Latest / Murder Files Unsealed / Secret Lover Helps Cover Up Boyfriend’s Crime After Fiancée’s Brutal Murder

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Secret Lover Helps Cover Up Boyfriend’s Crime After Fiancée’s Brutal Murder · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Imagine, like, spending four hours just scrubbing a house with bleach.
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: Right, just a massive amount of cleaning.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you wipe down every surface, you toss every bloody pillow,
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: every baby toy into these heavy-duty trash bags, and then
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: you burn the evidence until there is nothing left but ash.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Leaving literally nothing behind.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Exactly. You take the victim's cell phone, you drive 800
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: miles away, and you send a text saying, To create
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: this like perfectly crafted alibi.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: It's a very meticulous plan.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: It is. And in your mind, you have gotten away
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: with murder. You are invincible. But what you don't realize
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: is that you missed a single microscopic drop of blood
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: on the ceiling.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Oh, wow. The ceiling.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Right. And worse, you completely forgot that your cell phone
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: is silently betraying your every single movement to this invisible
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: grid of cell towers.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: You know, that false sense of invincibility is actually what
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: traps so many criminals today.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Oh, for sure.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: We are looking at this crazy collision between old-fashioned brutal
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: violence and 21st century digital forensics.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they just don't mix.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: No, they don't. Perpetrators think they can wash away a crime... With,
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: you know, household cleaners and a fabricated story.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: But they can.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: Right, because they fail to understand that their pockets are
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: basically broadcasting their guilt every second of the day.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: So we are jumping straight into the deep end today.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Our mission on this deep dive is to unpack this bizarre, tragic,
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: and honestly, incredibly convoluted true crime case.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: And we have a massive stack of sources for this one.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: We really do. Investigative reports, court transcripts, forensic analyses, all
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: of it. I want you, listening to this right now,
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: to just put aside everything you think you know about
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: how alibis work.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, throw all that out.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Or even how ordinary people behave under pressure. We
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: are heading to Woodland Park, Colorado.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: It's such a specific type of place, too.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: It really is. It's an idyllic subarctic mountain town. Picture
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: pristine snow, pine trees.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: The kind of place where people move to escape the
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: chaos of the city.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. But on Thanksgiving Day, 2018, a 29-year-old mother
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: named Kelsey Bureth just vanished into thin air from this
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: tranquil setting.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: And the reasons you should care about the details we're
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: about to explore.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Because it gets really wild.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: It does. It's because this isn't just a standard timeline
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: of a missing person. It is a terrifying masterclass in
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: how modern investigations actually unravel deception.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: It really is a masterclass.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: We're going to explore the exact mechanisms of digital footprints.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: The dark psychology of manipulation.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Which is so heavy in this case.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: Very heavy.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: And the deeply unsettling reality of how seemingly ordinary people,
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: like people with respected careers and families, can be coaxed
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: into participating in unspeakable acts.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Let's unpack the people at the center of this tragedy first.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: The contrasting lives of Kelsey Barrett and her fiancé, Patrick Friese,
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: are just staggering when you read through these sources.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: They are so completely different.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Right. To understand the friction that led to the spark,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: we have to look at their environments. Kelsey grew up
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: in Merzis Lake, Washington.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: On a farm, right?
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she was raised on this massive, isolated hay farm.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: Her childhood was deeply practical.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: Doing farm chores and stuff.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Driving tractors, maneuvering heavy equipment, working the land with
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: her brother. It was this very grounded, rural upbringing that
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: instilled just a massive work ethic in her.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: But despite that grounded upbringing, her ambition really pointed upward.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: She had this intense drive for adventure and a specific
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: passion for aviation.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Which is so cool.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: It is. She attended pilot school in Washington and became
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: so proficient that she eventually relocated to Colorado to work
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: as a flight instructor.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: And that's not a casual career.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: Not at all. She worked at Falcon Air Base and
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: later at DOS Aviation. She was taking on the responsibility
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: of teaching others how to literally survive in the sky.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: Which requires so much focus.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: Yes. Her colleagues noted that she possessed this rare combination
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: of traits. She could handle the immense, you know, adrenaline-fueled
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: stress of flying.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: But she approached it with this intense methodical diligence. She
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: was beloved by her students because she was just so dependable.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: She was a really sensible person who turned a high
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: adrenaline passion into a stable career. And then, well, we
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: have Patrick Frazee.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a very different story.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: Totally. So in 2016, Kelsey meets him on a dating website.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: Patrick was born in 1986, so he's three years older
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: than her.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: And he's a local.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, a Colorado native from Florissant, which is this tiny,
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: rugged ranching community near Woodland Park.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: Reading about his life, I mean, he seems like a
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: character pulled out of the 19th century.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: It really does sound like that.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: He ran a 35-acre ranch. He made his living shooing
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: horses as a farrier. He trained cattle dogs, groomed donkeys.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: He was entirely entrenched in a traditional cowboy lifestyle.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, completely.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: His whole identity was tied to that specific patch of dirt.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: As a farrier, he was respected locally. You know, clients
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: trusted him with their animals, bringing horses from all over
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: the county to his ranch.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: Because he was good at what he did.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: Right. But those who knew him described a quiet, intensely
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: dedicated man who completely epitomized rural isolation. He just did
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: not seek out the broader world.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: Reading about their dynamic, I kept coming back to this analogy.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: Kelsey's entire life and career were about taking off. She
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: wanted to look at the world from above, navigating weather
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: patterns and horizons. While Patrick.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: Patrick was literally grounded in the dirt of his 35-acre ranch,
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: looking at the hooves of horses.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: That's a great way to put it.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: It feels like watching two completely different ecosystems trying to
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: survive in the same glass jar. They just require completely
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: different atmospheres to breathe.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: And the strain of that incompatible dynamic was present from
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: day one. They started as a long-distance relationship, communicating across
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: state lines.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: Which is hard enough on its own.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Kelsey, being the adventurous one accustomed to traveling, was
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: the one who uprooted her life and moved to Colorado
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: to be closer to him.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: She made the big sacrifice.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: She did. But physical proximity did not equal integration. Even
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: after she moved, they never merged their lives.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: That is the part that jumps out at me from
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: the background reports. Even after Kelsey became pregnant in early 2017,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: they didn't get a place together.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: Which is really unusual.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: So unusual. In October 2017, their daughter Kaylee was born
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: three weeks premature. Yeah, and having a preemie is a terrifying,
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: exhausting ordeal. It usually forces parents to pull together to
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: survive the sleepless nights and the medical anxiety.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: But they didn't.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: No, they started in separate houses.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: The logistics of that were just punishing. Primarily for Kelsey.
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: When she returned to work as a flight instructor after
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: her maternity leave, she was balancing a highly technical, stressful
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: job with caring for a vulnerable infant.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: That sounds impossible.
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: And she was the one absorbing the burden of the commute.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: Patrick flatly refused to leave his ranch.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: Unbelievable.
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: He rarely made the short drive to Woodland Park to
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: see her. If she wanted them to be a family,
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: she had to pack up the baby and go to him.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: Which means she's constantly expending energy just to maintain a
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: baseline connection with a man who won't even leave his horses.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: If we look at the psychological underpinnings of this setup,
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: physical distance often serves to mask deep emotional detachment.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: That makes a lot of sense.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: They shared a child and the title of an engagement,
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: but they didn't share a home or a daily life.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: It established a profound isolation for Kelsey.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: She must have felt so alone.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: She was in a new state, dealing with a demanding
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: job and a new baby, anchored to a partner who
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: just kept her at arm's length. That isolation is the
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: crucial foundation for what happens next.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: And that brings us to the breaking point. Late 2018,
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: the Thanksgiving illusion.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: The timeline here is critical.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: The timeline of November 22, 2018 is where Patrick's carefully
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: constructed narrative collides with the brutal reality of modern technology.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: He really thought he had it all figured out.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: He did. Patrick tries to spin a story of a
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: peaceful breakup, but the digital breadcrumbs tell a completely different story.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: The documentation of Thanksgiving Day is meticulous because of passive surveillance.
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: At 12.27 p.m., surveillance cameras at a Woodland Park Safeway
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: Capture the last known footage of Kelsey alive.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: The last time anyone sees her. Right.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: She's doing what millions of people do on Thanksgiving morning.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: She's pushing a shopping cart, picking up groceries, with one-year-old
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: Kaylee sitting in the child seat.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: So normal.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: The store receipts perfectly match the video timestamp.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: Just complete normalcy. And Patrick's story to the police is
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: that he saw Kelsey for the final time just about
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: 20 minutes after she left that grocery store.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: But the location he gives is so weird.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: It is so strange. He claims they met in an
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: alleyway outside her house to exchange custody of the baby.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: An alleyway, not inside the house, not on the porch.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Right. He specifically tells investigators that this wasn't just a
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: routine custody swap. He claims that the day before, on
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: November 21st, Kelsey had actually broken off their engagement.
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: According to Patrick.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: According to Patrick, yeah. He said she told him their
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: lives weren't meshing and that she wanted to split custody
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: 50-50 and go their separate ways. So this alleyway meeting
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: was supposedly the execution of that new arrangement.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: Let's dissect the logic of his story because it completely
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: falls apart under basic psychological scrutiny.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: It really does.
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: During this alleyway meeting, Patrick tells the police he gave
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: Kelsey back her house keys and her car keys, acknowledging
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: the breakup.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: Okay, sure.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: But in the very next breath, he claims he confiscated
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: her personal handgun.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: Which is a huge red flag.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: Huge. He justified taking her firearm by claiming she had
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: become depressed, mentally unstable, and possibly suicidal. And he was
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: doing it for her own protection.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: I am having a really hard time buying any of this.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: I want you to put yourself in that alleyway for
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: a second.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, imagine this scene.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: If someone just broke off an engagement with you and
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: you genuinely believe they are so mentally unstable and suicidal
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: that you need to disarm them, are they calmly handing
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: over their house keys, car keys, and a deadly weapon
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: and then just walking away?
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: No, absolutely not.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: It violates every rule of human behavior. If she was
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: that erratic, there would be an argument, a struggle, or
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: like police involvement.
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: The behavioral profile he tried to paint of Kelsey wildly
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: contradicted everyone else in her life. Her friends, family, and
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: employers vehemently denied she was unstable.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: Of course they did.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: Keep in mind, she was an active flight instructor. The
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: FAA requires rigorous, regular medical and psychological evaluations.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: You can't just be a flight instructor if you're unstable.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: Exactly. She was a practical, level-headed professional. Patrick was relying
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: on the fact that with Kelsey missing, he was the
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: sole author of the narrative.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: He thought he was writing the script, and he thought
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: he had the perfect visual aids to back it up.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: He deliberately created a physical alibi. After the supposed 12.27 p.m.
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: alleyway meeting, Patrick made sure to go to a highly
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: surveilled location.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: Oh, he wanted to be seen.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: Definitely. Between 12.54 p.m. and 1.17 p.m., cameras at a
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: local Walmart captured Patrick walking around with the exact same
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: baby carrier that Kelsey had at Safeway just an hour earlier.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: It's a complete performance for the cameras. He expects the
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: police to pull the tapes and say, well, Kelsey had
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: the baby at 12.27, Patrick had the baby at 12.54,
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: so they clearly met in the middle, just like he said.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: It was an alibi built for 1995.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: Exactly. But he forgot to look up when he went
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: to her house.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: The fatal flaw in his physical timeline was a neighbor's
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: security camera positioned directly overlooking Kelsey's front door. Oh, man.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: That camera completely obliterated the alleyway story. At 1.23 p.m.,
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: Just after Patrick leaves the Walmart, the footage shows Kelsey
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: entering her front door.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: And who is right behind her?
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: Patrick. He is walking right in behind her.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: They didn't go their separate ways at all. He followed
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: her home, walked into her sanctuary, and she is never
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: seen leaving that house again.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: The camera records Patrick going in and out of the
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: front door multiple times over the next few hours, finally
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: departing for good at 4.30 p.m.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: Four and a half hours later.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: But the visual evidence is only half of the trap
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: he walked into. The cellular data is where the investigation
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: transforms from highly suspicious to scientifically damning.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: Let's dive into how this actually works because people hear
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: cell phone ping and they imagine like a GPS dot
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: on a map. But it's actually much more pervasive than that.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: It is. What we're seeing here is the absolute downfall
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: of criminal arrogance. Perpetrators meticulously plan their physical movements.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: Where they park, what cameras they avoid, who sees them. Right.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: But they completely ignore the supercomputer sitting in their pocket.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: A cell phone doesn't just track you and use a
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: map application.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: Even when you aren't touching it.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: Even when it's sitting idly in your pocket, it is
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: constantly shaking hands with the nearest cell tower, whispering, I'm here,
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: I'm here, just in case a call comes through.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: It's basically an invisible tether. And the network logs every
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: single one of those handshakes.
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: Precisely. The network uses a system of sector antennas to
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: determine which tower offers the best signal, creating a chronological
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: breadcrumb trail.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: It's so precise.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: Very. When Patrick called Kelsey's phone at 12.31 p.m., which
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: he claimed was to arrange the alleyway meetup, both of
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: their phones connected to the same Woodland Park cell tower.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: So that isolated data point kind of fit his story initially.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: It did. But as the afternoon turned into evening, the
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: passive data betrayed him entirely.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: Because the network logs show Kelsey's phone and Patrick's phone
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: traveling together.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: The records showed both devices moving in tandem, handing off
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: from tower to tower in the exact same direction.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: Leaving Woodland Park.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: They moved away from Woodland Park, traveling toward Cripple Creek. Eventually,
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: both phones connected to the specific cell tower in Florissant
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: that services Patrick's 35-acre ranch.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: The digital shadow of Kelsey's phone literally followed him home.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: The phones remained together through the next day, November 23rd.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: And then, the digital trail took a massive leap.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: A huge leap.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: On November 25th, Kelsey's employer, DOS Aviation, received a text
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: message from her phone stating she needed to take a
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: week off work.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: Which is already suspicious.
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: Very. But the metadata revealed that this text message did
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: not originate from a Colorado tower. It bounced off a
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: tower in Gooding, Idaho, over 800 miles away.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: So Patrick's plan was to manipulate the digital trail. He
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: wanted the investigators to pull the phone records, see the
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: text from Idaho, and just assume Kelsey was on a
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: road trip.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: He thought he was sending them on a wild goose chase.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, across state lines.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: He utilized technology to create a decoy. failing to realize
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: that the same technology had already mapped a moving crime
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: scene from her living room directly to his ranch.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: This data is what forces the police to pivot. They
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: aren't looking for a runaway bride who needed space. They're
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: looking at a homicide.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: It changes everything.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: But to prove it, they need to look at the
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: physical space she left behind. On December 2nd, the investigation
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: kicks into high gear, and it's because of a mother's intuition.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: Kelsey's mother, Cheryl, had been trying to reach her daughter
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: for over a week. texts and calls were going unanswered.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: Which was so out of character.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: Completely antithetical to Kelsey's nature, especially regarding her baby. Cheryl
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: called the Woodland Park police and requested a welfare check.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: When the police enter Kelsey's home, the initial red flags
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: aren't what they find, but what is conspicuously absent.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: The house looked relatively undisturbed at first glance, but closer
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: inspection revealed glaring inconsistencies. Kelsey's clothes were still in her closet.
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: Her makeup, toothbrush, and daily toiletries were all in the bathroom.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: These are essential items a woman does not simply leave
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: behind if she is voluntarily traveling to Idaho for a week.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: No, you take your toothbrush. Yet her purse, her driver's license,
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: and her car keys were missing. And her car was
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: still sitting parked outside.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: It makes no sense.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: You don't take your car keys on a trip if
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: you aren't taking your car. And then her family, who
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: had come to town to help look for her, noticed
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: one very specific mundane household item was missing.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: A bath rug.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: It's a rug!
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: A standard rug that always sat on the floor near
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: the base of the toilet was gone. Furthermore, the family
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: pointed out some faint, unidentifiable stains near the toilet space.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: That's when things get real.
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: This is when the Woodland Park Police realize they need
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: specialized help, and they call in the forensic crime scene technicians.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: I want to break down how these technicians work because
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: it's fascinating. Cleaning a crime scene with household products is
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: basically like trying to erase a dark pencil drawing with
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: a dirty eraser.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's a good analogy.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: To your naked eye, the paper might look blank. You
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: think you did a great job, but you didn't change
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: the physical grooves in the paper. The police aren't using
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: their eyes. They're using chemistry.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: That is the perfect way to visualize it. The macroscopic world,
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: what we can see, looked clean. But forensics operates in
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: the microscopic world.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: It's all about the molecules.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Technicians use chemical regions like luminol or bluestar, which
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: reacts specifically to the iron present in hemoglobin.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: Which is the protein inside red blood cells. Right.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: Even if you use bleach to wipe away the visible redness,
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: the hemoglobin molecules are driven deeper into the pores of
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: the grout, the wood, or the drywall.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: And when the chemical hits those hidden molecules, it glows.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: It literally illuminates the violence.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: The chemical application revealed a house of horrors. It wasn't
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: just a few drops near the toilet. The luminescence showed
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: blood spatter across the bathtub, smeared on the towel rack,
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: and transferred onto the door handle.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: And most chillingly, on the ceiling.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: Finding blood on the ceiling tells a profound story about
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: the psychology of the cleanup.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: Because it's so easily missed.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: When someone is frantically trying to erase a murder, they
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: experience massive adrenaline spikes resulting in tunnel vision. They scrub
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: the floors, they wipe the walls at eye level, they
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: clean the immediate strike zone. They rarely think to look
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: straight up.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: They test the hidden blood, and the DNA confirms the worst.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: It is a perfect match for Kelsey Burriff.
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: With the DNA match, the entire weight of the investigation
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: shifts toward Patrick Friese. On December 13th, police descend on
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: his 35-acre ranch in Florissant with a search warrant.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: They don't find Kelsey's body in the dirt. But they
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: find the tools of erasure.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: They located a bottle of bleach and a mop in
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: his outbuildings. Both items were swabbed and tested presumptive positive
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: for the presence of blood.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: So he kept the murder weapons, basically.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: Essentially, yes. But the most devastating piece of evidence they
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: found during that search wasn't biological. It was administrative.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: A piece of paper.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: It was a single sheet of paper.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: The December 12th document. This detail is just pure behavioral psychology.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: It is a massive tell.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: Investigators discovered a formal legal document drafted and dated December 12, 2018,
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: just one day before the police searched his property.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: The timing is incredible.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: The document was a contingency plan. Patrick had drawn up
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: a list naming five specific individuals authorized to provide medical
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: care and act as caretakers for his one-year-old daughter, Kaylee.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: In case he got arrested.
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: Exactly, in the event that he was arrested or unavailable.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: He lists five different people, and the one person completely
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: omitted from this legal document regarding the care of her
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: own child is Kelsey.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: If you genuinely believe your fiancé has just taken a
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: spontaneous road trip to Idaho to clear her head, you
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: do not draft a legal document assigning custody of her
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: child to five other people.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: No, of course you don't. He knew she wasn't coming
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: back to contest it.
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: He was organizing his affairs for a permanent future without her.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: He was tying up loose ends because he knew the
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: police were circling.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: He basically told on himself.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: That piece of paper was a subconscious confession of guilt
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: before he ever uttered a word to investigators.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: But the police still have a giant puzzle piece missing.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: They have the blood in Kelsey's house, they have Patrick's proximity,
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: and they have Kelsey's phone pinging in Idaho.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: But Patrick was in Colorado. Right.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: Patrick's phone never went to Idaho, so who drove the
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: phone 800 miles away?
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: To bridge that gap, investigators pulled the subpoenaed phone records
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: for Patrick's device to analyze his communication network during November.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: And what did they find?
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: Amidst the calls to his clients and family, they found
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: a massive spike in communication with a specific out-of-state number,
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: a number based in Idaho.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: Enter Crystal Lee Kenney.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: Crystal Lee Kenney's profile is incredibly difficult to reconcile with
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: a brutal homicide. She was 32 years old, born and
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: raised in Twin Falls, Idaho.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Just a normal person, it seems.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: On paper, completely normal. She was a registered nurse and
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: a mother of two young children. She had deep roots
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: in her community. She was a former high school student
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: body president, an athlete who played basketball and volleyball.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: She was really involved.
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: She was so ingrained in the local culture that in
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: 2008 she was crowned the queen of the Magic Valley Rodeo.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: A rodeo queen, a pediatric nurse, a mother, and a
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: former student body president. How does someone with that resume
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: become the linchpin in a Colorado murder investigation?
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: The connection was historical. Crystal and Patrick had actually met
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: at a rodeo shortly after high school and dated briefly
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: during college.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: So they go way back.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: They do. The romance faded, but in 2016, they reconnected.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: At the time of the reconnection, both were married to
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: other people. By the summer of 2018, Crystal had recently
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: finalized her divorce, making her highly susceptible to Patrick's influence.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: On December 14th, the FBI reaches out to Crystal in Idaho.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: They ask a simple question. What is your relationship with
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: Patrick Frazee? And she immediately tries to play it cool.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: She attempts to minimize the entire relationship. She tells the agents,
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: I've spoken to him maybe once in the last month,
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: which the FBI already knew was a blatant lie.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: Because they have the phone record showing dozens of calls.
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: Exactly. She admits she visited his Colorado ranch on November 24th,
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: but claims it was strictly a business trip to look
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: at a horse he was selling.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: A horse?
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: Right. She looks the federal agents in the eye and
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: claims she has no personal involvement with Patrick and that
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: she didn't even know Kelsey Barrett existed until she saw
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: her face on the missing person posters.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: She thinks she's outsmarted the FBI, but she didn't realize
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: her own social circle had already sold her out.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: A woman named Michelle Stein, a paralegal in Idaho who
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: had been a close friend of Crystal's for years, contacted
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: the authorities with a horrifying tip. This is wild. Michelle
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: revealed that back in late October... Crystal had confided in her,
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: admitting that Patrick had explicitly asked her to take care
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: of his baby mama.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: He was soliciting murder a full month before Thanksgiving.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: When investigators placed Michelle's statement in front of Crystal, her
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: defensive walls collapsed. The pristine image of the rodeo queen shattered,
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: and she confessed to everything.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: She just gave it all up.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: She told investigators that Patrick's obsession with eliminating Kelsey had
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: begun as early as September 2018.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: And this brings us to the psychology of the manipulations.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: Because Patrick didn't just call up an old girlfriend and say, hey,
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: I hate my fiancé, come kill her.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: No, that wouldn't work.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: He crafted a highly specific emotional narrative designed to weaponize
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: Crystal's own identity against her.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: This is a textbook study in coercive control and the
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: creation of a closed information system, almost akin to a
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: folia due or shared psychosis.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: It really is.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: Patrick understood Crystal's core identity. She was a mother and
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: a nurse before. Her entire psychological framework was built on caregiving, protection,
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: and alleviating suffering.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: So he used that against her.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: He fed her a relentless diet of fabricated abuse allegations.
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: He told Crystal that Kelsey was a monster. He claimed
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: Kelsey was physically abusing baby Kaylee, alleging she neglected the
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: child and even deliberately burned the baby with an iron.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: Which was a complete fabrication. There were zero medical records,
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: no CPS interventions. Nothing to substantiate a single claim of
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: abuse by Kelsey.
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: The irony is that the only documented concern regarding child
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: welfare involved Patrick himself.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: Wait, really?
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: Yes. When Kaylee was born premature, Patrick's behavior toward the
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: hospital staff was so verbally abusive, aggressive, and threatening when
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: they needed to move the baby to a different unit
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: that social services was automatically notified.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow. So he was the problem all along.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: Kaylee was temporarily placed in state custody simply to evaluate
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: the safety of the environment, which quickly proved Kelsey was
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: a fit and loving mother. The danger was always Patrick's rage.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: But Crystal doesn't know the truth. She only knows the
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: reality Patrick is feeding her. He tells her, my baby
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: is being tortured and you are the only one who
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: can save her.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: Which is incredibly manipulative.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: And the cognitive dissonance here is staggering. Because Crystal doesn't
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: just agree to provide a shoulder to cry on, she
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: actively attempts to assassinate a stranger three separate times.
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: The escalation is chilling. For the first attempt, Patrick instructed
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: Crystal to use poison.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: Poison?
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: He knew Kelsey's coffee order a caramel macchiato from Starbucks.
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: He told Crystal to lace the drink with Ambien and Valium,
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: utilizing Crystal's access to pharmaceuticals as a nurse.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: Put yourself in the jury's shoes listening to this. You're
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: hearing that a mother and a nurse drove from Idaho
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: to Colorado... laced a coffee with sedatives, and stood on
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: a victim's front porch.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: With a full cover story ready.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: She was planning to tell Kelsey she was a neighbor
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: bringing a thank you coffee for finding her loose dogs.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: But the reality of taking a life paralyzed her. She
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: stood on the porch, panicked, decided she couldn't hand over
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: the poisoned cup, and drove all the way back to Idaho.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: The second time, Patrick changes the tactic from poison to
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: blunt force. He gives Crystal a metal pipe and tells
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: her to wait in the shadows outside Kelsey's house and
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: beat her to death when she walks out.
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: So brutal.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: Crystal makes the drive, waits in the cold, loses her
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: nerve again, and flees.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: The third attempt was identical, except this time Patrick provided
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: an aluminum baseball bat.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: And again, she goes.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: Once again, Crystal traveled to the house, weapon in hand,
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: and once again, the reality of the violence overwhelmed her manipulation,
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: and she retreated.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: I am just bewildered by the compartmentalization here. How does
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: a rational person get to a stranger's house with a
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: metal pipe, realize what they are doing, and instead of
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: driving straight to a police station to report a murder plot,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: they just go home and pack lunches for their kids
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: the next day.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: It highlights how deeply coercive control can rewire a person's
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: moral compass. Patrick had successfully isolated her judgment.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: He really had.
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: He played on her maternal savior complex so effectively that
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: she viewed the assassination attempts not as murder, but as
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: a failed rescue mission.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: That is so twisted.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: She felt terrified of Patrick's disappointment. yet bound to him
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: by this shared dark secret. When an abuser controls the
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: narrative completely, the victim's reality becomes warped to fit the
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: abuser's needs.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: But because Crystal's conscience repeatedly short-circuited the plans, Patrick realizes
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: that if he wants Kelsey gone, he can't outsource the violence.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: He has to do it himself. Which circles us back
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: to the horror of Thanksgiving Day.
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: By November 22nd, Patrick's patience had evaporated. He utilized his
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: knowledge of Kelsey's routines and the guise of a holiday
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: custody visit to gain entry to her home.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: And the details of what happened next.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: The details of what occurred inside that house, as relayed
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: by Crystal through Patrick's boasting, are deeply upsetting.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: He weaponizes the concept of safety.
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: He lured Kelsey into a state of total vulnerability in
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: her own living room. He suggested they play a game.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: A game. He took a sweater and tied it around
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: Kelsey's eyes as a blindfold, telling her he wanted her
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: to guess the scents of various candles he had brought.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: It is so mundane, guessing candle scents. He takes a
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: place of ultimate sanctuary and turns it into an execution chamber.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: And the most heartbreaking part is that one-year-old Kaylee is
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: in the room.
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: The infant was sitting in a playpen, just feet away.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: While Kelsey was blindfolded, smelling candles, Patrick retrieved a baseball
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: bat and struck her from behind.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: That's just unthinkable.
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: He beat her to death in her own home. According
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: to Patrick's own recount to Crystal, Kelsey's final words before
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: she died were simply, Please stop.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: The violence was so extreme that the impact of the
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: bat actually dislodged one of Kelsey's teeth.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: It was a horrific, chaotic scene. And at 4.30 p.m.,
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: right as the neighbor's camera records Patrick walking out the
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: front door for the last time, his phone records show
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: him placing a call to Idaho. He calls Crystal.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: And he doesn't call to confess. He calls to summon
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: the cleaning crew.
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: Crystal couldn't immediately drop everything on Thanksgiving, so she delayed
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: until November 24th.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: She had to cover her tracks first.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: To cover her tracks, she lied to her ex-husband, whom
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: she still share a home with, claiming she was attending
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: a friend's party and helping someone move. To solidify her alibi,
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: she borrowed a car from her friend, Megan, and even
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: sent Megan a text asking if she could sleep on
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: her couch that night.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: But she doesn't stay in Idaho. She drives Megan's car
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: straight to Woodland Park, Colorado. And she arrives equipped for
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: a biohazard operation.
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: Was a professional cleanup crew.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: She brings gallons of bleach, heavy-duty gloves, shoe covers, and hairnets.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: She walks into a house she has never set foot
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: in to erase the murder of a woman she has
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: never met.
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: When Crystal described the interior of the house to the FBI,
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: she painted a picture of absolute carnage. Blood had saturated
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: every porous surface.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: It was everywhere.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: It was on the walls, pooling on the hardwood floor,
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: splattered across the television screen. and soaked into the couch cushions.
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: There were bloody footprints tracking through the rooms.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: She is a trained nurse. She knows how to sanitize
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: an environment. She spends four continuous hours scrubbing that house.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: Four hours of just cleaning up blood.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: She takes all the soft materials that can't be bleached,
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: the couch pillows, books, and tragically, the blood-soaked baby toys
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: from the playpen, and seals them into trash bags.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: Her nursing background made her methodical, but as we discussed
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: with the forensic chemical analysis, she lacked the specialized knowledge
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: of a crime scene investigator.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: She didn't know about the microscopic evidence.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: She wiped away the macroscopic horror, but left the microscopic
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: evidence embedded in the ceiling and beneath the missing bathroom rug.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: And while Crystal is scrubbing the floors, where is Kelsey's body?
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: Patrick had removed the body shortly after the murder on Thanksgiving.
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: He forced Kelsey's remains into a large black plastic tote bag.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: And he took it to his ranch.
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: He transported it to his ranch in Florissant and hid
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: the tote on top of a massive stack of hay
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: bales in his barn, out of sight. Two days later,
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: after Crystal finished the four-hour cleanup in Woodland Park, she
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: drove to meet Patrick in Cripple Creek, and they convoyed
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: back to his ranch.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: This is where they attempt to completely erase Kelsey from existence.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: They gathered the black tote containing the body. along with
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: all the trash bags filled with bloody pillows, baby toys,
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: and cleaning supplies. They dumped everything into a large metal
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: trough on Patrick's property.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: And set it on fire.
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: Using gasoline and wood, they ignited a massive fire. Crystal
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: stood there and watched as Patrick burned the mother of
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: his child to ash.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: This explains the nobody aspect of the investigation. But fire
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: doesn't destroy everything, does it?
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: No, it doesn't. Remember the tooth that was just lodged
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: by the baseball bat?
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the one from the living room.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: While Crystal was cleaning the living room, She found that
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: human tooth on the floor. She scooped it up and
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: threw it into the trash bags, which were subsequently burned
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: in the trough.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: But the fire didn't destroy it.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: Months later, when forensic anthropologists sifted through the soil and
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: debris near that burn site, they recovered fragments of a
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: human tooth.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: So the body is incinerated. The house is bleached. Now
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: Patrick needs to execute the final phase of the plan,
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: which is the alibi. He tells Crystal to take Kelsey's
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: unburned remains back to Idaho to dispose of them there.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: And this is where she finally draws a line.
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: She adamantly refused to transport human remains across state lines.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: But she compromised. She agreed to take Kelsey's cell phone
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: back to Idaho. Patrick's grand strategy was to have Crystal
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: keep the phone powered on and periodically send text messages,
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: laying a false digital trail to make authorities believe Kelsey
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: had simply abandoned her life and driven northwest.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: And as we discussed earlier, this was the fatal error.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: They thought they were being criminal masterminds, but they fundamentally
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: misunderstood how cellular networks operate.
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: They believed a text message sent from Idaho would point
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: the police to Idaho. What they didn't realize was that
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: the passive data, the constant handshakes between the phone and
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: the towers, had already drawn a glowing neon line connecting
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: Patrick's Ranch in Colorado directly to Crystal's hometown in Idaho.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: It's poetic justice, really.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: It was the exact thread the FBI needed to unravel
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: the entire conspiracy.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: Once Crystal confesses and outlines the entire plot, the House
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: of Cards instantly collapses. On December 21st, 2018, nearly a
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: month after the murder, Patrick Frazee is arrested and charged
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: with first-degree murder.
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: But securing an arrest is vastly different from securing a conviction.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: The prosecution was facing a monumental hurdle. They did not
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: have a body.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: Which makes it so hard to prosecute.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: In legal terms, proving the corpus delicti, the body of
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: the crime without physical remains, is historically incredibly difficult. They
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: had the cell tower pings, they had the blood in
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: the bathroom, they had the recovered tooth, but all of
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: that was circumstantial.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: A defense attorney could spin that.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: A skilled defense attorney could argue that Kelsey was injured, fled,
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: and is hiding out in Idaho, Justice Patrick claimed.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: Their entire case, their ability to lock this man away
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: for life, rested entirely on Crystal Lee Kenney taking the
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: witness stand and telling the jury exactly what they did.
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: Which necessitated a plea deal. In exchange for her full cooperation,
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: her detailed confession, and her testimony at trial, prosecutors allowed
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: Crystal to plead guilty to a single charge of felony
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: evidence tampering.
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: She takes the stand during the trial and lays out
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: every gruesome detail we just discussed. She paints herself as
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: a victim of Patrick's manipulation.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: She leaned heavily into that narrative.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: She tells the jury she loved him, but she was
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: deeply terrified of him. She testified that he used thinly-veiled
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: threats against her own children, saying things like, little girls
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: go missing off the playground all the time to ensure
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: her compliance.
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: The defense tried to shred her credibility, painting her as
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: the actual mastermind or the sole killer. to create reasonable doubt.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: Blaming it all on her.
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: But her intimate knowledge of the crime scene, corroborated by
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: the microscopic blood evidence and the cell data, made her
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: testimony unshakable. The jury found her narrative entirely credible.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: But what absolutely cemented Patrick's fate wasn't just Crystal's testimony.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: It was Patrick's own inability to stop scheming, even while
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: sitting in a county jail cell. He tries to orchestrate
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: a mafia-style hit from behind bars.
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: It was a stunning development during the trial. The prosecution
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: called a surprise witness, an inmate who had been housed
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: with Patrick.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: This part is just mind-blowing.
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: This inmate testified that Patrick had approached him, believing the
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: inmate had connections to prison gangs, and slipped him a
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: hit list.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: A literal hit list, written out on jailhouse notebook paper.
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: The inmate handed over 16 separate notes, written by Patrick.
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: These notes contained detailed instructions and requests to have key
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: witnesses assassinated before they could testify.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: He wanted to wipe out the whole witness list.
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: The targets on this hit list included Crystal Lee Kenney
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: and Kelsey's own mother, Cheryl.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: It reveals the absolute depths of his depravity. He thought
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: he could just buy his way out of a murder
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: trial by ordering more murders. But instead of saving him,
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: it handed the jury a clear view of his sociopathy.
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: The hit list eradicated any lingering shadow of a doubt.
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: And as the trial progressed, the prosecution finally illuminated the
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: true motives behind the murder.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: It wasn't about protecting his daughter.
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: It had nothing to do with protecting his daughter from
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: an abusive mother. It was entirely about control and the
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: impending collapse of his financial facade.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: His rugged cowboy image was completely bankrupt. Let's look at
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: the financial realities.
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: Patrick was drowning in debt and legal chaos. He was
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: embroiled in a bitter, highly contentious legal battle with his
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: own siblings over their late father's estate, which was valued
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: at approximately $ 400, 000.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: So he's fighting his own family for money.
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: On top of that, he had recently defaulted on a $ 70, 000
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: personal loan.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: And he was actively fighting with Kelsey over child support
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: for Kaylee?
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: He was legally obligated to pay Kelsey $ 700 a month
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: in child support, a sum he was struggling to produce.
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: His final payment to her before the murder was $ 150 short.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: He was broke!
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: Furthermore, he had learned that Kelsey was preparing to take
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: him to court to formalize full custody of their daughter.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: So let's look at the pressure cooker. He is facing
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: the loss of his child. He is defaulting on massive loans.
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: He is battling his family for an inheritance. And he
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: is failing to meet basic child support payments.
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: He is cornered.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: Instead of acting like an adult and navigating the legal system,
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: he decides the easiest way to solve all of his
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: financial and custody issues is to simply act. eliminate Kelsey.
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: He even started laying the groundwork for her disappearance by
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: telling his farrier clients that she was absolutely crazy and bipolar.
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: It was a calculated, cold-blooded financial execution masquerading as a
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: tragic missing person case. And the jury saw through the
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: masquerade perfectly.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: Thankfully, they did.
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: After just three and a half hours of deliberation, they
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: returned a verdict. Guilty of murder in the first degree.
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: The judge showed absolutely no mercy. Patrick Friese was sentenced
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: to life in prison without the possibility of parole. plus
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: an additional 156 years for the solicitation and tampering charges.
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: He will never take a free breath again. Never.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: And baby Kaylee, who is now six years old, is safe,
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: being raised in a loving environment by Kelsey's family.
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: The resolution for Patrick is definitive, but the legal conclusion
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: for Crystal Lee Kenney remains a source of intense public
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: frustration and debate.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: This is the part of the deep dive where the
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: justice system is really hard to stomach. Let's review Crystal's actions.
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: She listens to a murder plot for months.
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: She drives across state lines three separate times with weapons
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: and poison. She drives back to scrub a slaughterhouse for
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: four hours. She watches a mother's body burn in a trough,
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: and she takes a phone to lay a false trail.
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: She was heavily involved.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: For all of that, she was initially sentenced to three
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: years in prison for evidence tampering.
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: Three years was the maximum allowable sentence under her specific
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: plea agreement for that single charge.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: But it gets worse. She appeals that sentence. And in 2021,
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: the Colorado Court of Appeals ruled that the three-year sentence
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: technically exceeded the presumed maximum for her specific class of
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: felony under the plea parameters.
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a controversial ruling.
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: She was resentenced to just 18 months. And because she
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: had already earned credit for time served while awaiting trial,
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: she was paroled in March 2021. 18 months of prison
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: time for her role in the brutal homicide of an
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: innocent mother. The punishment simply does not match the gravity
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: of her complicity.
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: The frustration you're expressing is shared by millions who followed
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: this case. It is a deeply bitter pill. But we
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: have to look at the utilitarian calculation made by the prosecution.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: The deal with the devil.
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: Exactly. In a no-body homicide, the burden of proof is mountainous.
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: Without Crystal's testimony mapping the cell tower pings, explaining the
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: missing rug, and leading them to the burn site, there
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: was a very real risk that a jury might find
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: reasonable doubt.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: So without her, he might have walked free.
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: Patrick Frazee could have walked free. The prosecution traded a
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: lighter sentence for the accomplice to guarantee they locked up
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: the primary predator.
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: It is the uncomfortable reality of the justice system. You
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: make a deal with the devil you need to catch
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: the devil you want. Crystal will carry the social and
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: moral stigma of her actions for the remainder of her life.
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: But legally, her debt to the state is paid.
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: It's a heavy thought to sit with.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: Stepping back and looking at the totality of this case,
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: the tragedy of Kelsey Bereth is overwhelming. She was a
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: 29-year-old woman who grew up on a farm and just
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: wanted to fly.
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: She just wanted a good life for her daughter.
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: She wanted to explore, she embraced adventure, and she deeply
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: loved her daughter. Her life was permanently grounded by a
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: man obsessed with control, desperate for financial survival, and willing
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: to manipulate the maternal instincts of another woman to commit
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: unspeakable violence.
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: It is a stark, unsettling reminder of the hidden lives
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: operating all around us. If we analyze the external profiles
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: in this story, Crystal Kenny was a respected pediatric nurse,
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: a mother, a former student body president, and a rodeo queen.
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: She looked perfect on paper.
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: Patrick Friese was a quiet, hardworking farrier, shooing horses in
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: a rural town.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: To anyone passing them on the street, they looked completely,
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: utterly normal.
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: They did. And it forces you to reconsider the people
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: you interact with daily. Just like Kelsey did on her
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: final Thanksgiving morning at Safeway, pushing her grocery cart, surrounded
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: by neighbors and strangers.
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, just never know.
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: It makes you wonder how well we truly know what
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: the people around us are capable of when they believe
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: nobody is watching.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: We want to believe that you can look at a person,
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: look at a situation, and get a precise, clean diagnosis
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: of who they are. But the surface is just a
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: thin illusion, and underneath, the waters are incredibly murky. Thank
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: you for joining us on this deep dive. Take a
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: moment to think about the digital footprints you leave behind,
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: stay curious, and always keep questioning the narratives unfolding around you.