Investigators found a partial tooth in the dirt next to an area of melted plastic where prosecutors’ key witness said Patrick Frazee burned the body of his fiancé, Kelsey Berreth, after he killed her.
But at the end of Friday’s testimony it remained unclear whether the tooth belonged to the 29-year-old instructor pilot. Upcoming testimony will give more information on the tooth fragment. If it is Berreth’s tooth, it is the only known remain of the Woodland Park mother, whose 2018 disappearance drew national attention to the rural ranchlands of Teller County.
The tooth and excavation of the burn area were part of prosecutors’ effort on Friday to corroborate the account told by their key witness, Krystal Lee Kenney. The Idaho nurse testified over two days that she cleaned up a bloody crime scene and helped Frazee burn Berreth’s body after the Florissant rancher bludgeoned his fiancé to death with a bat on Thanksgiving Day.
Testimony on Friday also showed the breadth of the investigation into the Woodland Park mother’s disappearance and alleged murder by her fiancé. Prosecutors called in Kenney’s father as well as a Woodland Park Sonic Drive In manager who helped investigators find video of Kenney at the fast food restaurant, and the man who runs security at the Idaho hospital where Kenney worked. Some of the witnesses’ testimony lasted less than five minutes.
The wide net of the investigation also entangled a longtime friend of Frazee, Joseph Moore, who said he knew Frazee since he was a boy and considered him like a stepson.
But Moore testified that Frazee in April 2018 made a comment that he had “figured out a way” to kill Berreth. Moore reacted in shock, he said, but Frazee didn’t take the comment back.
“He said, ‘No body, no crime’” Moore testified.
Six days after Thanksgiving but before Berreth was reported missing, Moore had a conversation with Frazee during which Frazee worried about having Kelsey Berreth’s blood on his clothes. Frazee said the blood was from a nosebleed Berreth had. He was worried after it had been washed if it would show traces of blood.
On Dec. 20, Moore said he had another conversation with Frazee, in which Frazee expressed shock that Berreth’s disappearance had attracted national attention.
“Then he said, ‘Man, if I had known it was going to blow up this big I never would have…’” Moore said. “Then he trailed off.”
Moore said he contacted both Frazee’s attorney and the police about the call.
Moore was the one who handled the forklift to place Radar on the hay bails. After this incident PF called Moore about any disturbance out at Nash. Unknown to PF Moore was already involved with LE and made another call after this jail call.
Moore is only the second person close to Frazee who has been called to testify thus far and became emotional while describing their relationship.
“You don’t want to picture someone you’ve known so long and have trusted,” Moore said, tears in his eyes. “You don’t want to think they could have done something like this.”
Many of the other witnesses gave testimony that corroborated Kenney’s account.
Kenney’s father, Sidney Dustin Kenney, corroborated his daughter’s story that she was at her Idaho home on Thanksgiving Day – the day Frazee allegedly killed Berreth.
Sidney Kenney spoke softly on the stand and said he was nervous. He described his oldest daughter as a people pleaser who was good at anything she put her mind to.
“I remember that she was really soft-hearted,” he said.
Security camera footage showed Kenney at a Woodland Park Sonic Drive-In on Nov. 24, the day she said she cleaned Berreth’s condo of blood. Images from a gas station showed Kenney and Frazee’s vehicles moving in and out of the parking lot, consistent with what Kenney told investigators, a Colorado Bureau of Investigation agent testified. The footage also showed Frazee filling a large red gas can on Nov. 24, the day Kenney said he used gas to fuel the fire that destroyed Berreth’s body.
On at least two occasions during the investigation, law enforcement brought dogs trained to detect the smell of decomposing human bodies to scenes involved in the case.
On Dec. 4, two days after Berreth’s mother reported her missing, a cadaver dog swept Berreth’s condo. While the dog alerted to a pair of dirty underwear in the bathroom, it did not alert anywhere else in the house, which Kenney said had been covered in blood a week prior.
But the dog’s handler, Brian Eberle, said it’s possible the blood wasn’t old enough yet to register as decomposed to the dog’s nose. The dog, Lucy, also alerted to the back bumper of Berreth’s car parked in the driveway – approximately the same spot where Kenney testified she placed bags of bloody items from the home while locking up the condo.
As described up above, another dog handler, Frank Hurst, and his bloodhound visited the Teller County ranch where Kenney said Frazee hid Berreth’s body in a plastic box. Although the dog searched the ranch’s barn on February 13 – more than two months after the body was allegedly moved from the area – his dog alerted to a hay bale with black stains.
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Circumstantial evidence: Fingerprint evidence, videotapes, sound recordings, photographs, and many other examples of physical evidence that support the drawing of an inference, i.e., circumstantial evidence, are considered very strong possible
evidence.
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Bam! Now wait for forensics to testify!
We still have 60+ witnesses to testify yet. There was originally 257+ pieces of evidence.
Who said it again? It an't over till the fat lady sings!
