48 Hours - Justice for Kelsey Berreth - Encore

Episode Date: August 2, 2020

An inside look at the startling evidence that helped convict against Colorado man Patrick Frazee for the murder of his fianceé. CBS News correspondent Nikki Battiste reports.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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ConstantContact.ca A key witness takes a stand in the trial of Patrick Frazee. Investigators believe Patrick Frazee killed Kelsey Barrett in her townhome on Thanksgiving last year. Day two of the murder trial for the man who allegedly killed his fiance. Today, day seven of the trial, investigators revealed the moments they found... This surveillance video of Kelsey Barrett and her one-year-old daughter at a Woodland Park supermarket is the last anyone seen of the 29-year-old mother. If convicted, Frazee could face life in prison. We can certainly sense that we are in the final days of this trial and it is certainly... Purple Creek is a small town. Teller County is a small county.

We're up in like a minute. They have never seen anything to this magnitude. In Cripple Creek, Ashley Franco, KKTV 11 News. You've covered every second of this trial. What has the feeling been inside that courtroom? It's been cold. It's been very heavy and chilling. During the first week, we learned about some of the evidence in the case. Crystal Lee, Patrick Frazee's ex-girlfriend, is said to be the prosecution's star witness. Okay, it's 11-15, again on the 21st of December 2018.

We're inside Kelsey's apartment with Crystal. You are seeing what the jury saw. Remarkable evidence. The heart of the prosecution's case. When you came in, what did you see? When I first walked in, I saw blood all over the floor. There's blood all over the floor. I saw blood up the wall. Who is Crystal Lee? Crystal Lee is a rodeo queen from Idaho.

She's very well known. And she's Patrick Frazee's ex-girlfriend. They'd known each other for over a decade. She's the bread and butter to this case. That's Crystal Lee wearing a police jacket and hat. She admits to cleaning up the crime scene and tells the prosecution the whole entire story of what happened. She's the only person in the world that they have to possibly convict Patrick Tracy. We did a deal with the devil.

There's just no ifs, ands, or buts about it in this case. But it's a deal that we made in order to move this case forward and to solve this crime. Sometimes in order to solve a case or move a case forward, we have to give a deal to the devil. That's exactly what we did here. Did you say that you cleaned off some of the appliances? I did. I wiped the front. There was blood on the front of the dishwasher.

There was blood on the front of the stove. Crystal Lee was obviously the star witness for the prosecution, and she testified to things that the prosecution needed her to say in order to establish this case. I'm Aya Gruber. I'm a professor of law at University of Colorado Law School. I think there were doubts about Crystal Lee's testimony coming into it. Crystal Lee has trafficked in lies. Crystal Lee is saying he has been planning on killing Kelsey and he had called me multiple times about it. There's poison coffee. There's a baseball bat, scented candles, a blindfold, phones that are pinging all over Colorado and in Idaho. I gotta tell you, it's one of the most emotional trials I've ever been through. And I've been through a lot of trials. The roller coaster, everybody was put on. There

wasn't anybody on this team that at some point didn't have tears running down their face. We just got word that a verdict has been reached in the case against Patrick Frazee. Tell them to try to take it. We're the only ones out here. There's always a little bit of nervousness and question in the back of your mind. Just hours ago, we were hearing closing statements, and now we have a verdict. Thank you. Patrick Frazee sits in this grim, Cripple Creek, Colorado jail, put here by his former girlfriend, Crystal Lee. There's blood on the wall here. There's blood on the wall here. And there's blood right here.

In disturbing evidence that you will see throughout the program tonight, she tells her story about a crime scene cleanup. I moved the couch. I wiped the couch off. There was blood behind the couch down the wall. A plan to transport a body. We brought the tote here. We unloaded the tote. And her help in making sure there would be no trace of it left behind. The things that were thrown into the fire by me were the belongings from Kelsey's house.

The curtains, the pillows, the stuffed animals. The tale begins when these haunting images were captured. A mother in the grocery store shopping with her baby. Thanksgiving Day, 2018. The last time Kelsey Barrett was seen in public. It's not the kind that runs off. This is completely out of character. It was Cheryl Barrett who reported her 29-year-old daughter missing after trying to reach her for days. Kelsey, we just want you home.

Call us if you can and we won't quit looking. Call us if you can and we won't quit looking At that time in early December, Woodland Park Police had not publicly named a suspect We are treating Kelsey's disappearance as a missing persons case at this time You can't eat and you can't sleep and the stress won't end until we find her Usually it was us four all together all the time. Ashley Cogburn, Amanda Smith, and Nicole Haywood had an unbreakable bond with Kelsey. They grew up together in Moses Lake, Washington.

From the pictures, she's gorgeous, obviously, and very put together, and so you might think that she's this prissy girl, but she was not. She was raised on a hay farm and very much a tomboy. Country girl? Yeah, she was out there driving tractors and bucking bales. In flying planes, she was a flight instructor.

She a good pilot? Oh yeah, she was really good. She wasn't afraid to challenge the typical boundaries. So it wasn't a surprise when a Colorado cowboy named Patrick Frazee caught Kelsey's eye on a dating website in 2016. He was like a country boy, and that's what she was used to. That's what she liked. They started a long-distance relationship. Patrick Frazee lived on a 35-acre ranch in rural Florissant, Colorado.

These are four dogs to be our dogs to train this fall and winter. In this video, Patrick can be heard training cattle dogs. Pepper, that'll do. Down. He also shooed horses and groomed donkeys. The black and white one is Flash. Clint Klein has known Patrick for seven years. Patrick is the farrier for the donkeys. People call them horseshoers and all that, but our donkeys don't have shoes. So he trims their feet. He trims their feet. He gives them, as we call it, donkey manicures. Klein says Patrick was quiet and

dedicated to his work. He's kind of laid back, you know, kind of stays to himself. He had his ranch to take care of. Eventually, Kelsey moved to Colorado from Washington state to be closer to Patrick, and they were expecting a child. Her mother Cheryl says they were engaged. Does she have a dress yet? No. I don't think she cared about the big wedding kind of thing. It was between them and God. Even after their daughter Kaylee was born in October 2017,

the couple still didn't live together but shared parenting duties. He never came to see her, but she would, like, on her days off, she would go back and be with him. Friends say Kelsey was struggling to balance the baby, her job, and a long commute. Her relationship with Patrick seems strained. She seemed to be kind of stressed out from the whole thing that she couldn't make him happy. Was Patrick emotionally abusive? It appeared that way from what I saw, and it seemed like it was just knocking her spirit down. Did Kelsey ever say he was physically abusive?

No. Ashley says Kelsey once mentioned there may have been another woman in Patrick's life. I think Kelsey had mentioned one time about an ex-girlfriend who still kind of wanted to be with Patrick. Kelsey wasn't worried about it. I don't know if it's because she knew she lived far away. Kelsey didn't seem all that worried about it. After Kelsey was reported missing, police talked to Patrick. He told them that the day before Thanksgiving, Kelsey said she wanted to end their relationship. KKTV reporter Ashley Franco. He said that Kelsey wanted to go their separate ways and things

weren't working out between them. They wanted to split custody 50-50 and they were just not meshing anymore. Patrick told police he and Kelsey met to exchange the baby on Thanksgiving Day. He also returned Kelsey's belongings. A purse, keys to the car, keys to the townhome, and then a gun that Kelsey owned. It was a gun, Patrick says, he had once taken from Kelsey for her own protection. Police say Patrick told them Kelsey struggled with depression, hinting that she may be suicidal. When you hear that Patrick said Kelsey was unstable, that she was maybe suicidal. No, not at all. It doesn't match up with Kelsey. Police searched Kelsey's home but turned up no signs of foul play.

Then Cheryl and her son went to the house to check it out. There was a mat, like a rug of some sort in the bathroom and it's gone. And she had also noticed that the refrigerator looked like it had been wiped down recently. You could see streaks. Later, her son is in the bathroom and notices blood on the base of the toilet. And the alarms go off in their minds. Alarms go off. Kelsey's mother, Cheryl, alerted investigators who returned to the house. This time, they used chemicals to detect the presence of blood. They found trace amounts

of blood everywhere in the bathroom. Do we know whose blood? DNA results showed it was Kelsey's. Investigators believed Kelsey had been murdered, but they needed more evidence. A closer look at Kelsey and her fiancé's cell phone activity Thanksgiving weekend would lead them to her suspected killer. In 2014, Laura Heavlin was in her home in Tennessee when she received a call from California. Her daughter, Erin Corwin, was missing. The young wife of a Marine had moved to the California desert to a remote base near Joshua Tree National Park. They have to alert the military, and when they do, the NCIS gets involved. From CBS Studios and CBS News, this is 48 Hours NCIS.

From CBS Studios and CBS News, this is 48 Hours NCIS. Listen to 48 Hours NCIS ad-free starting October 29th on Amazon Music. In the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Peru and New Zealand, lies a tiny volcanic island. It's a little-known British territory called Pitcairn, and it harboured a deep, dark scandal. There wouldn't be a girl on Pitcairn once they reach the age of 10 that would still a virgin. It just happens to all of us. I'm journalist Luke Jones, and for almost two years, I've been investigating a shocking story that has left deep scars

on generations of women and girls from Pitcairn. When there's nobody watching, nobody going to report it, people will get away with what they can get away with. In the Pitcairn Trials, I'll be uncovering a story of abuse and the fight for justice that has brought a unique, lonely Pacific island to the brink of extinction. Listen to the Pitcairn Trials exclusively on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Patrick Frazee was taken into custody this morning in Florissant, Colorado, just after 7 o'clock this morning, Mountain Standard Time.

Nearly a month after Kelsey Barrett vanished, Woodland Park Police Chief Miles DeYoung made this grim announcement. Today we arrested Patrick Frazee on charges of first-degree murder of Kelsey Barrett. As a reminder, Patrick Frazee is presum of first-degree murder of Kelsey Barrett. As a reminder, Patrick Frazee is presumed innocent until proven guilty. Patrick, what do you have to say? Despite the murder charge, Kelsey's body had not been found. As you can tell from the arrest, sadly, we do not believe Kelsey is still alive.

Kelsey's daughter, Kaylee, is in protective custody and will be reunited with Kelsey's family. Patrick Frazee entered a plea of not guilty, but from the beginning, investigators had questions about Patrick's story, starting with his initial claim that the day before Thanksgiving, Kelsey told him she wanted to break up and quote, go their separate ways. So this is Woodland Park? This is Woodland Park. Yet there she was shopping the next day for the family dinner. You see her grab a cart and put Kaylee in the cart and then go off. And that's last time publicly anyone had seen Kelsey Barrett. What does she buy here at Safeway?

She buys ingredients for a sweet potato casserole. Investigators wondered if Kelsey had broken up with Patrick, why would she send him this text? I bought some sweet potatoes in case you wanted sweet potato casserole. Kelsey didn't tell her mother she and Patrick were breaking up when she spoke with her Thanksgiving morning. Did she sound normal? Definitely. She sounded happy and normal mom-daughter talk. Another big question investigators had was when Patrick said he last saw Kelsey.

Patrick told officers that he hadn't seen her since Thanksgiving, November 22nd, when he exchanged their daughter, Kaylee Barrett. In images from a neighbor security camera on that Thanksgiving day, Patrick and Kelsey are seen at her door with a baby carrier after Kelsey returned from the store. You can see her holding a poinsettia. Later, Patrick is seen at that same location alone. We don't know whether he's coming or going. He doesn't have Kaylee, and he's not with Kelsey. And then that's it. University of Colorado law professor Aya Gruber has followed the case.

The critical question is, what happened in between around 1.30, 1.45 and 3.30 when they get that picture of him? Police say this is likely when Patrick killed her. Investigators have recovered a number of items that make us suspicious that the crime did occur at Kelsey's residence. Patrick told authorities he drove their daughter Kaylee to his ranch for Thanksgiving dinner. He said Kelsey wasn't with them, but investigators discovered that her cell phone was. They pulled cell phone records and found that on Thanksgiving Day, November 22nd, all of a sudden, Kelsey's phone and Patrick's phone started traveling together, but Patrick and Kelsey started traveling together,

but Patrick and Kelsey were not together. Investigators say Patrick took Kelsey's cell phone after he killed her as part of a scheme to cover his tracks. They believe he faked 19 calls between the two phones over Thanksgiving weekend and was sending texts between them, including this one from Kelsey's phone. I'm going running. I'll call you guys when I get home. His response, OK, be safe. The theory that the prosecution's going to put forward

is that that was Patrick with her phone, and he's texting pretending to be Kelsey. Two days after Thanksgiving, authorities believe Patrick concocted this conversation. Are you awake? Sorry, I didn't hear my phone. Going to jump in the shower. I'll call you guys when I get out. Okay.

Then investigators believe to keep up his ruse that Kelsey wanted the breakup, Patrick sent this message. If this is truly what you want, I'll respect your wishes and give you space. On Sunday, three days after Thanksgiving, there was a bizarre development that would send this case in a very different direction. Phone records show while Patrick's cell stayed near his ranch,

Kelsey's phone was on the move, heading west out of Colorado. There was a text from Kelsey's phone to her supervisor at Doss Aviation saying, I won't be at work. So people had thought maybe they heard from Kelsey. The next text from Kelsey's phone said, do you even love me? That text pinged off a cell phone tower 800 miles away. Reports are correct that Kelsey's phone gave a location near Gooding, Idaho on November 25th. When that came out, I think everyone was just shocked. And where's Kelsey?

And where's Kelsey? No one knows where Kelsey is. So how did her phone end up in Idaho? This woman may have the answer. It was startling news when investigators revealed that three days after Kelsey Barrett was last seen, her cell phone had pinged in Gooding, Idaho, 800 miles from her home. Tonight, we have new information about a 32-year-old Twin Falls woman that may have helped Patrick Frazee cover up the disappearance and alleged murder of his fiancée, Kelsey Barrett. At the time of Kelsey's disappearance, phone records show that Patrick was in touch with this woman, Crystal Kenny Lee. Crystal was a nurse and avid horsewoman who grew up here. This is Crystal's world.

KMVT News Director and weekend cowboy, Cade Atwood. We work hard to be able to do this on the weekends. Crystal and her family are a big part of the rodeo community, a very prominent family. Talk horses and that's, you're speaking her love language, you know. Michelle Stein is Crystal's best friend. Horses are her life. She loves horses. Take a look at this. And in Idaho, where rodeo rules, Crystal was royalty.

In 2008, she was crowned queen of the Magic Valley Rodeo. She was so loved. Laura Stutzman has known Crystal since she was crowned Queen of the Magic Valley Rodeo. She was so loved. Laura Stutzman has known Crystal since she was a teenager. Crystal was so kind with everybody that it was just so difficult to turn her down in any way. Crystal had a reputation of getting what she wanted? No, I wouldn't say it was a reputation of getting what she wanted. Crystal worked so hard

at everything she did to try to do everything completely correct. Authorities believe that it was Crystal who traveled to Idaho with Kelsey's phone. But when the FBI made their initial call to Crystal, she said she had no idea who Kelsey Barrett was. She also denied knowing Patrick Frazee. Then she changed her story. They asked her, when was the last time you talked to him? And she said, I don't know, I'd have to look at my phone. And then says, oh, in the last month.

And investigators are thinking, okay, but we already know that your phone has called his phone multiple times in the last few weeks. She says, I don't have a personal relationship with Patrick Frazee. I've gone to Colorado and looked at a few of his horses, and that's the extent of our relationship. She lies. She lies. Turns out Crystal Lee and Patrick Frazee had a long history They met after high school Then, eight months before Kelsey disappeared Crystal and Patrick's relationship heated up Crystal was recently divorced with two children She had been out here multiple times to see him

And it was a type of affair What did Crystal say about Patrick? Was she in love with him? I think she was, to a point. During the investigation, the FBI got a tip that Michelle had explosive information about the case. She says Crystal called and confided in her about a disturbing conversation she and Patrick had a month before Kelsey disappeared. she and Patrick had a month before Kelsey disappeared.

She was very, very upset, very distraught. She had told me that he had asked her to take care of his baby mama. And you took that to mean she took that to mean? And so I was like, well, I was in shock at first because people, who says that? Nobody says that. So I was like wait what and she said yeah he asked me if I would kill the mother of his baby I mean what are you thinking at that point I was just in shock and disbelief what was Crystal's tone when she was telling you this? She was bawling. She was crying. She was extremely upset and scared. Michelle says she asked Crystal why Patrick wanted to kill Kelsey.

He had told her it was because she wanted to take him back to court to get custody of the baby. And he was in fear that she was going to harm the baby. Investigators found no proof Kelsey had harmed her daughter, but did find evidence that Patrick had planned to challenge Kelsey for custody and believe that may have been his motive for murder. Michelle says she pushed Crystal to call the police. I kept telling her, I think you need to call and tell somebody. See, you gotta understand, I'm trusting her to do the right thing. But I think, Michelle, people watching will say, call the police. Say, you need to talk to my friend. Someone's asking her to kill someone.

You're right. Okay, of course the viewers are going to think that. But do you have regret? Of course I regret it. I regret it every day. Oh my God, I would do anything to have stopped that somehow. Kelsey had been gone about a month before Michelle talked to the FBI. And when the FBI went back at Crystal a second time, she too was ready to talk. I think at that point she kind of knows I have to come clean. But first, Crystal wanted a deal. In exchange for her testimony against Patrick, she agreed to plead guilty to evidence tampering.

She admitted to getting rid of the gun, to tossing Kelsey's keys in a canyon, and destroying her phone. It's a tampering with evidence charge, which is a minor charge compared to murder or, you know, accessory to murder or attempted murder. She only faces at max three years in prison. This is a pretty good deal that she gets.

What Crystal revealed to investigators would become the center of the prosecution's case against Patrick Frazee. When I first walked in, I saw blood all over the floor. I saw blood up the wall. Hot shot Australian attorney Nicola Gaba was born into legal royalty. Her specialty? Representing some of the city's most infamous gangland criminals. However, while Nicola held the underworld's darkest secrets, the most dangerous secret was her own. She's going to all the major groups within Melbourne's underworld, and she's informing on them all. I'm Marsha Clark, host of the new podcast, Informants Lawyer X.

In my long career in criminal justice as a prosecutor and defense attorney, I've seen some crazy cases. And this one belongs right at the top of the list. She was addicted to the game she had created. She just didn't know how to stop. Now, through dramatic interviews and access, I'll reveal the truth behind one of the world's most shocking legal scandals. Listen to Informants Lawyer X exclusively on Wondery Plus.

Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. And listen to more Exhibit C true crime shows early and ad-free right now. Did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder? Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, early and ad-free, with a 48-hour plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. When Crystal Lee finally started talking, she didn't stop for four and a half hours. Her story was stunning. She claimed Patrick tried to get her to kill Kelsey three different times. The first idea was to get a caramel macchiato from Starbucks, Kelsey's favorite drink, and put poison in it. Two months before Kelsey went missing,

Crystal says she drove 12 hours from Idaho to this Starbucks near Kelsey's home in Colorado. Hi, welcome to Starbucks. What can I get started for you today? Crystal, a nurse, told investigators she suggested the perfect potion, a lethal dose of Ambien and Valium. This is the drink. That is the drink Crystal Lee had ordered to put poison in to give to Kelsey Barrett. So Crystal brings this Starbucks caramel macchiato right here. Waits in the alleyway, walks up to Kelsey's door, knocks on the door, and tells... Kelsey opens it?

Kelsey opens it, tells Kelsey this elaborate story. She says, I'm new to the neighborhood. Someone had told me that you had helped get my dogs out of trouble. And Kelsey says, no, I didn't do that. Does Kelsey take the coffee? Allegedly, Kelsey takes the coffee inside and closes the door. And from there, we don't know what Kelsey does with the coffee. But Crystal says she couldn't do it. She didn't poison the coffee.

And when Patrick found out, he was angry. He was furious. He was not happy that she didn't go through with it. He would play head games with her a lot. Crystal's best friend, Michelle Stein. He just had a way of manipulating her into doing things. After Crystal said she couldn't go through with the poison plan, she told investigators Patrick came up with a different idea. He says, I have a metal pipe that I'll leave outside my property that you can come pick up. And I want you to go wait for Kelsey at her townhome. And when she comes, hit her on the back of the head.

The way Crystal tells it, she drove to Kelsey's house with that metal pipe, but didn't attack her and drove back to Idaho. A week later, she says Patrick called with a new murder plan. Once again, Crystal drove from Idaho to Kelsey's Colorado townhouse. Crystal claims she waited for Kelsey outside her home, this time with an aluminum baseball bat. But just like her earlier attempts, she says she chickened out. It's just hard to believe these stories. They seem outlandish and wild. Phone record show Patrick called Crystal in Idaho around 4.30 on Thanksgiving Day. Crystal said he told her, you need to get out here now. You got a mess to clean up.

Crystal says that she can't come out that same day, but will come out a few days later. She's in Idaho, loads up the car with cleaning supplies, bleach, hairnets, you know, gloves, trash bags. She basically brought the equivalent of a hazmat suit and every sort of cleaning product that one might see in one of those TV shows about how to clean up a crime scene. clean up a crime scene. Two days later, on Saturday morning, Crystal says she drove 800 miles to Patrick's ranch to pick up a set of Kelsey's keys he left for her outside. Then she says she drove to Kelsey's home. Crystal tells authorities she opens the door and the scene is horrific. There's blood everywhere. According to Crystal, Kelsey's body was not inside. And then spends, you know, three to four hours cleaning and scrubbing the murder scene. She takes some of the things that she couldn't clean and puts them into trash bags

and loads them in the back of the car she was driving. Crystal claims Patrick was back at his ranch during the cleanup. There was a point in time when Patrick Frazee had told Crystal Lee, when you go to clean up her townhome, there is possibly a tooth somewhere. Crystal said she found that tooth and put it in a trash bag. Crystal told investigators after the cleanup she met with Patrick. She described to them how he said he lured Kelsey to her death. Crystal claims Patrick invited his fiance to play a guessing game with candles.

She says that he takes a sweater from Kelsey's room and blindfolds her with the sweater and has candles sitting out in front of Kelsey and is telling Kelsey to guess the scent of each candle. During her interview with investigators, Crystal said Patrick told her while baby Kaylee was in another room, he took a baseball bat and, quote, he went to swinging. After killing Kelsey with that baseball bat on Thanksgiving Day, Crystal says Patrick told her he put her body in a black tote. This surveillance image shows Patrick at an ATM earlier that day with a black tote in his truck. Crystal went with investigators to Patrick's ranch. She told them that she and Patrick went there together, and she watched him burn that tote.

He poured gasoline in the bucket and pitched it into the fire. I believe yesterday you said that you also collected wood and put into the burn pit? Yes, I did. Police later examined the spot where they believe Kelsey's body was burned. Crystal also went with investigators to Kelsey's home. She's wearing that police jacket and hat. The floorboards had been removed for testing. Can you point, if you remember, where the tooth was?

Around the tooth, what was there is anything. Blood. Correct. There was blood on the chairs. There was blood on this chair. There was blood on the table. There was blood on the Hobby Lobby bag that was sitting there. She pointed out where she claims she intentionally left blood for them to find.

Right there. where she claims she intentionally left blood for them to find. On December 21, 2018, Patrick was arrested at his ranch and charged with Kelsey's murder. This is a case without a body. This is a case without a lot of physical evidence. So what we mainly have connecting Patrick Frazee to an incredibly brutal and violent crime is Crystal Lee's testimony. Crystal, who had cut that deal with prosecutors, seemed shaken when she appeared in court after she turned herself in to authorities. shaken when she appeared in court after she turned herself in to authorities. The Crystal I knew could do no wrong.

But the Crystal that has done the things that came out of her mouth is somebody I don't know. And that leaves Laura Stutzman with one question. Why? Why do you think Crystal helped Patrick? See the evidence photos on 48hours.com. Almost a year after Kelsey Barrett's disappearance, there was a long line to get a seat in the courtroom at Patrick Frazee's murder trial. I met a lot of people that knew Patrick. They don't think that the candle story adds up. Frazee's friend, Clint Kline, was there almost every day.

I don't know of any guys that would have thought of going out and buying candles and having their girlfriend be blindfolded and then smell the candles. You think that had to be a woman's idea? I think so. Friese was driven from the jail in a black SUV. He entered the courthouse through this white tent, out of sight from the media. Security was tight. No cameras in the courtroom. District Attorney Dan May. I gotta tell you, it's one of the most emotional trials I've ever been through, and I've been through a lot of

trials in my career. Prosecutor Beth Reed painted a picture of Patrick Friese. Very charming, painted a picture of Patrick Frazee. Very charming, very manipulative, and controlling. All traits consistent with being a sociopath. Ashley Franco summed up the defense case. No body, no murder weapon, and no clear motive. They had said, you know, Patrick wasn't involved. There's no evidence to show he was involved. And Crystal Lee had already lied to law enforcement, so she's the one to blame for this. On day four, the prosecution's star witness, Crystal Lee, took the stand. Her credibility was on the line.

I don't think we would have known what happened to Kelsey without Crystal Lee. I started picking up things that were blood splatters. For two days, prosecutor Jennifer Veman asked Lee to describe Frazee's plan to kill Kelsey Barrett. They bolstered their case with surveillance videos and photos. This one shows the black tote in the back of Frazee's truck that Lee says he would use to dispose of her body. When you came in, what did you see? Blood all over the floor. I saw blood up the wall. I saw blood on this wall. Most disturbing. Prosecutors played that video of Lee inside

Kelsey's home, showing investigators how she cleaned up the crime scene. Did you say, correct me if I'm wrong, did you say that you cleaned off some of the appliances? I did. I wiped the front. There was blood on the front of the dishwasher. There was blood on the front of the stove. There was that cinnamon roll pan had blood on the tinfoil.

They had pulled up the floorboards where they found Kelsey's blood. They showed video of a hay barn where Lisa's Frazee hid Kelsey's body in that tote overnight. A cadaver dog alerted to the area. This is a surveillance image of Frazee at a gas station. Lee says he was buying gas to start a fire. We brought the tote here. We unloaded the tote. Kelsey's body was moved to Frazee's ranch. Were you present when he started the fire? Yes, I was. to Frazee's ranch.

Were you present when he started the fire? Yes, I was. This is the video that shows how Lee says she helped Frazee burn Kelsey's body in that black tote. What about the accelerant? Gas. Okay. And burned evidence, including

Kaylee's toys and Kelsey's blood-stained Bible. Do you remember what the books were? One of them was her, I would imagine it was a Bible. Experts say a human female tooth fragment was recovered from Frazee's ranch near the burn site, but there wasn't enough DNA to determine a profile. DNA to determine a profile. At the end of her testimony, she told the jury Kelsey's chilling last words, please stop. But he didn't. He keeps beating her and beating her and beating her. The jury needed to hear that. They needed to hear how brutal this was, how uncaring he was, how senseless this was.

Why would Lee help Frazee? She claimed she feared for herself and her children. She was in love with Patrick Frazee and had been for a long time. As the trial went on and we saw that dark side of Patrick Frazee that Crystal saw, that Kelsey saw. I think you can understand some of that fear. I don't know that we'll ever understand entirely why she did what she did. It's fairly inexplicable. Perhaps the most shocking testimony came from a surprise prosecution witness. Your last witness, I think, jaws dropped when he started testifying. Tell me about him. We didn't know about him. Prosecutor Beth Reed says the surprise witness was an inmate at the same jail where Patrick Frazee was being held. He actually had started calling our office

while we were in the middle of trial. The former inmate had watched a 48 Hours episode on Kelsey Barrett's murder. Turns out, he says, Frazee gave him a hit list. Some of the names, handwritten on paper towels, he was instructed to flush. Describe to me what was in the 16 notes passed between Patrick and the former inmate. Well, they were requests that a certain number of witnesses needed to disappear. But it was very specific as to Crystal Lee, graphic descriptions of what needed to happen to Crystal Lee. He described putting a bullet in her head. Also on Frazee's hit list, Crystal Lee's best friend, Michelle Stein,

and Kelsey's mother, Cheryl Barrett. What does that say about Patrick Frazee? It says that Patrick will do whatever he wants to get whatever he wants. The defense called no witnesses. Frazee chose not to testify. The case went to the jury. After three and a half hours of deliberations, a verdict. A verdict is in in this 11 breaking news alert. The jury says they unanimously found Patrick Frazee guilty of first degree murder. Frazee was found guilty of first

degree murder, sentenced to life in prison plus 156 years. Do you think if Patrick hadn't involved Crystal, he would have gotten away with Kelsey's murder? Yes, I do. I think it's very possible he would have gotten away with that. Involving Crystal was, that was a stupid plan. The whole plan was stupid, but he wanted Crystal Lee to pin it on. As for Crystal Lee, she's facing a maximum of up to three years in prison. I think a lot of our viewers are probably thinking Crystal Lee, given what she's admitted to, got a really good deal. She did. And it's not right. And I'm not going to try to justify it in any way. It's unfortunately a part of my profession that sometimes in order to solve a case,

we have to give a deal to the devil. That's exactly what we did here. If you could sentence Crystal Lee, what would it be? A heck of a lot more time than three years. She could have saved Kelsey so many times over so many months, and it's totally inexcusable. Is this justice for Kelsey and Kaylee? Can there ever be justice? Justice in this case? Kelsey would be sitting here talking to you, not us. Excuse me.

So we can certainly seek a certain amount of justice, but not the justice that this case deserves. After Kelsey Barrett's death, her parents took over the care of her toddler, Kelly. Have you ever wondered who created that bottle of sriracha that's living in your fridge? Or why nearly every house in America has at least one game of Monopoly? Introducing The Best Idea Yet, a brand new podcast from Wondery and T-Boy about the surprising origin stories of the products you're obsessed with and the bolder takers who brought them to life. Like, did you know that Super Mario, the best-selling video game character of all time, only exists because Nintendo couldn't get the rights to Popeye? Or Jack, that the idea for

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It's just the best idea yet. My husband sees a shot to the best idea yet. to a guy like him. 48 Hours, Saturday at 10, 9 Central on CBS. If you like this podcast, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. Before you go, tell us about yourself

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