Selection of jury in Frazee’s trial begins

Opening statements expected Friday at the earliest in Teller County murder case

Jury selection in the Patrick Frazee murder trial in Teller County begins Monday morning.

The jury selection is expected to last several days, and opening statements will begin Friday at the earliest, according to a tweet from Rob McCallum, spokesman for the Colorado Judicial Branch.

Frazee is on trial for two counts of first-degree murder, three counts of solicitation to commit murder, tampering with a dead body and two counts of a crime of violence in the disappearance and death of his fiancee, Kelsey Berreth.

Berreth, 29, was an instructor pilot, and she and Frazee were the parents of a daughter, who was 1 when Berreth went missing.

Berreth was last seen on Thanksgiving Day when surveillance cameras inside a Woodland Park Safeway showed her shopping with her daughter. Berreth’s mother reported her missing on Dec. 2.

Berreth’s family and law enforcement searched for days, discovering her cellphone last pinged a tower on Nov. 25 near Gooding, Idaho.

They have never found Berreth.

A key witness in the case will be Krystal Jean “Lee” Kenney, a Twin Falls, Idaho, nurse, who was Frazee’s secret girlfriend. She pleaded guilty to felony tampering in February, admitting that she had disposed of Berreth’s cellphone.

Kenney told investigators that Frazee asked her on three occasions to kill Berreth, but she backed out each time. She also said she helped Frazee clean Berreth’s townhome after Frazee allegedly beat his fiancee to death with a baseball bat and then accompanied him to his Florissant ranch as he burned Berreth’s body in a trough, according to testimony during Frazee’s preliminary hearing.

The trial in Teller County District Court is expected to last two to three weeks and to attract national media attention to the town of Cripple Creek.