Woman says man told her to kill fiancee before fatal beating

After urging a woman he was having an affair with for months to kill his fiancee, investigators say a Colorado man did it himself on Thanksgiving Day, bludgeoning her to death with a baseball bat.

The grim details revealed in a Colorado courtroom Tuesday provided the first public account of what led prosecutors to charge Patrick Frazee with murder and other charges in the death of Kelsey Berreth, the mother of his 1-year-old daughter.

Berreth, a 29-year-old flight instructor, was last seen on Nov. 22 near her home in a mountain town near Colorado Springs, south of Denver. Her body has not been found.

Patrick Frazee's mother, Sheila Frazee, right, heads up the hill to the Teller County Courthouse in Cripple Creek, Colo., Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2019, before Patrick Frazee appeared in court. Patrick Frazee, charged with murder in the death of his missing fiancee Kelsey Berreth, tried to convince a woman he was having an affair with to commit the killing, investigators testified Tuesday. (Jerilee BennettThe Gazette via AP)

Investigators testified that Frazee began planning Berreth's death in September and enlisted an Idaho woman who told authorities they been having a romantic relationship for several months before that.

Krystal Jean Lee Kenney, a 32-year-old former nurse, told police that Frazee claimed Berreth was abusing the couple's 1-year-old daughter. Police said there is no evidence that the girl was abused by her mother or anyone else.

Frazee asked Kenney to kill Berreth three times, Colorado Bureau of Investigation Agent Gregg Slater testified Tuesday.

Slater said Kenney reported that Frazee suggested using a poisoned drink from Starbucks in September. Kenney told police that Frazee later told her to hit Berreth in the head using a metal pipe or a baseball bat.

Kenney said he was angry each time she failed to act. She loved Frazee and wanted to make him happy but could not hurt Berreth, Slater said.

Kenney received a call from Frazee on Nov. 22 demanding that she drive to Colorado, Slater said.

"You got a mess to clean up," Frazee said according to Kenney's account to police.

She said she arrived two days later and found a "horrific" scene with blood spattered on the walls and floors of Berreth's townhome, Slater said.

Kenney told police that Frazee had wrapped a sweater around Berreth's head before beating her to death with a baseball bat and stashing her body on a ranch. After she cleaned the house, Kenney said she went with Frazee to retrieve Berreth's body and watched as Frazee burned it on his property along with the wooden bat, Slater said.

She said Frazee later told her he planned to throw the remains in a dump or river.

Kenney has pleaded guilty to tampering with evidence and is required to testify against Frazee as part of her plea agreement with prosecutors.

Following the daylong hearing, Teller County Judge Scott Sells found there is enough evidence for Frazee to stand trial for murder and other charges.

He was arrested last December, about a month after Berreth was last seen alive on Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 22. Prosecutors announced additional charges this week, including tampering with a deceased body.

Frazee has not entered a plea to any of the allegations.

His attorneys focused most of their questions Tuesday on Kenney's account.

Police acknowledged that Kenney did not see Berreth's body or a baseball bat. They also said Kenney denied knowing Berreth or having a personal relationship with Frazee when investigators first contacted her in mid-December.

Defense attorneys also highlighted a lack of blood or other physical evidence detected in Frazee's truck and questioned the Berreth family's access to Kelsey's townhome following initial police searches. Blood in the bathroom identified as Berreth's was discovered Dec. 6, days after police turned the property over to her family.

Apart from Kenney's account, the prosecution's case relies heavily on data from cell phone towers charting the physical location of phones belonging to Berreth, Frazee and Kenney. Investigators testified that data showed Berreth's cell phone was always in the same location as Frazee's phone or Kenney's phone after Nov. 22.

The hearing did not reveal why prosecutors believe Frazee killed Berreth. Her parents argue in a wrongful death lawsuit that they believe Frazee wanted full custody of the couple's 1-year-old daughter. The child has remained with them while the criminal case proceeds.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Nationwide protests challenging Iran's theocracy saw protesters flood the streets in the country's capital and its second-largest city into Sunday, crossing the two-week mark as violence surrounding the demonstrations has killed at least 116 people, activists said.

With the internet down in Iran and phone lines cut off, gauging the demonstrations from abroad has grown more difficult. But the death toll in the protests has grown, while 2,600 others have been detained, according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency.

Those abroad fear the information blackout will embolden hard-liners within Iran's security services to launch a bloody crackdown, despite warnings from U.S. President Donald Trump he's willing to strike the Islamic Republic to protect peaceful demonstrators.

Trump offered support for the protesters, saying on social media that “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!” The New York Times and Wall Street Journal, citing anonymous U.S. officials, said on Saturday night that Trump had been given military options for a strike on Iran, but hadn’t made a final decision.

The State Department separately warned: “Do not play games with President Trump. When he says he’ll do something, he means it.”

Online videos sent out of Iran, likely using Starlink satellite transmitters, purportedly showed demonstrators gathering in northern Tehran's Punak neighborhood. There, it appeared authorities shut off streets, with protesters waving their lit mobile phones. Others banged metal while fireworks went off.

Other footage purportedly showed demonstrators peacefully marching down a street and others honking their car horns on the street.

In Mashhad, Iran's second-largest city, some 725 kilometers (450 miles) northeast of Tehran, footage purported to show protesters confronting security forces. Flaming debris and dumpsters could be seen in the street, blocking the road. Mashhad is home to the Imam Reza shrine, the holiest in Shiite Islam, making the protests there carry heavy significance for the country's theocracy.

Protests also appeared to happen in Kerman, 800 kilometers (500 miles) southeast of Tehran.

Iranian state television on Sunday morning took a page from demonstrators, having their correspondents appear on streets in several cities to show calm areas with a date stamp shown on screen. Tehran and Mashhad were not included. They also showed pro-government demonstrations in Qom and Qazvin.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has signaled a coming clampdown, despite U.S. warnings. Tehran escalated its threats Saturday, with Iran’s attorney general, Mohammad Movahedi Azad, warning that anyone taking part in protests will be considered an “enemy of God,” a death-penalty charge. The statement carried by Iranian state television said even those who “helped rioters” would face the charge.

Iran’s theocracy cut off the nation from the internet and international telephone calls on Thursday, though it allowed some state-owned and semiofficial media to publish. Qatar’s state-funded Al Jazeera news network reported live from Iran, but they appeared to be the only major foreign outlet able to work.

Iran’s exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, who called for protests Thursday and Friday, asked in his latest message for demonstrators to take to the streets Saturday and Sunday. He urged protesters to carry Iran’s old lion-and-sun flag and other national symbols used during the time of the shah to “claim public spaces as your own.”

Pahlavi’s support of and from Israel has drawn criticism in the past — particularly after the 12-day war. Demonstrators have shouted in support of the shah in some protests, but it isn’t clear whether that’s support for Pahlavi himself or a desire to return to a time before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The demonstrations began Dec. 28 over the collapse of the Iranian rial currency, which trades at over 1.4 million to $1, as the country’s economy is squeezed by international sanctions in part levied over its nuclear program. The protests intensified and grew into calls directly challenging Iran’s theocracy.

In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media from Iran showed protesters once again taking to the streets of Tehran despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world in Tehran, Iran, Saturday Jan. 10, 2026. (UGC via AP)