Actions

Patrick Frazee murder trial: Krystal Kenney recounts cleanup of Kelsey Berreth murder scene

Denver7

Courthouse pic with Kelsey Berreth and Patrick Frazee.jpg

By: Stephanie Butzer and Blair Miller | Denver7 and Sam Kraemer | KOAA

Posted

and last updated

CRIPPLE CREEK, Colo. — For the first time in Patrick Frazee's murder trial, Krystal Lee Kenney — whom he allegedly asked for help in killing his fiancée — took to the witness stand in Teller County court to testify how she says Frazee manipulated her into being involved in his fiancée's death, how he killed Kelsey Berreth and made her clean up the gruesome scene.

The most explosive testimony so far from the state's key witness took place Wednesday afternoon, as Kenney recalled the plot, the cleanup, Frazee's recounting of the murder and what happened afterward that led the FBI to her front door in Idaho. Earlier in the day, a specialist with the FBI's cellular analysis team explained his analysis of the cell records for the phones belonging to Frazee, Kenney and Berreth.

Frazee, 33, of Florissant, is accused of murdering Kelsey 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.

The prosecution will continue to bring their remaining witnesses forward Wednesday, and the defense will cross-examine them if they wish.

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

Cell records analyzed by specialist for FBI cellular analysis team

The state called Kevin Hoyland, a FBI special agent who’s worked at the bureau for 7.5 years, as their first witness of Wednesday morning.

He works for the cellular analysis team, which was created in 2010. The role includes collecting cell data and records and making sense of them in relation to a case. He’s had about 400 hours of classroom instruction from the FBI and private companies — including phone companies like Verizon, Sprint, AT&T and others — on this kind of analysis. He said he's certified and renews his certification every year.

Hoyland said he’s called upon to analyze call detail records, also called CDRs, almost every single day. He’s working on about 500 cases that involved CDR analysis, he said. A Supreme Court ruling in 2018 ruled that CDRs are so accurate, they’re essentially a tracking device and thus require a search warrant, Hoyland said.

The state entered multiple Verizon records as evidence. They are the records for the three phones he analyzed, which belonged to Berreth, Frazee and Kenney.

He developed a PowerPoint for his analysis and presented it to the court on Wednesday.

When we call somebody or send a text, our cell phones look for the tower that can offer the cleanest and clearest signal, he said. It’s not always the closest one, which comes into play in Colorado with the mountains and signals, which can throw “the cell network out of whack,” he said.

With that information, he could “confidently map” when a phone was in a tower’s coverage area. Verizon only catches CDR data for calls, not texts. He also noted that the towers have three sides, frequently called sectors, and he can use those to find data to learn what direction the phone is in relation to the tower.

Range-to-tower data, also called RTT data, is another type of CDR that can explain how far a phone is from the tower when it connects, he explained. He will keep successful RTT connections for eight days and unsuccessful RTT connections, like a dropped call or a text that can’t send, for 30 days. He said the RTT data is often used in rural areas, where cell service can be spotty.

Hoyland said Teller County doesn’t “have a ton” of towers and his analysis focused on four or five of them. Rural areas typically have fewer and they’re spread apart.

The phone user must do something with the device — send email, make a call, send a text and more — for him to pinpoint where it was. Hoyland said he can’t tell who is in possession of the phone.

He pulled up a slide of an analysis of an unidentified Verizon CDR. It showed the phone number, the second phone number, which phone called which, the call direction, duration, date and time, and the towers and sectors of those towers that were used. Hoyland said he didn’t use a change in cell tower data for this analysis.

While looking at the CDRs from Berreth’s phone, he learned her phone was on Frazee’s account and the records spanned from Nov. 21 to Nov. 25. The records for his phone were in the same date range.

He also gathered the main analysis of Kenney’s phone from Nov. 23 to Nov. 25.

When he started to map out Berreth’s records, he noticed her phone travel across Teller County. Then, it traveled out of Colorado. Ping data, which is different from CDRs, showed the phone in Gooding, Idaho, Hoyland said. Pings are only used to find the location of a phone, he explained.

Hoyland brought up a slide on the PowerPoint showing a map and the travel directions of Berreth’s phone and Frazee’s phone, starting on the evening of Nov. 21, 2018.

There is one Verizon tower in Woodland Park, one in Divide and one in Florissant, he said. The latter isn’t far from the Frazee’s ranch.

The records showed they were both in Florissant around 9 p.m. Nov. 21.

In the next slide, Hoyland pulled up another map. This one showed the phones traveling south from Florissant, using a Cripple Creek tower. It shows the RTT data. Verizon drew an arc to show how far away the phone is on that arc, though they couldn’t pinpoint where on the arc it was. All of the arcs were unsuccessful RTT connections, Hoyland said, though he used successful RTT data from other towers and was able to use multiple arcs for an “X marks the spot” type of finding, he said.

The next slide showed the phones moving away from the Cripple Creek tower and toward Nash Ranch, which is about 14.6 miles away and a 1,908 drop in elevation. Hoyland said he guessed that the radio frequency likely goes over the head of anybody who tries to use a phone a Nash Ranch.

Hoyland worked to establish facts through evidence included in previously-released documents that Frazee may have had Berreth’s phone after her disappearance, or that someone had both of their phones.

He said early on the morning of Nov. 22, the photos traveled away from Nash Ranch together, then east and then north toward Florissant and away from Cripple Creek.

He said the phone records showed that Frazee’s and Berreth’s phones interacted with one another several times between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m. in various places, including a tower near Florissant, a tower in Divide and a Woodland Park tower. He said that led him to conclude that Berreth traveled alone from Florissant to Woodland Park, then back to Florissant, keeping in line with the story that she got Frazee medicine from the Walmart.

The two spoke via phone and text later that morning, in the 9 a.m. hour, Hoyland said. The next phone usage for both happened around 12:30 p.m. Hoyland said the last outgoing from Berreth that day happened at 12:33 p.m. and the next call made by her phone happened the morning of Nov. 24.

Hoyland said there was no activity with either phone between 12:33 p.m. and 4:20 p.m. on Nov. 22 but that Frazee’s phone utilized the Woodland Park tower at 4:34 and 4:37 p.m. – in a call to Kenney – then went up Highway 24 and connected in Divide at 4:43 p.m. His phone tried to connect to another tower near Florissant around 4:50 p.m., and 40 seconds later, Berreth’s did as well.

Hoyland said that the data was consistent in showing that the two phones were traveling together.

He said Kenney and Frazee’s phones connected later that evening and that the Frazee Ranch landline called Kenney’s phone in a conversation that lasted 47 minutes. Hoyland said that in the 10 p.m. hour, Berreth’s and Frazee’s phones again appeared to be on the move together.

Hoyland said the next morning, Nov. 23, there were calls from Frazee’s phone to Berreth’s in the Frazee Ranch sector and that he believes the phones were still together. Around 2 p.m., both phones utilized a tower in Westcliffe, and just after 3 p.m., both phones connected to a tower in Cripple Creek, and afterward continued traveling toward the Frazee Ranch.

The phones continued to interact with one another for the next few hours before Berreth’s phone stopped having connection around 5:30 p.m., Hoyland testified.

Hoyland then showed Kenney’s phone connecting to various towers between Idaho around 6:30 p.m. Nov. 23 all the way down through Salt Lake City and Grand Junction and into Florissant by 6:30 a.m. Nov. 24. He also showed connections showing her phone leaving the area around 7:30 p.m. on Nov. 24 and arriving back in Idaho around 10:30 a.m. Nov. 25.

As the court headed into morning recess, Judge Sells said he is expecting up to 80 other witnesses to testify. He also tells the court that he closed the courtroom Tuesday afternoon for motions, legal arguments and discussion of upcoming witnesses. He said investigators and the Berreth family were allowed to stay and the court did not hear any testimony.

Sells said that he plans to do so with future motions because of privacy concerns and the publicity the case has received in order to protect the integrity of the jury.

Court then took a recess.

State’s key witness, Kenney, takes to the stand

Krystal Lee Kenney, the woman who told authorities that Frazee asked her multiple times to kill Berreth and then demanded she clean up the mess and help him dispose of the body, was brought to the witness stand at 11 a.m. Wednesday. She was identified previously as the state's key witness.

She appeared tense. She wore a sweater with a collared shirt and had her hair in a braid.

When Lead Prosecutor Jennifer Viehman asked, Kenney said she has lived in Hansen, Idaho for 10 months. She grew up in Idaho, she said.

She met Frazee when she attended the Teller County Fair while working at a guest ranch in Lake George in 2006, she said. She was 20 at the time. She described him as tall, handsome and a “pretty good dude.”

She said she visited him in Colorado 10 times that year and they talked on the phone almost every day. They took weekend trips since she was in nursing school and working three to four part-time jobs. Kenney said she would drive to see him often, but there were times when he wouldn’t call for days at a time.

The last time she came to visit was August 2007.

That month, he asked her to go pick up some “things" for him on his property and while she did so, she said it was “not pleasant.” This was not expanded upon.

Between that day and a few months later, Frazee would call her and she wouldn’t answer, she said. At one point, she caved and talked with him, and while they remained friends, they didn’t talk often.

In September 2007, Kenney started dating another man, named Chad Lee. Kenney said Frazee knew about Lee because he had the password to her voicemail and had listened to one of Lee’s messages for her. She said she couldn’t remember why she gave Frazee her voicemail password — if it was because he asked for it or if she wanted him to see her as loyal.

In December of 2008, Frazee said he wanted to buy her a border collie. He said he had bought a dog in Texas that came with a puppy that he didn’t want, so he offered it to Kenney, she said. Kenney said she knew he raised them, along with other ranch animals. When she went to Colorado to pick up the dog, Frazee told her she had to make a choice between him and her Lee. At the time, Kenney said she knew he was dating another woman.

She said he told her, “You can’t ride two horses at the same time, so you need to make a choice.” When Viehman asked why Frazee would believe he was one of those “horses,” Kenney said he could probably tell that she still had feelings for him. She said, through tears on the witness stand, that she’d never felt that kind of chemistry before. He never talked about his feelings for her, she said.

Frazee told her to make a decision by March 2009, he said. But Kenney stayed with Lee. He knew about her relationship with Frazee when they started dating, Kenney said.

In April of that year, Frazee called asking for payment for the puppy he’d given her the previous December. He said the mother dog was going back to its owner in Texas. When Kenney didn’t send a check, he called again in May and said that he told her if she didn’t send the money, he’d come and kill the dog. She said she started crying on the phone because his comments upset her.

They didn’t have much contact after that conversation, she said.

In July 2010, she became engaged to Lee. Around that time, she talked with Frazee on the phone, where she apologized for not sending the check, but explained that she was mad at him for not keeping promises, she said. She said Lee told her they’d “be done” if she sent the money to Frazee.

She didn’t hear from Frazee again until Oct. 1, 2010, the day before her wedding to Lee, when he left a voicemail telling her not to get married and that he should have come to “rescue her,” she said.

Kenney explained that while she didn’t call him back, she felt conflicted. Lee felt like the right choice, but she felt in her heart that she was in love with Frazee, she said.

She started to cry on the witness stand. Frazee looked straight down.

She went forward with marrying Lee.

Kenney said she didn’t hear from Frazee again until 2013 or 2014 in the form of texts.

Around that time, she sent him a message asking how he was doing. By this time, she’d had a son in 2012 and a daughter in 2014. When the daughter’s name was mentioned in court, Frazee looked up at Kenney.

Kenney said the next time she and Frazee spoke to one another was when she visited the National Western Stock Show in January 2013, but she said the messages were brief and she said they did not talk for a while afterward.

Kenney said she had not seen Frazee in person since 2008. She told Viehman that she and Frazee did not speak over the phone until 2015, when she and her husband were having difficulties with their relationship. She texted Frazee while she was at a nursing conference in Texas and Frazee told her she could call him anytime and that he’d love to hear from her.

Afterward, Kenney said, they began to talk more frequently. She planned a trip to Colorado to see family and friends, and she called Frazee in 2015. He asked her to come look at some heifers and they met up at a gas station in Florissant to do so.

“It was like nothing had changed – still the same giddy feeling,” she told the court, acknowledging she still had feelings for Frazee at the time. She said Frazee told her he felt the same way and that they had both grown up since they were last together.

Kenney told the court that the two had an affair on that visit, which happened around October 2015. They continued to talk over the phone, she said, nearly every day. She said she continued to see him into 2016 and visited him in person as he encouraged her to get a divorce.

In February 2016, she asked an attorney to draw up divorce papers and told Frazee about it. She said he discussed wanting to have a family together and talked about her being the one who got away. But she said she had some reservations because of her relationship with her husband and that she was not convinced he wouldn’t cheat on her.

But she did not file the papers at the time despite Frazee’s encouragement. That March, she learned she was pregnant, and that Frazee was the child’s father, she testified Wednesday. She said she thought it would make her happy, but it didn’t and that she worried about having a child out of wedlock. She said she asked Frazee what to do, and said he responded, “I guess you’re a baby killer or you’re not,” hinting at an abortion.

She said that she cried at Frazee’s reaction but went through with an abortion, but she told Frazee she had a miscarriage. She also told him she’d file the divorce papers but worried about her other children.

She eventually filed in May 2016 after speaking more with Frazee but testified Wednesday that he had no reaction and that they didn’t talk again until October 2017.

In late October 2017, Frazee texted her asking if she still liked her kids, she said. He then called her and they spoke for about two hours, but she said he mentioned nothing about having a child of his own or about Berreth. But she said she felt happy to reconnect with Frazee and they began to talk again.

In March 2018, she testified, she came to Colorado and met up with Frazee to shoe horses and look at land. They went to dinner afterward, Kenney said, and at no point did Frazee mention Berreth or their daughter.

She returned to Colorado again at the end of June 2018 to meet with former coworkers and eventually Frazee. But he blew her off at first before answering a call to his landline, at which time they agreed to meet up so she could help him fix a fence.

While they were doing so, she testified, he mentioned how nice it would be to have a son to help, and at one point handed her a baby wipe with which to blow her nose, though she thought little of it.

She went and had a meal with one of her former bosses, who asked her what she thought about the fact that Frazee had a daughter, she said. She testified that her jaw hit the floor as he described how great of a dad Frazee was and about how Frazee “didn’t have help.” But Kenney said she didn’t verbalize the surprise she felt as no one was aware she and Frazee were talking again.

After meal with her boss, she left Frazee a message saying the meeting had gone well. He called her back and they talked about ranches and children, though he again did not say anything about his daughter, Kenney testified.

The court then went on a lunch break.

Kenney says she tells Frazee she knows about the daughter

After a break, court resumed, and Kenney took the stand again.

She told the court that she returned to Colorado in August to pick up a horse her aunt had purchased. She testified earlier that she had gone in with Frazee and the two purchased a horse in July, although she said Frazee didn’t accompany her to Kansas to pick up the horse.

During the August trip, Kenney came down and loaded the horses and rode one of them. At one point, she handed him a bag of baby items and told him, “I know,” referring to his and Berreth’s daughter. He said it wasn’t the time to talk about it.

During their time together, Kenney said Frazee didn’t really talk about his daughter. She said he would talk about “protecting the innocent” when his daughter was brought up in the pair’s conversations.

But she said that changed in early September, when Frazee sent Kenney a photo of his daughter, Kaylee – the first time, she testified, she had seen a photo of the girl. She said she felt she was being “pawned.”

After sharing the photo, Kenney said Frazee began talking to her about Berreth, referring to her only as “the mother of my child” and not by her name. Kenney testified Wednesday she was still in the dark as to the true nature of the relationship between Frazee and Berreth.

During these conversations, Frazee told Kenney that Berreth was abusing Kaylee, their daughter, according to her testimony. Kenney said Frazee told her that Berreth was careless with the baby gate, allowing it to fall on Kaylee. He also told her about an alleged incident where he said Berreth intentionally slammed the fridge door on Kaylee’s hand and Frazee had to take the child to the emergency room.

She testified that she later understood that Frazee and Berreth were engaged in an active custody battle for Kaylee after witnessing ordered exchanges of the child at the police station.

Kenney said that Frazee never showed his daughter in the photos of the alleged abuse taken by Berreth, only ones he had taken. She said he then asked her if she was willing to do anything to protect the innocent and started opening up about the alleged abuse by Berreth of their daughter.

She told the court she told him to report it to child protective services, which he said he had done but claimed he wasn’t taken seriously.

The coffee plan

Viehman said that beginning in October, Frazee started asking about what needed to be done – what would happen if someone took too much of a sleep aid or other drugs. She told him that if someone mixed Ambien and Valium it would hurt them.

She testified that Frazee told her his daughter was in “imminent danger” and that he “had to do something.” She already had plans to go to a birthday party in Greeley and testified that Frazee said she should come down to check out a horse trailer.

At the same time, she testified, he told her Berreth liked caramel macchiatos and that she should spike one with the drug cocktail so “we can end this.”

“People go missing every day. … She had gone to an alcohol and drug rehab facility. It wouldn’t be out of the ordinary,” she testified Frazee told her, claiming Berreth had been to rehab in August.

After the party in Greeley, she told her aunt she wanted to swing by and see a “friend” – which was actually Berreth – in Woodland Park. The aunt went with Kenney to Woodland Park, but Kenney said she was unaware of the plot to poison Berreth with the coffee. They met up and Frazee showed her a photo of Berreth, Kenney testified. She already had Berreth’s address from a prior conversation.

After they looked at the trailer, Kenney told her aunt she needed to run a coffee to a friend. “He wanted [Berreth] not to be a problem anymore,” Kenney testified, saying she took that as Frazee wanting Berreth dead.

She said she bought a drink from the Starbucks in Woodland Park and was driven by her aunt to Berreth’s townhome. Once there, she testified, she got out of the truck, but her aunt stayed inside.

Kenney testified that the meeting with Berreth happened around 9 p.m. She described Berreth as guarded and made small talk about finding a dog. Kenney said she did not put the drugs in the drink but offered it to Berreth as she tried to get a feeling for her to see if Frazee was being truthful.

They talked about where they were from and Berreth said she had moved there because of Frazee and the baby. They made more small talk before Berreth took the coffee. Kenney became emotional during this testimony, saying she didn’t want to hurt Berreth and hoped Frazee would be relieved nothing happened to her.

But he wasn’t, Kenney testified. She said he called the next morning after she left back to Idaho aggressively asking her what happened. She told him Berreth must not have drank the coffee.

The next plan takes shape

Kenney said that after that trip, she felt Frazee wasn’t assured about his reasoning for “getting rid of Kelsey,” as she testified. She said he told her that this kind of stuff happens all the time, but she was too sheltered to know.

That’s when she said she went to a friend and supervisor at the hospital who had experience with trauma. She said she told her that a friend had a daughter whose mother was abusing her and that the friend wanted Kenney’s help killing the mother. She says she showed the friend a photo of Berreth and Frazee’s daughter and that she felt compelled to do something but not harm Berreth. The friend told her to document it. After Kenney left, she said Wednesday, she texted the friend apologizing and saying she felt stupid for being in the position she was in.

Kenney said she and Frazee then talked about the situation in which she would have the chance to “redeem herself,” as she says Frazee put it, multiple times over the phone. She testified that they would talk over the phone because Frazee didn’t want anything in writing.

Kenney said that Frazee told her he needed the “problem” taken care of, claiming the alleged abuse Berreth was imparting on their daughter and him was increasing in frequency. But Kenney said Wednesday she had no reason to believe Frazee’s claims and started to significantly doubt them, partially because she met the daughter and didn’t see any harm to her.

When she was back in Colorado, she testified, she says she tried to show Frazee she was not capable of killing Berreth. Eventually, she said he grabbed a pipe, handed it to her and said to “make sure there wasn’t a lot of blood” by hitting Berreth in the back of her head. She testified he told her to make sure no one sees her. She said she believes that conversation happened on Oct. 15, 2018.

She testified that Frazee told her “it’s not that hard” and said that other friends of his that could have killed Berreth were too close to the situation.

She went to Berreth’s town home and sat there for a moment, she testified. When she opened her car door, a dog barked, so she said she drove back to the Frazee Ranch, dropped off the pipe and slept in a gas station parking lot.

The next morning, Kenney said, Frazee called her asking what happened, to which she said there were too many people around and she couldn’t do it. While Frazee was working that day, she said, she took care of Berreth’s and Frazee’s daughter.

Kenney said when Frazee got back, he criticized her performance of certain tasks on the ranch, which is when Kenney said she realized that Berreth “was probably doing nothing wrong.”

She said that Frazee told her she had one more chance, asked her if she had a bat and told her to “swing away.”

Kenney testified that she drove to Berreth’s home, got out of the car with the bat and sat on the ground as Berreth and Frazee exchanged their daughter elsewhere. She said she feared “it was going to be her or me” as she cried on the stand.

She said she got back in her car and drove toward Florissant, passing Berreth along the way. She met back up with Frazee and told him she couldn’t kill Berreth and wouldn’t do it, she said. Kenney claimed Frazee continued to tell her that if anything happened to his daughter as a result of Berreth, it would be her fault.

She said he also continued to threaten her, claiming he said at one point that her ex-husband was a “really good dad” and would “be OK on his own.” She said that he got out of the car and slammed the door. She said he told her to put Berreth’s body in a garbage can, take her to Idaho and “figure something out.”

In court, Frazee was looking down as Kenney recounted the episode.

Kenney responded to Viehman’s question about if she called police by saying she did not because she figured Frazee had a plan to make the plot fall back on her if she didn’t follow through.

“I was right,” she testified Wednesday. “I just wanted to ignore the problem. … He’s saying his little girl is being abused. … I understand it was wrong, but I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t make the right decisions.”

“He told me I have a mess to clean up”

She went back to Idaho. But on Nov. 4, she said Wednesday, Frazee called her and said that was the weekend for her to come back and commit the murder. But she was in the car with family and said she couldn’t talk.

He called back a half hour later, she said, and again said it was time. She said she looked at flights, but they were too expensive and told Frazee she couldn’t. She says she then didn’t hear from him again until Nov. 21.

She said he called to talk and that they had a fairly normal conversation but didn’t mention his Thanksgiving plans.

Kenney said Wednesday that he called again early the next morning, Nov. 22, but she didn’t answer. He texted her a happy Thanksgiving and said to call him, which she did. Kenney said at one point he told her to “answer her f---ing phone.”

She said he called again several times later that day while she was having Thanksgiving with her family and said he sounded rattled. “He told me I have a mess to clean up,” she testified. She said she had never heard him that rattled.

She asked him about the mess, she said, and he asked her how soon she could get to Colorado, but she said she wasn’t sure. She testified that he told her to figure it out and hung up.

She said he called again the next day to see if she had a plan. She said she believed at the time that Frazee had either killed Berreth or was setting her up. She said he complained about Berreth taking a while to get him medication.

She testified that she told him she wasn’t sure she could make it down to Colorado that day because she was supposed to work that weekend. But she changed her shift and called her friend and asked if it was OK to take her car to Colorado, and her friend said yes. They swapped cars at a Walmart in Jerome, Idaho, she testified, then went home, grabbed her supplies and clothes and left.

She told the court she talked to Frazee on the way down, though Salt Lake, Grand Junction, Breckenridge and into Florissant. She said the drive took about 12 hours – that she left around 6 p.m. and arrived around 6:30 a.m. Nov. 24.

She said the most memorable of the conversations between the two on the drive happened around midnight, when she stopped for gas in Wellington. She said that Frazee told her she had a lot of blood to clean up and it was mostly in the living room.

“There were details enough to know that it probably did happen,” she testified.

“At first, I didn’t believe him,” she said Wednesday, adding that she thought he was trying to get her down to Colorado to commit the murder. She said the midnight conversation made her scared.

She says that Frazee had previously told her something about a month earlier she couldn’t get out of her head: “When you’re in as deep as I was in, it’s not uncommon for little girls to go missing from the playground.”

She said Frazee left the keys to Berreth’s townhome on his gate. She said Frazee gave her enough details about what she needed to do that she believed Berreth was already dead – that she would have to wipe off some candles, make sure the bathroom “looked good” and “getting the footprints” wiped away in the living room, she testified.

Just before the court recessed again, Kenney said that Frazee told her one more thing to look for: Berreth’s tooth inside a vent.

The cleanup

Kenney again retook the stand for questioning by prosecutors after the break and discussed the key part of her testimony: Berreth’s alleged murder and the cleanup.

She said she parked at the Woodland Park Cultural Center a little after 7 a.m. She took the cleaning items and trash bags she brought and walked up the sidewalk to Berreth’s townhome.

She testified she opened the door and “saw a lot of blood” on the living room floor and the walls of the townhome. She said she walked further into the townhome and found blood spatter on the east wall, on stuffed animals, an exercise ball, a chest, another wall and on the stove and dishwasher.

“It wasn’t like a can of paint thrown on the wall,” she said. “It was like if you took a paintbrush and flicked paint on the wall.”

She said she could not help but thinking she was “probably next.” She said she didn’t know Frazee was capable of doing what he allegedly did and felt regret that she did nothing to stop it.

She testified Frazee called her and asked her what she thought and told her to look at certain items in the house when cleaning. She said she hung up, put on a painter’s suit, shoe covers, rubber gloves and a hair cover and started to clean.

She told prosecutors the blood was dry. She said she did not bring any cloths or towels to clean up, so she used rags from the bathroom. She filled an empty spray bottle with bleach, she said.

She said she cleaned as much of the furniture and floor as she could, but that the curtains and stuffed animals couldn’t be cleaned, so she used some of Berreth’s trash bags to dispose of them. She testified she also had to put several other items into the trash bags.

A framed photo of Berreth, Frazee and their daughter also had to be cleared of blood, she said. She also found a bloody sweater that had the sleeves tied up but thought nothing of it at the time.

She followed bloody footprints up the stairs, she said, found the candles Frazee had mentioned and cleaned those. Kenney described the footprints as being larger in size and appearing to be bootprints. She said they were all over the kitchen, near the bedroom and in the bathroom.

After cleaning as much as she could, she said the floor was the last object to be addressed. She said it took 4 hours to clean the whole place. When she moved a cedar chest inside, she found the tooth in question, she said.

But she said she was unable to clean all the blood on the fireplace and behind the chest she did not try to clean up. When asked why she didn’t, she said that she knew the situation was “trouble” and that she didn’t know what was going to happen to her.

“I left little spots so that somebody would see it and then it would raise suspicion or question on what happened,” Kennedy told the court, adding that she hoped police would find the blood.

She testified she used rags, on her hands and knees, to mop the floor and that she ended up with six bags of items and cleaning trash. She said she took them outside and put them in the alley next to Berreth’s car.

Kenney testified that Frazee called her multiple times as she was cleaning, telling her to clean other certain items. When she was done, she locked the door, loaded the trash bags into her trunk and left. He said Frazee wanted her to make the townhome look like “she had left on her own free will.”

Kenney said Frazee told her to send certain text messages about looking at horses at certain times after she left, which she did. She also stopped at a Sonic and got herself a drink and Frazee and his daughter lunches, she said, and wanted to make herself appear as normal as possible when she saw him.

Once she met up with him, she said he asked her, “Did you get it done?”

She said she replied, “I did the best I could do,” to which Frazee allegedly responded, “You better hope you did because our lives depend on it.”

The alleged murder

After they ate, Kenney said, Frazee started discussing what happened to Berreth.

“He told me how hard it was to eat Thanksgiving dinner with my family when the mother of your child is in a tote in the back of your truck,” she recounted Wednesday. She said Frazee went on to say that he thought Berreth would harm their daughter and needed to stop her.

Kenney said this is where the sweater she said she picked off Berreth’s floor popped back into her memory. She said that Frazee told her he had brought a baseball bat in under his sweater and tied the other sweater around Berreth’s eyes to play a “guess the scent” game with candles.

She testified that Frazee told her he “swung away” but called the method “inhumane” and said in the future he would stick to “normal weapons.” She said that he told her he brought a tote in from the back of the truck after he killed Berreth and put the bat inside, then washed his pants and tried cleaning up. She said some of the details of that conversation were fresher when she spoke with investigators last December.

The disposal

Kenney said while she was at his ranch, she told him she had to go home to Idaho because she needed to be at a birthday party and most of her family thought she was still in town.

She said that on Nov. 25, he brought her Berreth’s phone and gave her the password, telling her to drive back to Woodland Park and text Berreth’s mother saying she’d call the next day. She said she drove by Berreth’s house, parked and sent the text. She then went back to Frazee’s ranch, where they again met up. She said he told her they were going to get the tote at Nash Ranch.

Once they got there, she said, they used a tractor to retrieve the tote from atop a haystack he said he had put it on top of on Thanksgiving and moved it to the back of his truck. She said there was a gun nearby, but she never got up on the haystack or truck bed to look at the tote. They then drove back to his ranch, she said.

On the way back, she said, Frazee started crying when they discussed what might happen with his daughter, and he said Kenney might have to take her. He told her where his cattle papers were and where the key to his safe was.

When they arrived back to the ranch, she said, he dragged the tote into a water trough near what she recalled was the top of the driveway that was filled with wooden pallets. She said he grabbed a multi-gallon gas can then poured gasoline on top of it and inside. She said she did not look inside the tote as he opened it because she didn’t want to.

She said he threw a match onto the doused tote and pallets, which went up in “huge” flames, Kenney recalled. She said he put a piece of tin on top of the tote to try and tame the fire, then threw in a bottle of motor oil so the fire would burn hotter. She said he also soaked firewood in buckets of gasoline, tossed those in the fire, then tossed those buckets as well.

She took his truck to the gas station where she had left her car, retrieved it and took it back to the ranch, where she left the trash bags, she testified. She then took Frazee back to his truck, during which time she says he told her that he wanted to make it look like Berreth disappeared, so she needed to take Berreth’s phone as far away as possible. She said Frazee also told her to take Berreth’s purse and gun.

Kenney testified that Frazee told her to drive as far as she could, then text Berreth’s employer from Berreth’s phone saying she was going to visit her sick grandmother and that she wouldn’t be at work. She claimed he also told her to text a man from Berreth’s phone saying, “Do you even love me?”

As she drove north back to Idaho, she says Frazee also told her to text him photos from Berreth’s phone. She testified she was wary of the phones pinging and turned Berreth’s off between Grand Junction and Salt Lake City. But at one point, she said, Frazee called her on Berreth’s phone, but she said that made her uncomfortable and asked him to call her on her own phone.

Kenney testified she sent the “do you even love me” text and the text to Berreth’s boss near Malad Gorge State Park, Idaho – about 45 minutes from her home – then shut off the phone.

She said she drove five miles, called Frazee, and “told him that it was done.”

She said she took Berreth’s gun to a friend, saying it was a suicidal aunt’s, then burned Berreth’s phone and purse at her home in Kimberly, Idaho. She testified that she put the ashes in a silver box, then into a plastic bag that she dumped in a trash bin on her way to work.

She said Frazee talked to her “a lot” on Nov. 26.

“I felt like he was coaching me, when I got back, to get my mouth shut,” she said. She said Frazee told her to stick with the horse story if she was contacted by police. But she said she was worried she was dispensable at that point.

The next day, she testified, Frazee called her a few more times and told her to stick to the same story. She said that Frazee called her on Dec. 2 saying Berreth’s mother wanted him to check on her daughter and that news reports showed her phone pinged near Gooding, Idaho. He told her to keep cool, she said.

On Dec. 3, Kenney testified, Frazee called her to say he had an attorney and had told the attorney that Berreth had wanted space and wanted to keep custody of their daughter – the same story he told Berreth’s mother.

The FBI calls, and Kenney cooperates

Kenney said he would call her every day until Dec. 4.

On that day, she said, Frazee called one of her family members and said the FBI had taken his phone and was going to question him the next day. She said he asked again if she had destroyed the evidence and asked about her phone, which she burned the next day on her property. He told her to stick to the story, stay cool and not to say much.

But when she was at a national rodeo event in Las Vegas on Dec. 14, she was contacted by an FBI agent. She testified that she was not surprised, as her ex-husband had called the night before saying FBI agents came to his father’s house looking for her. At the time, she testified, she told her ex that she was being framed and told him the horse story she and Frazee had concocted.

She said Wednesday she lied to the agent at the time, saying she was scared that if she didn’t cooperate with Frazee that something would happen to her or her daughter.

“I knew that it was coming, and I didn’t feel comfortable,” she testified. “I didn’t know how to handle the situation.”

She told the agents that she didn’t know who Berreth was and that she had last seen Frazee 1 ½ months ago.

She returned from Las Vegas two days later. The next morning, FBI and Colorado Bureau of Investigation agents were at her door with a search warrant for buccal swabs. They told her they knew she had lied, and she said she agreed.

She testified that the agents told her she could be helpful, and she agreed to cooperate, but also said she would hire an attorney. Kenney said that she was willing to cooperate now that the FBI and CBI agents were involved because she finally “felt safe.”

She testified that she provided her statement to investigators on Dec. 20 and did a site tour of Berreth’s home, the Frazee ranch and Nash Ranch the next day, giving up all the alleged details about the case, including what she says Frazee told her were Berreth’s last words:

“Please stop.”

Court adjourned for the day just before 5 p.m. and will be back in session Thursday morning.

Prosecutors picked up with questioning of Kenney on Thursday morning at 10:30 a.m. Kenney said that Frazee’s and Berreth’s 1-year-old daughter was present for her mother’s murder. Click here to read updates from Day 5.

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.

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

Actions

Patrick Frazee murder trial: Krystal Kenney recounts cleanup of Kelsey Berreth murder scene

The Morning Headlines, sign up for a mix of what you need to know to start the day in Colorado, picked for you.

now signed up to receive the The Morning Headlines.