris Adams, who works for the CBI now, but was a commander with the Woodland Park Police Department at the time of the investigation. He said he met with Stover and has reviewed the footage provided.

The prosecution then went through dozens of images that were time-stamped and showed Frazee’s red pickup truck and the black Volkswagen that Kenney borrowed from a friend entering and leaving the Conoco station from multiple angles.

At the end of the photo presentation, Reed asked if these movements were consistent with what Kenney had told authorities about where she went on Nov. 24, 2018. Adams said it did.

The prosecution then played a lengthy video showing the comings and goings of Frazee and Kenney from that the afternoon and evening of Nov. 24. The video shows the following:

4:17 p.m.: A black Volkswagen entered the Conoco parking lot and drove out of view to the gas station's parking area

4:32 p.m.: A driver pulled into the gas station in a red pickup truck. Adams identified the person as Frazee. He was wearing a sweatshirt, pants and had his hood over a baseball hat

4:34 p.m.: Frazee started pumping gas into the truck and then went inside the Conoco. A few minutes later, he returned and filled up a six-gallon gas can and then put it in the back of the truck

4:39 p.m.: Frazee drove away from the gas pump to the parking area at the Conoco. There was no black tote in the back of the truck. Adams said at this point, he believes Frazee parked next to Kenney and they were having a discussion.

4:48 p.m.: Frazee’s truck left the parking area and turned east on US 24 toward Nash Ranch. Adams said he believes Frazee was driving with Kenney in the passenger seat. He said he believes they were heading to Nash Ranch.

6:57 p.m.: Frazee’s truck pulled into the Conoco from the Florissant side of US 24 and went straight to the parking area.

6:59 p.m.: A black Volkswagen leaves the parking lot of the Conoco and headed east on US 24. Adams said according to Kenney’s testimony, she drove Frazee's car down to the Conoco to get her borrowed car, which still had the trash bags from the alleged murder cleanup at Berreth’s condo, and drove it to Nash Ranch.

9:37 p.m.: A black Volkswagen returned to the Conoco from the Florissant side of US 24 and went to the parking lot. Kenney previously testified that she and Frazee were both in the car and they returned for him to get his truck.

9:40 p.m.: The black Volkswagen left the Conoco parking lot and turned left to head west on US 24. The red pickup followed a few seconds later, but turned right onto US 24.

Adams confirmed that investigators found a Conoco receipt in Frazee’s home that matched the time he was seen on surveillance at the gas station.

Court ended for a lunch break at noon and will resume at 1 p.m.

FBI Evidence Response Team agent discusses searches

After lunch, prosecutors called FBI Special Agent Charles DeFrance, who is the senior agent for the FBI Denver Office’s Evidence Response Team. He went out on all of the evidence response team searches during the case, he said.

DeFrance said he was involved in the search on Dec. 14 and 15 of Frazee’s ranch, the search of Frazee’s truck on two separate occasions and the Frazee ranch again on Dec. 21. He said he also processed some items in as Berreth’s townhome on Dec. 19.

He explained how his job involves documenting everything at a scene so investigators can decide what is significant and if there is other evidence they should search for. When they go to a scene, they continually process it, reevaluating the plan as need be based on evidence found at the scene and the context of it, he said.

DeFrance said they returned to the Frazee property on Dec. 21 after Kenney gave her formal statement to investigators and they gleaned more leads. He said that during the searches on the 14th and 15th, investigators had teams inside and outside the home, as well as a human remains detection team.

The investigators looked for burn areas but would not find one until Dec. 21st, after Kenney gave investigators more specific information, DeFrance said. He said that investigators noticed the black plastic tote during the initial search in mid-December and looked inside it, but did not collect it until they went back to Frazee’s property on the 21st.

DeFrance and a fellow investigator had arranged to meet Kenney at the home so she could show them where the burn area was at the Frazee property. They both arrived before she did and after a quick walk-through, walked down the hill, closer to the home to meet with Kenney. When she arrived, they asked questions about the burn site and other items in that area and Kenney was able to describe the area without seeing it, DeFrance said. Once she was done describing it, DeFrance let her lead the way to the burn spot. She pointed it out, he said.

DeFrance said Kenney also told them about how Frazee placed the tin roofing to cover the fire and hold the heat in – something investigators already believed after they had found similar pieces of roofing on the property. He said she her claims appeared accurate.

DeFrance said that agents and investigators used luminol, a chemical that reacts to human blood and glows blue in the dark, on Frazee's red pickup truck but that it seemed to be reacting everywhere – making investigators think something aside from blood was causing the reaction.

DeFrance said that he scraped across the area where Kenney said the fire burned and said he could see and smell burnt plastic. He said the plastic was level with the ground underneath the layer of gravel that had been placed on top of the burn scar.

DeFrance said he searched Berreth’s house on Dec. 19 — a day before Kenney gave her statement to investigators. He said it was a “relatively narrow” search and that they used luminol there too, but it was not effective.

He said investigators were treating the condo that day as a potential murder scene but they later learned there had been a “pretty substantial” cleanup. At the time, he said he thought the townhome seemed relatively well-kept and clean.

But by Dec. 21st, he said, they knew to look for signs of the cleanup — which he called substantial because of the information Kenney had told them about the manner in which Berreth was allegedly killed.

On cross-examination, DeFrance said that seven different K-9s were involved in a search of the Frazee property on Dec. 14 but none of them alerted to anything, including around the burn area, he said. He noted that they divided the property into sections and the area of the burn may have been on a dividing line. He did confirm that the area was searched by investigators, but possibly not K-9s.

Team leader of FBI Evidence Response Team testifies

The FBI Evidence Response Team’s leader, Special Agent Ashley Cape, then was called to the stand. She said investigators found partially full containers of accelerants on the property when they searched Frazee's home.

She said they found a drawer full of receipts during the searches of the Frazee home, and that some of them had relevant time stamps regarding when he got gas, including one from the Florissant Conoco on Nov. 24, 2018 at 4:30 p.m. That receipt, which was for $75 worth of gasoline, had "off road" handwritten on it.

Kenney previously testified that Frazee tossed motor oil into the fire to make it burn hotter.

FBI agents testify they found what appeared to be a tooth

Denver FBI Special Agent Donald Peterson, who works on the Safe Streets Task Force, was the next witness called to the stand. He was also a team leader for the search team and has special training in crime scene analysis.

He said he was present for multiple searches:

The Frazee ranch searches on Dec. 14 and 15 (he was the team leader for this one)
The Berreth townhome search on Dec. 19
The Frazee ranch search again on the Dec. 21 (he was the team leader for this one)

He pointed out the burn area from the Frazee's property in photos published in the court slideshow and explained the discolored patch, then also noted that you could see the home’s deck from the burn area, which was about 5 feet by 8 feet, Peterson said.

Peterson explained how they used hand tools, including a pickaxe, and brushes to scope out a perimeter around the burn area and remove the dirt and other material Frazee allegedly covered the burn area with. This exposed a plastic crust and wet spot in the soil, he said. The photos showed a clear difference between the dirt and the charred gray material. The land was slightly uneven in this area, and the wet spot was on tthe downhill side of the burn mark.

He also noted that where the plastic crust ended and the wet soil began, the melted plastic was curved and slightly raised, indicating something in the shape of an arc had stopped it from flattening out.

He was shown several pictures of the plastic crust and explained how investigators sifted other material that was in the burn pit.

Investigators collected as many big, solid pieces of the melted plastic as they could. As they did so, they also sifted through the dirt of the burn area.

Peterson said he noticed a smell once the burn area was uncovered. It smelled of plastic, he said.

On the final section of dirt they sifted through, which included the wet area of the burn, they found what they believed to be a partial tooth, he said. A photo of the suspected tooth was shown in court Friday.

Prosecutor Dan May then called FBI Special Agent Janie Rojhani to the stand — another agent involved in the searches who photographed the Frazee property on Dec. 21. She photographed three bats on the property that day, she testified. She also said she recognized a gas can shown in court as the one from Frazee’s property, which she said was about one-quarter full during the search.

May then called FBI Special Agent Stephanie Benitiz to the witness stand, who was involved in the Dec. 14 and 15 searches of Frazee’s home and has special training in searches.

She said they found a Christmas tree ornament and the box it came with that Berreth’s brother had previously testified he mailed to Berreth's address as a gift for Kaylee, as well as paperwork about ownership of a horse with Kenney’s name on it.

She said that there were signs that a child lived there, but few toys at the home. She also testified that the home did not appear safe for a toddler, as there were sharp edges, a hot burning stove in the center of the house with no child gates around it and chemicals around the house.

She, as did Peterson, also discussed the different consistencies of the soil in the burn area and mentioned finding the partial tooth.

Benitiz said she thought that was significant: “It was a tooth at a site that we had been briefed on, where a body had possibly been burned.”

The court then went on a short break but was back in session at 3:20 p.m.

Longtime friend of Frazee’s testifies, says Frazee discussed killing Berreth

After the lunch break, May called Joseph Paul Moore to the stand. He is a Park County cattle rancher who said he’s familiar with other cattle men and women in the Park, Teller and Fremont County areas.

Moore testified he first met Frazee when Frazee was between 10 and 13 years old when Frazee was riding horses, that he’s been to Fremont County to help Frazee with his cattle and that he’d known Frazee for 20 or 21 years. He said he offered Frazee a job somewhere around 2001 to 2003 and that he’d been to Frazee’s property several dozen times over the years and called him an “excellent” cattleman.

He said that in late 2018, he had a good relationship with Frazee.

In court Friday, he said Frazee had “so much going for him.” Moore said he sometimes called him his step-kid. Through tears in court, Moore testified: “You just don’t want picture somebody that you’ve known this long and trusted – you just don’t want to think that they could do something like this.”

Moore said that he and Frazee were close enough, that if he was going out of town, he’d call Frazee and have him come check on his animals while they were gone.

Moore said the first time he met Berreth was at a ranch around November 2016, when she was helping move Frazee’s calves. Moore said Berreth did not know how to handle all the cows, having never been in that situation before. He testified that Frazee was not pleased with her.

“He berated her horribly,” Moore said. “He yelled at her, cussed at her, just terribly.”

He said that was one of two times he met Berreth. But he said Frazee told him that Berreth was pregnant — something Frazee claimed to have not known until she was in the hospital giving birth.

It wasn’t long after, Moore said, that Frazee started saying things he thought out of the ordinary.

During a trip to shoe horses, Moore said Frazee said he was having trouble with somebody and told them that “kids go missing all the time from playgrounds and schoolyards.” Moore said he told him he shouldn’t say those things, though Frazee said he was kidding.

In another instance, Frazee mentioned that he'd met a man in Frisco or Breckenridge who was a "hit man for the mob," Moore said. He thought this was funny because he assumed somebody in the mob would never say something like that, so he brushed it off.

Moore said that on April 26, 2018, the two were running their bulls on another ranch. Moore said he asked Frazee how things were going with “Kaylee Jo’s mom,” which Moore said is how Frazee referred to Berreth.

“He said, ‘I figured out a way to kill her,’” Moore testified, “And I went, ‘Don’t even talk about things like that. Get that s--- out of your head.’ He just kind of grinned and said, ‘No body, no crime, right?'”

Moore said he told Frazee, again, to “get that s--- out of your head.”

During that summer, Moore said, Frazee told him about how he had people spying on or watching Berreth and taking pictures of her because he said he wanted to sue her for custody of Kaylee. Moore said Frazee sounded serious about his claims. Frazee claimed to have a picture from one of these people of Berreth's car outside a liquor store. The car was running and Kaylee was inside, Frazee told Moore. Moore asked to see the photograph and Frazee said it was on his computer at home. Moore said he never asked about it again.

Another instance that made suspicious after the fact, Moore said, was one in which they were discussing the film “True Lies” during the summer of 2018.

Moore said he brought up a line from the movie he thought was funny at the time: “Women: Can’t live with ‘em, can’t kill ‘em.”

He said he told the joke to Frazee, laughing lightheartedly. But he said Frazee responded: “Not so. No body, no crime.” Moore said he blew it off as a joke.

After the FBI took Frazee’s phone in December, he met with Moore in Woodland Park and asked to use his phone to make a call on Dec. 4, 2018. Moore said the call lasted 5 minutes, 58 seconds, according to his cell.

Moore said he could only hear what Frazee was saying — not what the person on the other line was saying. He said they were discussing horses.

“If I get arrested — because they’ve taken my phone — I’m going to have my friend here call you and it will be from this phone number so come and get these horses,” Frazee said over the phone, according to Moore.

Moore said the area code for the number was 208, which indicates an Idaho number. He said he never talked to the person Frazee called that day.

In early December, Frazee started to make many comments about Pike and San Isabel National Forest further west of Florissant, Moore said. Frazee said if Berreth had committed suicide, she could just run up to the national forest and do it and nobody would ever find her. Frazee said there were parts of the national forest where no man has ever been, or ever would be for thousands of years. Moore said Frazee brought this topic up often — that Berreth had gone to the national forest and had killed herself.

One time, Moore said he asked how that could be the case if investigators said her cell phone had pinged off a cell tower in Idaho, to which Frazee replied, “Huh. Yeah.”

When they talked about their Thanksgiving plans, Moore said Frazee said he had picked Kaylee up from Berreth on Nov. 22, went to the bank and Walmart, fed cattle and then went home to have Thanksgiving at the Frazee ranch. Moore said he was acting “very odd, very nervous” as he said this.

During one of their trips down to Westcliffe to take care of cattle there in December 2018, Frazee mentioned to Moore than Berreth’s blood could be on him. He said she had a nosebleed and put her head in his lap, so he got blood on his pants, shirt and boots.

“Do you think they’ll be able to find any of that even though it’s all been washed?” Frazee asked, according to Moore.

Moore replied that authorities can find blood even where people can’t see it.

He never wondered out loud where Berreth was or if she was OK, Moore said. When he’d say that he hoped Berreth would just show up and everything would go back to normal, Frazee wouldn’t react, he said.

On several trips, Frazee asked, “Why are they even investigating this? If there’s no body, there’s no crime. What are they even after me for? What do they think they’re going to find?” Moore said he remembered.

Frazee said during one call with Moore that their conversation “was being recorded” but he felt like he needed to ask if anything was “disrupted by the red barn” which Moore understood as the red barn at Nash Ranch. Moore said no, and Frazee said, “Oh, alright, just curious.” This phone call had indeed been recorded and was played in court Friday afternoon.

After this call, Moore immediately called Frazee’s attorney and then law enforcement. He then went down to Nash Ranch, but didn’t report seeing anything out of the norm, aside from noting that some alfalfa hay that had previously been there was was no longer in the barn. He said he did not get on top of the hay bales at any time.

Moore said they talked again on Dec. 20, 2018.

“He couldn’t understand what this whole big thing was all about,” Moore said. “It made no sense to him. (He said) ‘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 is such a big deal over this.’”

Moore replied that a white, beautiful, young mother had gone missing, so it was what the media cared about.

He said Frazee’s response was: “Man, if I had known it would have blown up this big, I never would have —” and didn’t finish sentence.

Moore said he never asked Frazee if he killed Berreth.

The defense confirmed a few details from Moore’s testimony, noting that the two liked to joke around a lot and sometimes “talked BS.”

Moore was excused but not released and was ordered to stay available to the District Attorney’s Office.

Live tweeting and live reporting is not allowed in the courtroom, per a court decorum. The trial is expected to last three weeks.

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Patrick Frazee murder trial: ‘I figured out a way to kill her,' friend testifies Frazee told him

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