Dateline NBC - Devil's Bargain

Episode Date: February 11, 2020

Family members and the lead investigators who cracked the Kelsey Berreth case speak out for the first time and take Andrea Canning inside the murder investigation. Originally aired on NBC on February 7, 2020.

I'm Lester Holt. Tonight on Dateline, her disappearance made headlines across the country. The mom who vanished on Thanksgiving Day. That video snowballed into this big mystery. And your family is like right in the middle of it. Kelsey would never, ever have abandoned her baby. Never. I'm trying to find a missing person. The supervisor asked me to interview a girl named Crystal. We didn't really

have any idea who she was. Blood all over the floor. I saw blood up the wall. She told us everything. I started picking up things that were blood splattered. This woman knew about a murder, covered it up. The things that were thrown into the fire by me

were the belongings from Kelsey's house. She could have stopped this from happening. He had a hold on her that he totally exploited. This whole thing is crazy. Took my breath away. way. Here's Andrea Canning with Devil's Bargain. Was there any blood on the TV? Do you remember? Yeah, there was blood on the TV. There was blood on the chairs. There was blood on this chair. There was blood on the table. 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. You're witnessing something highly unusual, a woman at the center of a murder investigation reconstructing the scene of the gruesome crime. Can you tell me what you saw in here and what you cleaned up? There was a lot of blood. It's quite the top of the toilet. Her name is Crystal Lee Kenny, a former nurse and one-time rodeo queen,

a mother of two small children. And this is where the burn occurred. And a key player in the murder case of another young mother. I also threw in all the clothing that I was wearing into the fire. Watch carefully. Is she a witness, an accomplice, or something else? And was the sentence she received last week fair and just, or just the opposite? You called this making a deal with the devil.

I did. Tonight, we'll take you inside the investigation with new photos and video you've never seen before. We'll hear from the investigators who cracked the case, speaking publicly for the first time.

It was horrific. And from family members living through it all, giving their first ever interview. I still wait for her to call. Really? Our Kelsey can't be gone. Our story begins with a most unremarkable scene. November 22nd, 2018.

A mother with her baby was captured on security camera at a local store in Colorado, buying last-minute groceries for Thanksgiving dinner. But this video would go viral because it was the last time she was ever seen in public. Her name, Kelsey Barrett. More than a week after that Thanksgiving day, Kelsey's mom Cheryl was home in Idaho with a nagging feeling. She'd last spoken to her daughter on the phone Thanksgiving morning. Kelsey was preparing to have dinner with her fiancé, Patrick Frazee, and their daughter, Kaylee. Small talk, basically. She'd fix Kaylee cinnamon rolls, you know, kind of celebrate Thanksgiving,

and Kaylee didn't like them. She wanted the Honey Nut Cheerios. Two days after that, Cheryl received a text from Kelsey's phone saying, I'll call you tomorrow. But Kelsey didn't call. At first, that wasn't surprising. Kelsey juggled motherhood, as well as looking for a home so she and Patrick, who lived on a ranch with his mom, could move in together. She also had a demanding job as a flight instructor.

She's a busy lady. She works long shifts. She spends, you know, a lot of time with Kaylee. It takes a lot to be a mom, a flight instructor. She's a busy lady. She works long shifts. She spends, you know, a lot of time with Kaylee. It takes a lot to be a mom, a working mom. Still, Kelsey rarely went this long without calling. So after about a week, Cheryl called Kelsey's fiance, Patrick. He told her he'd last seen Kelsey on Thanksgiving Day when he'd picked up their daughter. And then he said something that took Cheryl completely by surprise. He told her Kelsey had called and had broken up with him and seemed to have taken off.

I can't think of anywhere she's ever gone that she hasn't told me this is the plan. It's just not in her character to just take off and be gone. Cheryl called to ask if we've heard from Kelsey. And we hadn't. Scott and Kim Morin are Kelsey's aunt and uncle. The family was growing more anxious by the minute. I remember laying in bed just calling Kelsey's phone, leaving a message to have her call me. It was now 10 days since Cheryl had last spoken with her daughter. she called the police.

What happened on day one of this investigation? December 2nd was day one, and Cheryl Barrett called in a missing person for Kelsey. Chris Adams is now with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. But back in December 2018, he was with the Woodland Park PD and led the investigation into Kelsey's disappearance. This is his first time speaking out about the case. And officers were dispatched. They initially went out to her house, tried to make contact, were unable to.

No one answers? Correct. Cheryl's anxiety turned to panic. She and Kelsey's brother set off for Colorado. She calls us back and says, Clint and I are flying down. Pray. It's like chilling, even just hearing you say that. Yeah.

As Kelsey's family agonized over her whereabouts, investigators went back to her condo. We're just trying to find evidence of where she may have gone. Did she leave behind her phone, her purse, anything that would be out of the ordinary? We never found her phone, her purse, or her keys. Both vehicles were out in the driveway. She's got a black sedan and a red Chevy truck. Also in the condo, investigators found Kelsey's makeup bag, something her family said she never traveled without. On the stove, cold cinnamon buns. It was that evening I realized certain things weren't adding up. The car's there, but not the keys. You know, she's a young mother, she's not with her kid. So I requested assistance from the FBI and CBI. Greg, that's when you enter

the case? Yes. Greg Slater is also an agent with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. He's been in law enforcement for 35 years. This, too, is his first time speaking about the investigation. And what are your initial thoughts? You know, first you're thinking, all right, you know, we have a missing mom. Check inside the house to see if there's any type of a struggle that may have taken place. We recommended that they start calling around to local hospitals to see if she was there. By now, investigators had found a grocery store receipt on Kelsey's kitchen table.

It was dated November 22nd, Thanksgiving Day. They pulled the security footage from the grocery store. And there was Kelsey. They started to build a timeline of her whereabouts. Meanwhile, Cheryl and Kelsey's brother arrived in Woodland Park and stayed at Kelsey's condo. They spoke with investigators, Cheryl recalling her last conversation with Kelsey Thanksgiving morning. She's been happy. She's been wanting to decorate for Christmas and excited about that. She was planning her Christmas list.

Her job was going well. Investigators also spoke with Kelsey's fiance, Patrick. Was Patrick cooperative? He was. Patrick told investigators the same thing he told Cheryl. He had last seen Kelsey Thanksgiving Day. He said he picked up baby Kaylee in the alley by Kelsey's home. He also went to the local credit union and Walmart

and tended to his cattle in the afternoon. Sure enough, security camera footage showed him at the credit union and Walmart. Patrick also gave the investigators his cell phone. What do you find on Patrick Frazee's phone? Oh, we find the text message exchange between Patrick and Kelsey. Investigators found texts that backed up his story that Kelsey had broken up with him on the phone two days after Thanksgiving. Patrick had messaged, if this is truly what you want, I'll respect your wishes and give you space. Let me know if you change your mind. I'll leave you alone now. You can call me

when you decide what you want to do. Text messages the day after showed Kelsey in distress. One read, And Patrick replied, So to answer your question, yes, I do. He told investigators that was the last time he heard from her. Kelsey's manager at the flight school said he also received a text from Kelsey's phone. What did it say? Not to expect her in, that she's going to visit her grandmother.

And investigators had to consider Kelsey's profession as a pilot. Did you look at airports that maybe she had taken a plane somewhere to get away? Personally, I did. No flight plans were filed? No. No sightings of Kelsey? No. To find Kelsey, the investigators needed to know more about her. They dug deeper and uncovered a complicated life. Where was Kelsey? We are treating Kelsey's disappearance as a missing persons case at this time. Kelsey, we just want you home. We won't quit looking. The mystery was just beginning and one woman

would hold the key. We didn't know how vital she was going to be. She was smart enough to realize that I can't hide this anymore. Part of me wants to strangle her. Part of me wants to hug her. Fearless, determined, always up for a challenge. That's what Kelsey's mom, Cheryl, was telling investigators about her daughter, who'd vanished on Thanksgiving Day. She's a good person. She's very dedicated, very loyal, reliable. She loves God. I couldn't ask for a better daughter. Kelsey grew up on her family's farm near Moses Lake, Washington,

about 100 miles from Spokane. Kelsey was a light. She lit up a room. She lit up your heart. Kelsey's uncle, Scott, is a pastor at the Homedale Friends Community Church near Boise, Idaho. He and his wife, Kim, had a very close bond with Kelsey. This is their first and only interview about the case. She was smart. If she was determined to do something, she fought. She put it all in. She was an incredible woman to watch. You wanted to be with Kelsey. You wanted to hang out with her. You wanted to hear what she had to say. At some point, she's going to make you

laugh. Kelsey discovered her lifelong passion at a very young age. She loved thinking about flying, from watching crop dusters on the farm. She actually wanted to be a crop duster for a time? That would have been her dream job for a time, was being a crop duster. You don't hear that every day from a little girl. No, I think it was exciting. She was fascinated with it. She loved a challenge. After high school, Kelsey enrolled in a flying program at her local community college. Kelsey graduated and eventually landed a job as a flight instructor in Spokane.

She also dipped her toe in the world of online dating. And around Christmas 2015, someone piqued her interest. His name was Patrick Frazee. We knew he was a rancher. We knew he was successful at the time. We knew that he was a farrier. As a farrier, Patrick trimmed and shooed horse hooves. He lived on his family's ranch, more than 1,100 miles from Kelsey in Florissant, Colorado. But the distance didn't seem to matter. Over the next year, their relationship flourished. I think they were online interactions for months. He came down and they met each other in person. It was, I don't know, a few months later, we found out that she was heading to Colorado. In 2017, Kelsey found work with Doss Aviation,

a flight school for U.S. Air Force trainees. She was sort of getting the best of both worlds, being able to fly, being able to have a ranch. She loved being outdoors. So this was good. This was good news. So you must have been happy for her. Yeah. And there was more good news.

Kelsey and Patrick learned they were expecting. She always wanted to be a mom. She always wanted a family, pilot and family. That October, they welcomed daughter Kaylee. As soon as Kaylee was born, she was loved. In May 2018, Kelsey moved into a condo in Woodland Park. It was a 20-minute drive from Patrick's family ranch, and the flight school was about an hour in the opposite direction. It was a stressful situation as the new parents took turns caring for Kaylee. Patrick was a hands-on dad, often taking Kaylee with him on farrier jobs while Kelsey was away at work.

He had these little wool socks that he put on on top of her other socks. Clint Kline, a longtime client of Patrick's, saw firsthand how Patrick doted on his daughter. He had this little jumpsuit for her, and he kept her where he could see her, and he took very good care of that little girl. While one was working, the other one had her,

and vice versa. They seemed to have that going pretty well. So everything's coming together for Kelsey. Right. Perhaps not everything. As investigators put together their timeline, they found that by Thanksgiving, Kelsey appeared run down. The day after the holiday, Patrick received a text from Kelsey's phone saying, actually, do you mind keeping Kaylee tonight? Sorry, I'm really tired and stressed out. Call me in the morning when you guys wake up. Patrick replied with concern. Sure, I don't mind. What's going on? Are you okay? Do you need

anything? Or can I do anything? The response seemed to come from an exhausted Kelsey. No, I'm fine. Just worn out. Talk to you guys tomorrow. Not long after that, those texts dried up and no one seemed to know where Kelsey was. But Patrick's friend Clint had an idea. He said he knew of another side of Kelsey altogether. Coming up, new questions surrounding Kelsey. Had she vanished before? She disappeared for some time frame. Disappeared. He didn't know where she was. And where was her gun? Does that concern you at all that the gun's missing? It does. When Dateline continues. As police stepped up the hunt for missing mom Kelsey Barrett, her disappearance made the news. We are treating Kelsey's disappearance as a missing persons case at this time.

I'd just like to talk to you a little bit about Kelsey. She's not the kind that runs off. This is completely out of character. Kelsey, we just want you home. Call us if you can, and we won't quit looking. Patrick did not attend the news conference about his missing fiancée. Four days later, police served a search warrant at his ranch. A lot of developments over the weekend in the search for that young Colorado mother who vanished mysteriously more than three weeks ago now.

On Patrick's ranch, they took these photos being shown on TV for the first time, including this one, Patrick's list of what he did the day Kelsey disappeared. He had written down, picked up Kaylee, ran errands, went to Walmart. Then he puts, check cattle, and has him home having Thanksgiving dinner. They had come in, they had checked his place, and, you know, they didn't find anything. They were moving on. Did he sound upset at all? Sounded concerned.

But Patrick's friend, Clint, wasn't especially concerned that Kelsey was missing. He says Patrick had already confided to him. Kelsey had issues and sometimes just took off by herself, leaving Patrick and the baby. She disappeared for some time frame. Disappeared? He didn't know where she was. She left, and then the next thing he knew, she had checked into a rehab. What did he think happened during those days? He didn't know. He

just said that after she got out of the rehab that first time, she went into rehab a second time is what he had told me. Alcohol, drugs? What I gathered was it was alcohol. Clint believed maybe Kelsey's Thanksgiving disappearance was another relapse of some kind. When you first heard that Kelsey had disappeared, did your mind go back to those times that Patrick had told you about the fact that she would disappear? Yeah, that's what my first thought was, is, well, she's in rehab again somewhere, and she'll show up, you know, that 20 days or so, whatever the rehab timeframes are, that she'll show back up. But Kelsey didn't show back up.

You don't know anything about this woman. So is that one possibility that you have to consider, that she willingly disappeared or that she took her own life? It is. As the investigators delved into Kelsey's past, they didn't find any evidence of drug or alcohol abuse, but did find, about three months before Thanksgiving, Kelsey had been to a clinic that treats depression. It's a facility in California where clients pay to go to get over some depression, sleep

deprivation, anxiety, things of that nature, and it was a 10-day clinic. So it's just more to give Kelsey an opportunity to get back to a position where she felt that she could function better, both as a mom and as a pilot. Kelsey's not in the best frame of mind she's ever been. To go away from your child and to go to a facility like that says to me she needed to clear her head. I think she was just worn out and she's trying to figure out why am I tired? Why am I feeling, you know, maybe a little depressed? A thousand miles away near Boise, Idaho, Kelsey's family knew she had bouts of fatigue, but said her problems weren't bad enough to make her run away.

I don't think she suffered from depression more than anyone else does. Especially when you're so tired. And new baby. And new baby. I would say she'd have a down day. You know, there was times she was more tired and needed some rest. I would never put her in that category of depressed. Yeah, she definitely had a lot on her plate.

She did. Patrick had already told police he and Kelsey broke up over Thanksgiving. He said in the days that followed, they continued texting to tie up loose ends. He and Kelsey had decided to, in their relationship, but other than him returning property that belonged to Kelsey, her car keys, her gun, that was the extent of it. The whereabouts of Kelsey's gun was a cause for alarm, especially when investigators recalled one of the text messages from Kelsey's phone to her mom on Thanksgiving. It read,

We went shooting today. Was so much fun shooting my gun again. Patrick is going to let me keep it. But when police searched Kelsey's home, there was no sign of it. There's no gun in the condo. Correct. Does that concern you at all that the gun's missing? It does. It was one of the things we looked for once we learned about it, but that could also lead to like possible suicide scenario. That she might have used the gun on herself? Yeah. You had to seriously consider that?

We did, yes. But then something completely unexpected happened that would change the trajectory and tone of the investigation. Kelsey's brother made a worrying discovery in Kelsey's condo, a smudge on the bottom of the toilet that looked like blood. Police hadn't noticed it when they'd been in the condo because they hadn't been looking for forensic evidence. At the initial search, we were just looking for evidence of a disturbance, you know, obvious. And anything that could lead us to where Kelsey is at the moment.

No, we don't get on our hands and knees, lift things up, look at the bottom of a toilet. We don't do that. After finding the smudge on the toilet, Cheryl and Kelsey's brother took a closer look at the rest of the condo and found suspicious smears on the furniture and appliances. Does this now spark a full-blown search of the condo? Yes. They sprayed Kelsey's bathroom with Blue Star Agent, a substance that glows on contact with blood. Suffice to say, the bathroom glowed pretty well. So the bathroom kind of lit up like a Christmas tree? Correct. Kelsey's home was now being treated as a crime scene.

The experienced investigators began to suspect she'd been murdered, and teams of local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies descended on the condo. Then, suddenly, 800 miles away, there was a baffling new development that would break the case wide open. Coming up, a startling clue from Kelsey's cell phone. Kelsey's phone gave a location near Gooding, Idaho. Are you thinking maybe she's in Idaho right now? Absolutely. And an intriguing new lead. Enter the rodeo queen of Magic Valley. You're really starting to connect dots now. Yes.

As police in Colorado continued to search for Kelsey Barrett, the trail led unexpectedly to Idaho. Kelsey's phone gave a location near Gooding, Idaho on November 25th at about 5.13 in the afternoon. Kelsey's phone had pinged off a cell phone tower near this Idaho gorge. So even though her condo was being treated as a crime scene, investigators had to consider the possibility that Kelsey might still be alive and on the move. Are you thinking maybe she's in Idaho right now? Maybe she decided to get away and didn't tell anybody. Absolutely.

Any idea where she would have been going? Is there any theories about what was in Idaho? Her parents live in Idaho. The news reached Kelsey's aunt and uncle, Kim and Scott. When you heard that Kelsey's phone had pinged in Idaho, did that give you just even a glimmer of hope that maybe our instincts are wrong? Maybe she's okay. It did for just a minute, yeah. But it pinged in the wrong part of Idaho. Kelsey's parents lived in northern Idaho. Her phone pinged in the southern part of

the state. When you leave Colorado and you head to northern Idaho, you go through Montana. You don't go through southern Idaho. Kelsey had no reason to be in that part of the state. It just didn't make sense. That was not the route to her parents' house. That was not the route, no. Investigators asked the local sheriff's department to check out the location of the ping, but they didn't find Kelsey. So that dashed your hopes right there? Yep. But there was an Idaho connection. When Patrick turned over his cell phone to police, they found an Idaho number in his call history, and they learned the number belonged to a woman.

Why did she stick out, this woman in particular? The timing of a phone call after the last ping on the 25th, it was, I want to say 10 minutes, had gone by between when Kelsey's phone last pinged in Idaho that Patrick's record showed this 208 area code phone number. The woman's name was Crystal Lee Kenney. So it's just this bizarre timing and this Idaho connection. Correct. And Crystal lives in Idaho?

Yes. Crystal, and what she might know about Kelsey's disappearance, suddenly became the most important lead in the investigation. Are you now learning more about Crystal? Who is she? Yes, we knew that she had a family. That was about it. She didn't have a criminal history or anything like that. Active on social media to an extent, into horses, ranching, that lifestyle. What was her personality like? Very loving, very caring.

Laura Stutzman is a friend of Crystal's and has known her since she was 10 years old. She really is the type of girl who would give you the shirt off of her back. Crystal worked at a local hospital as a senior registered nurse. She wasn't just a nurse, she was a good nurse. Anything Crystal did, she was a good nurse. Anything Crystal did, she did it very well. In her early 20s, she was even crowned rodeo queen of Magic Valley, a title awarded for beauty, horsemanship, and good character,

which made her something of a local celebrity. Is it like a really big deal? Would she be like Julia Roberts in Twin Falls? I don't know. She would probably be bigger than Julia Roberts because everybody knew and loved Crystal. Laura said rodeo queens embody tradition and what local people call the cowboy code. The cowboy code is living life correctly. It's helping your fellow man. It's helping your neighbor. It's just being a downright good person. Honesty, integrity, community, God. You betcha. In short, Crystal seemed like the last person who'd be mixed up in the disappearance of Kelsey Barrett. Nevertheless, investigators had to check her out because of what they found in Patrick's

call history. What are you seeing between their two phones, Crystal and Patrick? A lot of phone calls. I couldn't put the number on it, especially from that November 22nd, 25th through December 4th. Critical time period. The critical areas, yes. You're really starting to connect dots now. Correct. What does that tell you right there? We need to talk to Crystal and find out what's going on. By now, the feds were involved in the case. An FBI special agent was about to give Crystal a call.

Coming up. She says, I have no idea who Kelsey Barrett is. Crystal tells her story. And one thing becomes crystal clear. She lied, and we could refute those lies easily. Is Crystal realizing she's in a whole lot of trouble? Yes. When Dateline continues... FBI Special Agent John Grusing had joined the investigation into Kelsey Barreth's disappearance and was now dialing the number of the Idaho nurse named Crystal Lee Kenney.

When he reached her, she was with a group of friends in Las Vegas, attending the National Finals Rodeo, the Super Bowl of Rodeo. I identified myself as the FBI, said we are looking for a person named Kelsey Barrett. She says, I have no idea who Kelsey Barrett is. The FBI agent kept probing, asking Crystal if she knew anything about Kelsey's cell phone that had pinged off a tower

near an Idaho gorge. I asked her, are you aware of the phone? And she says that she heard about it from the news. And I said, okay, well, the gorge is only about 20 miles from your house from what we see. And she quickly said, no, I live at least an hour. I don't live near any gorge. He sensed Crystal was hiding something. If you had nothing to do with this, why are you distancing yourself from a gorge? Why did any of that make any difference? And so I asked again, did you have no relationship with Kelsey?

You didn't know who she was? Have you ever met her? And it's absolutely not, no. The more they talked, the more suspicious he became. Her story was not solid to start out with, and then it got worse as we went on. The investigators wondered what Crystal might be covering up. She initially said that she didn't know Patrick, but when confronted with, well, we saw your phone number in his phone,

at that point, well, we have a business relationship. And she said she had last talked to Patrick a month or a month and a half ago. She couldn't be sure. The agent asked if Crystal had seen Patrick in person. She said, well, they texted each other, happy Thanksgiving, on Thanksgiving. And Crystal decided that she would drive down from Twin Falls. Crystal told agent Grussing she made the trip because a few months prior, she and Patrick had bought a horse together. and Crystal wanted Patrick to buy her out.

They both paid $4,000, and Crystal decided she wanted to use that $4,000 to find a new home. But when she arrived in Colorado, Patrick wasn't available. So she said she went and slept at a gas station until he was ready to meet her. She told the agent that in the early afternoon, she finally met up with Patrick to talk business. They talked about her selling her half of the horse. He said it's not a good time because he hurt his back. So at five o'clock, she gets back in her car and she drives 13 hours back home. Grusing put himself in that situation. Something about her story didn't add up. I would be very upset that I drove 13 hours.

He spends four hours with me and I have to drive 13 back. I said, weren't you upset about that? Oh, absolutely not. I was just happy to see Patrick and he sent a thank you note, a thank you text and everything's good between us. The agent wondered if Crystal's relationship with Patrick was more than just professional. I said, okay, do you have a personal relationship with Patrick? Absolutely not. And I said, okay.

Investigators had also gathered cell phone data showing not just calls and texts, but locations too. We knew that there was a lot of communication between Crystal and Patrick. And we also knew that Kelsey's phone may have been also with Crystal. Do you confront Crystal with what you know now? We do. And I say, you traveled the same time, basically, that Kelsey's phone winds up in that gorge. I'm just having a hard time figuring out. I said, did Patrick ever get in your car? Maybe he dropped the phone in your car.

Trying to give her a reason about this phone. And she said, that's highly unlikely. It looked like Crystal had taken Kelsey's phone to Idaho. But why? The investigator pulled his net tighter. I said, are your texts, Crystal, between you and Patrick, only dealing with horses? What are they? And she goes, they're only dealing with horses. I said, good, would you mind if we verified that on your phone? And she said no. So at this point, she felt uncomfortable, wanted to end the interview, and that's about where we stopped. By the time she finished her call with the FBI agent, Crystal was the focus of the investigation. Investigators knew they had to confront her in person.

Because she lied and because we could refute those lies easily. They traveled to Idaho. So the FBI, myself, and Twin Falls Police Department go up to Crystal's door and we knock on the door and she comes to the door and we introduce ourselves and say we want to talk to her and Crystal voluntarily says, yeah, come on in. We step inside and talk to her at the couch as police officers are around and say, we have a search warrant here. And I say, I'd like to talk to you again. I'm the one that talked to you on the phone. As they stood in Crystal's home, the investigators realized they had leverage. I still remember her daughter with huge eyes looking to see what's going on. She was such a family person. She was a charge nurse, head nurse

there, small town, nice house. She had so much to lose by lying. And I tell her those things. You have a lot to lose. We know you lied. How's she reacting to this? She's just sitting there, very attentive, not saying much, shaking her head, agreeing. And at that point, we just say to her, we know you have a story to provide,

and we want to hear your story. In the end, Crystal decided to get herself a lawyer and the investigators left. Is Crystal realizing she's in a whole lot of trouble? Yes. Crystal told friends about her situation and it wasn't long before word got out. 32-year-old Crystal Kenney. You get word that the police have zeroed in on a woman in Idaho who may have knowledge about what happened to Kelsey. This is a big moment in this case. What are you learning? We learned about her taking the phone and transporting the phone, and it finally clicked.

Oh, that makes sense why it's in Idaho. And so, you know, the first question is, why? Why would you be involved in this? Soon, Crystal met again with investigators. With her new lawyer present, it was confession time. Coming up.

This is a very important interrogation. Yes. Crystal and Patrick. Patrick had some sort of hold on her love and secrets. She learns that Patrick has a daughter and she's kind of like dumbfounded by the whole thing. Crystal was incensed that Patrick had a baby that he didn't tell her about. Crystal Lee Kenny knew she'd been caught in a series of lies.

Three weeks after Kelsey was reported missing, Crystal hired a lawyer and went to Colorado for another meeting with investigators. We knew that there was some information that she was going to share with us. We didn't know the exact specifics. This is a very important interrogation. Yes. And that gave Crystal some leverage. Before she talked, Crystal told them she wanted to make a deal with the local district attorney. Before her statement, we didn't know anything. Jennifer Veman is one of the prosecutors who got the case. She had to provide a full and complete statement about what happened. Tell us everything. Tell the truth.

And come back and testify when it's needed. Crystal promised to do all that. And in return, prosecutors offered a plea deal. A charge carrying a maximum sentence of three years in prison. I think we didn't know the extent of how vital she was going to be to the entire story about what happened to Kelsey Barrett. But they were about to find out. Plea deal in place, Crystal started to spill. First of all, she confessed her relationship with Patrick Frazee was about a lot more than buying horses.

And this has been an ongoing, on-again, off-again relationship since 2006. Crystal said she first met Patrick at a dance when she was 20, that he was her first true love, and she fell hard. Obsessed with him? Twitterpated, I think was her term. What was it? Twitterpated. That was a term she used. What does that mean? The world's all great., I think was her term. What was it? Twitter-painted. That was a term she used.

What does that mean? The world's all great. Here I am, you know, handsome guy, she says. She says to us that he appreciated her. You know, hey, it's nice to have you out here with me herding cattle and fixing fence. She craved his approval. She talked about that. He seemed to have a real power over women. I think the women that he went after shared that same lifestyle he did, though. Yeah, they liked the cowboy ranching lifestyle. As smitten as Crystal was with Patrick, he didn't reciprocate. They fell out of touch, she got married, and had two children. But Crystal said she never forgot her first true love. In 2015, she rekindled her relationship with Patrick and they started an affair. She got pregnant by him and ended the pregnancy after she says he got angry at the news.

After another pause in their relationship, Crystal reconnected with him when she made a trip to Colorado in 2018, after she was divorced. She wanted to be with Patrick. She wanted him to totally have love for her. It's not even like she lived down the street. She's driving 13 hours each time to do this one way. Patrick had some sort of hold on her that it's rare to see it out there. But Patrick had some sort of hold on her that it's rare to see it out there. But Patrick had a secret. Crystal had no idea he was engaged and had a new baby.

Crystal did not know about Kaylee, did not know about Kelsey. So there's no mention at all of Kelsey or Kaylee. That all changed a couple of months later. Fast forward to June of 2018 when Crystal's having breakfast with some friends. She learns that Patrick has a daughter and she's kind of like dumbfounded by the whole thing, but she plays it off like, wow, you know, didn't know anything about it and no big deal. But about three months before Kelsey went missing, Crystal led on to Patrick that she knew. And she simply tells him, I know about the baby. I know about Kaylee. You don't have to tell me anything about it if you don't

want to, but you got to know that I know about her. At first, Crystal was incensed that Patrick had a baby that he didn't tell her about. And then she came around to started giving him baby toys and baby clothes. And she saw what a good dad he is and they talked about the baby. She said that's when Patrick confided to her that his fiance was a deeply troubled woman. He tells Crystal Kelsey's got all these problems. She's this alcoholic. She's a bad mother. She beats the baby. He started telling Crystal that Kelsey was an abusive mom, that he had people watching Kelsey, and that he was concerned that Kelsey was going to hurt the baby, if not worse. Crystal claims she told Patrick to report Kelsey to the authorities.

She said that Patrick said he did go to the police, but that Kelsey's family is influential and the police won't do anything. He's filed complaints with Department of Human Services over the abuse, has gone to the hospital with her, has tried to file police reports, but nobody will take him seriously. Crystal said Patrick seemed beside himself. You know, I can't trust her. She's a drunk. She's not working. She's not doing anything. She would tell us in the interview, no, I was trying to protect the baby. I didn't trust her. She's a drunk. She's not working. She's not doing anything. She would tell us in the interview, no, I was trying to protect the baby. I didn't want her to hurt the baby. So that's how this whole plan hatches, if you will, with Crystal killing Kelsey to get rid of her, to protect Kaylee.

Coming up, poison coffee, a deadly plot to kill. She goes and buys a caramel macchiato from Starbucks. Coming up, poison coffee, a deadly plot to kill. She goes and buys a caramel macchiato from Starbucks. And then she goes up to Kelsey's door and knocks on the door. Some terrifying turns lie ahead. When did you start seeing that first? I started picking up things that were less fodder. When Dateline continues.

Crystal Lee Kenney was sitting face-to-face with investigators, about to make an extraordinary confession. I think that she knew that we had plenty of evidence against her. And I think that she was smart enough to realize that I can't hide this anymore. And this time, it was about so much more than a longtime love affair with Patrick Frazee. It's like every turn in this case, you're getting a new clue. Correct. Crystal told them it all began in the summer of 2018, when she became convinced that Kelsey Barrett was unstable, cruel, and a danger to her daughter. She said she was determined to help Patrick. So in September, she traveled to Colorado, and together they hatched a plan to get rid of Kelsey.

They talk about how people can die from, you know, overdosing on drugs and whatnot. Their plan? Crystal, the nurse, would use prescription drugs to poison Kelsey's coffee. She says, I can get some Valium and some Ambien. Maybe I can get those things and stir it in. Crystal went to Starbucks and bought a caramel macchiato for Kelsey. That's her favorite coffee drink. So that's what Crystal does. to Starbucks and bought a caramel macchiato for Kelsey. That's her favorite coffee drink. So that's what Crystal does. She goes and buys a caramel macchiato from Starbucks and parks in a little alleyway. And then she goes up to Kelsey's door and knocks on the door. She introduces herself as Cassie Johnson. She already has an alias. She goes, I'm new to the

neighborhood and you put my dog back in the yard. I just wanted to thank you with this coffee. Kelsey takes the coffee, but says, I didn't help with your dog. Crystal gives Kelsey her phone number and says, I'd love to have a play date with you. And I have a nephew. And and Kelsey's like my daughter's only 10 months old I don't think we're gonna do a play date. Crystal left but Kelsey didn't die. Patrick calls and says what happened? He was very angry he said much angrier words than that and she says what are you talking about he said she's fine did you not poison the coffee and she says well what are you talking about? He said, she's fine. Did you not poison the coffee?

And she says, well, maybe she didn't drink it. Crystal said a guilt trip followed. And so he said, if you're going to let her kill the baby, then that's on you. But that wasn't the end of it. No, there was a second attempt. This time, Crystal said the plan involved beating Kelsey with a metal pipe. He hands her a metal pipe and says, this is not that hard.

When she comes out of the house, you hit her in the back of the head so there's not a lot of blood. She's to beat her and put her in a dumpster and push down the road. Crystal takes the metal pipe. She drives to Kelsey's place. She tells us that she parks the car. She's getting out of her car

at Kelsey's place with the pipe and she hears a dog bark and she gets scared and jumps back in the car. She's getting out of her car at Kelsey's place with the pipe and she hears a dog bark and she gets scared and jumps back in the car and goes and takes a nap at the Conoco. And then Patrick calls her and she says, I'm not the right person to do this. And then again, he goes, maybe you don't love the baby. But this still isn't the end of it. No. Crystal told them a third murder plot took shape. When Kelsey returned to her condo after handing over Kaylee to Patrick, Crystal was supposed to ambush her. The third attempt I can unfortunately still see in my brain from Crystal describing it so well,

because he tells her to use a baseball bat and, quote, just go to swinging. So Crystal takes an aluminum bat from her house in Twin Falls. She drives, and she goes and sits in Kelsey's front yard with a bat in her hand, waiting for Kelsey to come home from a baby exchange. And she gets out of her car, and she's sitting on a planter, sees a police car drive by, hears some people, and again, leaves.

This whole thing is crazy. Yeah. Just a picture, a head nurse sitting with a baseball bat, waiting to hit someone in the back of the head. I just still have that image in my mind. It's just bizarre. She said Patrick had the same angry reaction after she failed on the third attempt. He gave her a litany of reasons of why she failed, putting more guilt on her.

Crystal claimed she acted only because Patrick forced her to. It was Patrick who devised the three schemes to murder Kelsey. And she told the investigators she tried to push back. She claimed she asked Patrick if he wanted to kill Kelsey so badly, why didn't he do it himself? She asked, well, why aren't you taking care of this? And he said, are you kidding? Everybody would know it's me if something happens to her. She said Patrick countered with threats against her and even her children. She said she was scared of Patrick.

If she didn't do it, if Patrick's willing to kill Kelsey, what would happen to Crystal? When the outlandish story filtered down to Kelsey's family, they too were dumbfounded. The story is so crazy when you think about Crystal driving to Woodland Park and first it's going to be she shows up at the door with coffee. Then it's a lead pipe. Then it's a baseball bat. Yeah. How do you wrap your head around that? I don't think we can.

No. I'll never be able to understand it. Investigators believed they had an inkling. She was madly in love with Patrick and that overruled all her common sense in her judgment. Even so, the FBI agent believed Crystal was still responsible. Each of us have that choice whether we decide, do I have to do this? But according to Crystal, she didn't have a choice. Coming up. The call basically is, you need to come now. A horrifying discovery at Kelsey's condo.

Blood all over the floor. Blood up the wall. She just walks into this house. In her own words, it was horrific. Crystal Lee Kenny had given investigators the incredible account of how, three times, she had planned to kill Kelsey Barrett. As bad as that all sounded, it was about to get even worse. She told them on Thanksgiving Day, while at home in Idaho with her family, her phone lit up with a message from Patrick. She waits until late in the day to finally call him. And then the call basically is, you need to come now.

You have a mess to clean up. Does he explain what the mess is? No. No. The following day, Crystal said she continued to follow Patrick's orders, just as she'd been doing all along. She got ready. She brings supply, cleaning supplies. He asks her to bring the supplies?

He doesn't specifically ask her to bring supplies. He just says, come prepared. Crystal gathered what she thought she'd need. She brought a coverall outfit that they would wear at the hospital to prevent bloodborne pathogens and blood, you know, staying in their uniforms, booties, a hairnet, and a box of gloves, along with trash bags and some bleach. This sounds like it's out of an episode of Dexter. Yeah, that's a good analogy, yes. So she thinks that I might be going to clean up a crime scene. She doesn't really say it. I mean, you don't bring bleach and...

That's not what you're taking on vacation. Crystal borrowed a friend's Volkswagen Passat and once again drove the 13 hours to Colorado. I don't think she was certain that Kelsey was dead because he had told her I can't be the one to do this and so he had had her try to do it for three times then why would he go ahead and do it now? So she was very conflicted in her drive down there. But she told the investigators when she got to Colorado Patrick removed all doubt. She said he confessed he'd killed Kelsey and had hidden her body. She said Patrick told her where to find keys to Kelsey's condo.

She picked them up and went inside. What does she say that she saw? In her own words, as soon as she opens the door, it was horrific. And she didn't just tell the investigators. They brought her to Kelsey's condo so she could show them on video. We're inside Kelsey's apartment with Crystal, her attorneys with us. Stepping inside the condo again, this time dressed in a law enforcement hoodie and cap, Crystal was transformed into the kind of witness investigators could only hope for

as she led a tour of the crime scene with Agent Slater. When I first walked in, I saw blood all over the floor. I saw blood up the wall. I saw blood on this wall. That's when I first saw it. Does she see a body? No. She doesn't see the body at that point.

She doesn't know where Kelsey is. She just walks into this house that she, again, says is just a horrific scene. And then she said she got to work, hanging towels over the kitchen window so she couldn't be seen by passersby. You put your stuff on, and what did you start feeling first? I started picking up things that were blood splatters that I would have a hard time getting blood out. She used a broom handle to show how high the blood spatter was on the walls. At times, she seemed emotional, apparently fighting back tears. She told investigators among the things she discovered as she cleaned was a tooth. Can you point, if you remember, where the tooth was? Around the tooth where it was bigger than anything.

And as she cleaned, she said Patrick called with more instructions. Specifically saying, make sure you pick up this stuff, that stuff. He tells her to wash stuff if she can. She can't do that, so she's got trash bags, her own trash bags, and she used trash bags of Kelsey's to remove debris that's soaked in blood or has blood on it that they can't clean. Some of Kaylee's stuffed animals had blood on them, drapes, the drapes, several other items. Crystal said the cleanup took about four hours. Then she drove to Sonic and, captured on security camera, bought food for herself,

for Patrick and the baby. Her day wasn't nearly done. There was much more dirty work ahead. Coming up. You also collected wood and put into the burn pit? Yes, I did. Crystal leads investigators to another crime scene, more disturbing than the last. He's like, we started this, we're going to finish it. When Dateline continues. Crystal Lee Kenny's story

was stranger than fiction. There's blood on the wall here. There's blood on the wall here. There's blood on the wall here. The nurse from Idaho had turned on her longtime boyfriend, Patrick Frazee, telling investigators she'd cleaned the bloody condo after Patrick murdered Kelsey there. We're going to go ahead and shut the video off and leave. Now she would tell them what she and Patrick did with Kelsey's body. She said he'd hidden it inside a black plastic tote box on a stack of hay bales at a local ranch. They both drive out to the Nash Ranch and recover Kelsey's remains,

bring it back to Patrick's place where they burned the body. Crystal took investigators on another video tour, this one of Patrick's ranch, where she and Patrick took the tote box. We brought the tote here. We unloaded the tote. Crystal said she and Patrick placed the box into a makeshift burn pit. You also collected wood and put into the burn pit? Yes, I did. At which time he uses a gas can, opens up the lid of the tote and pours gasoline and oil inside and then ignites the fire. She said the fire raged with vicious intensity, the flames leaping as high as some of the trees. Crystal gathered the trash bags,

a bloody item she'd taken from the condo. And they throw the trash bags in, so they're very evidence conscious. I also threw in all the clothing that I was wearing, plus a pair of shoes that I had been wearing. And I believe that that's all that I had with me that I threw into the fire. Even some of Kelsey's with me that I threw into the fire. Even some of Kelsey's most precious books were tossed into the flames. Do you remember what the books were? Just one of them was her, I would imagine it was a Bible. She said that she stood there for hours as Patrick was churning the fire and making it burn.

Even so, not everything burned. Investigators' most chilling discovery at the burn site was this, a tooth fragment. As she stood with Patrick watching the flames, Crystal said she didn't want to be there. She kept wanting to go. She kept asking to go. From there, I told him I have to leave. He's like, nope, we started this, we're going to be there. She kept wanting to go. She kept asking to go. From there, I told him I have to leave. He's like, nope, we started this. We're going to finish it. So obviously he's bringing her in as partner in the homicide. And their partnership continued. Patrick directed Crystal to take some of Kelsey's belongings with her to Idaho and help create a false trail of evidence. What does he

tell her to do with these items? According to Crystal, he said, well, you're going to take the gun, you're going to get rid of it, you're going to get rid of her phone, you're going to get rid of the purse. Crystal confessed she took Kelsey's phone and turned it on as she drove home. That's why Kelsey's phone pinged near the gorge in Idaho. She also sent text messages, like the one saying, Do you even love me? To make it appear Kelsey was in some kind of distress.

Then she burned the phone. So that was Crystal's story. Driven by love and fear, she cleaned the crime scene, helped burn Kelsey's body, and destroyed crucial evidence. But Crystal wanted to make one thing clear. She said it was Patrick who murdered Kelsey. And to prove she was telling the truth, she pointed to more evidence that would turn the tables on Patrick. Because as thoroughly as she mopped and wiped Kelsey's condo, she told investigators she deliberately left spots of blood for them to find. Can you show me where you left those? OK.

All right. Did you leave blood anywhere else that you didn't clean up? Yeah. OK. There was a baby gate. After about 12 hours of questioning, the investigators were astonished. Crystal had drawn in vivid detail the anatomy of Kelsey Barrett's murder. Do you believe that Patrick Frazee was really the mastermind, that he was the puppeteer with Crystal? Yes. Patrick is the one who was manipulating her the whole time. Patrick's the one that wanted

Kelsey killed. Patrick's the one who actually killed Kelsey. I believe Crystal was a fool. I believe Patrick was the murderer. About a month after that Thanksgiving day when Kelsey went missing, Patrick Frazee was arrested and charged with first-degree murder, solicitation to murder, and tampering with a deceased body. Is this a big sigh of relief, knowing that there had been an arrest? Relief because there was hope that he wasn't going to get away with it. At the same time, sadness that her death was a little more real. Was this kind of that moment that it really hit you? It's starting to hit. That she really isn't coming home.

In November, almost one year after Kelsey went missing, Patrick Frazee would go on trial for her murder. And a jury would decide if Crystal was telling the truth or if she was lying. Coming up... The whole case rested on her shoulders. The concern was, is she believable? What really happened the day of the murder?

Powerful new details from the prosecutor's star witness. You saw jurors crying. You saw people in the audience crying. It took my breath away. the way. In November 2019, here at the Old County Courthouse in the mountains of Colorado, after months of pre-trial hearings, one of which was videotaped, Patrick Frazee went on trial for the murder of Kelsey Barrett. This one probably had more twists and turns than almost any case I've ever seen. This one had more emotion to it than almost any case I've seen. District Attorney Dan May led the prosecution team with Jennifer Veman and Beth Reed. They'd assembled an arsenal of evidence against Patrick

and dozens of witnesses, including their star witness, Crystal Lee Kenny, whom they recorded on video. Did you feel like anything was weak in your case going in that you had to worry about? Crystal Lee, I think, would probably be the biggest concern that we would have. The whole case rested on her shoulders and phone records.

So I think the concern was, is she believable? They thought they could make Crystal credible by explaining how Patrick manipulated her. For example, Crystal said Patrick told her Kelsey was abusing their baby and he'd reported her to police. In fact, there was no police report. It was all a lie. He was claiming she was an alcoholic, an abusive mother,

that she wasn't showing up for work. All of that is untrue. Then they would try to prove Crystal's story with hard evidence, like forensics and digital records, starting with Kelsey's condo. Police photos showed smears where Crystal said she wiped away blood from furniture and appliances. And it kind of gives you some inkling because you're seeing all kinds of blood in the floorboards of her wooden floor. A DNA expert testified it was a match to Kelsey's blood. CBI agent Greg Slater took the stand. Crystal claims that she left some blood on the baby gate and on the fireplace.

Did you believe her? Well, I can't doubt her because the evidence speaks for itself. It does show that that's Kelsey's blood. And without her telling us that, we would never have known it was there. Crystal also told law enforcement later that day she met Patrick at a gas station. When she tells us, we met at the Conoco station in Florissant. Let's go to the Conoco station and let's see if we can find video. Lo and behold, we find video.

Here, in video seen for the first time on TV, Crystal can be seen driving up in the black Volkswagen. Twenty minutes later, Patrick pulled up to a pump in his red pickup truck. He filled a canister with gasoline, which Crystal told investigators he used to burn Kelsey's body. A gas canister, just like the one in the video, was found on Patrick's property. Things are matching up. Things are matching up. But things weren't matching up for Patrick's property. Things are matching up. Things are matching up. But things weren't matching up

for Patrick's Thanksgiving Day alibi. His story consistently was, on the 22nd, I picked up Kaylee around noon from Kelsey's apartment, and I left. And that's the last time I saw her. And consistently, he says, I never went into Kelsey's house. His story was that he was tending to his cows

at the time Kelsey was believed to have been murdered. He puts himself out with the cattle that afternoon, miles away from Woodland Park when the murder happened. But prosecutors presented images that showed Patrick was lying. A security camera caught Patrick's truck passing by a furniture store near Kelsey's condo around the time of the murder. And shots from a neighbor's security camera captured Patrick at Kelsey's home multiple times, also during that period. He is walking in and out because we have the photos from the next door neighbor from that scene, carrying Kaylee several times

as he's going in and out of that scene. In one frame, Kelsey is visible, her hair tied in a neat bun and carrying a poinsettia plant, the last image of her alive. As the prosecutors continue to press their case, they told the jury Patrick's cell phone also placed him near Kelsey's condo at the time she was murdered. Patrick made two phone calls around 4.30 on the afternoon of the 22nd when he was supposedly not even there.

And those phone calls are being made on the cell phone tower that services Kelsey Barrett's house. Cell phone records from the following day exposed more of Patrick Frazee's lies. Consistently, all day on the 23rd, Kelsey Barrett's cell phone and Patrick Frazee's cell phone were together. And remember, he said he hasn't even seen her. Further cell phone analysis bore out Crystal's story that Patrick had given her Kelsey's phone. And it's only when Crystal Lee comes to town and Patrick Frazee provides Crystal Lee with Kelsey's cell phone do you see the patterns then change and Kelsey's cell phone travels

along with Crystal Lee back to Idaho where she ultimately destroys it on November 25th. When she's telling us that, yes, I turned Kelsey's phone off, I turned it on at this point on my trip back, I turned it on at this point on my trip back. I turned it on at this point on my trip back. I sent a text message at this point. I sent a, or Patrick called me at this point.

That matches all the information that we have. As for where Crystal said Patrick stored Kelsey's body after murdering her, a cadaver dog trained to sit when it scented human death did exactly that. Crystal's walkthrough of Patrick's ranch was also played in court. In graphic detail, she testified how they burned Kelsey's body. Did that yield any clues that you felt were really important? Crystal goes straight to where that burn area was and says this is where she was burned and they essentially excavate that area and remove all the dirt and there you see

what I would almost describe as a burn scar. There's melted plastic in the ground. As for the murder itself, the courtroom fell silent as Crystal described what Patrick told her about Kelsey Barrett's horrific last moments. Once inside her condo on Thanksgiving Day, according to Crystal, Patrick told Kelsey he wanted to play a game with some scented candles. So he comes up with this ploy of smell the candles and tell me which one is which scent on the candles. And then he blindfolds her with one of her own sweaters. So she's now bent over smelling those candles when he pulls the bat out.

A baseball bat. I'll bet he thought that would knock her out on the first blow, and it didn't. He is beating her and beating her and beating her. Prosecutors played the video of Crystal pointing out the blood spatter. All of a sudden, the jury understood these little spots are bat blows to her head. And each time he's pulling the bat back above him, it is throwing spots of blood all the way back into the kitchen as he's coming back down for another blow. The courtroom was getting, sadly, a real visual.

A real visual of what's happening. Of what happened in this condominium. A blood spatter expert witness confirmed the worst. And then I asked him, how many times do you think he beat her with that bat? And he said his estimate would be 10 to 15 times or more. Another sickening moment in the trial came when the prosecution showed the jury the tooth fragment found at the burn site. And Crystal added one more heart-rending detail she said Patrick described to her. The hardest part of the entire time watching Crystal testify was the question,

do you know what Kelsey's last words were? And in tears, Crystal said the words, please stop. That was the blow that rocked my world again. So to hear that those were the words and that he continued took my breath away. I don't know that I'm breathing yet. All during the murder, Crystal testified, baby Kaylee was in the condo.

That just torn everybody. There were times that you saw jurors crying. There were times you saw people in the condo. That just torn everybody. There were times that you saw jurors crying. There were times you saw people in the audience crying. I know we were at times. The prosecution's case was clear. Patrick Frazee had killed Kelsey in the most sadistic manner, torched her body so that her remains would never be found, and then covered it up.

At least, that was Crystal's story. Now, the stage was set for Patrick's defense team to go after her. Coming up... This is a woman who has admitted to covering up a murder. We didn't ask the jury to like her. We just asked them to listen to her. Would they?

I just could not believe that she was persuaded or manipulated. When Dateline continues. The Colorado courtroom had heard shocking evidence. Patrick Frazee had bludgeoned to death his fiancée Kelsey Barrett and burned her body. Now, it was the defense's turn to try and shred the prosecution's case by targeting Crystal. The more guilty she appeared to a jury, the less guilty Patrick might appear. If you believe Crystal's story, then the evidence is overwhelming. If you don't buy off on Crystal's story, then the evidence is not overwhelming.

Plain, simple, done. Patrick Frazee's friend, Clint Klein, attended the trial. The only time Crystal finally so-called told the truth was when she was approached by the FBI and the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and told that they had enough on her that she was going to go away for, you know, probably the rest of her life. He says Crystal told her story to investigators only after law enforcement caught her lying. She got honest after she got caught. Under tough cross-examination, Crystal again admitted how, three times, she drove 800 miles

from Idaho to Colorado and back with plans to kill Kelsey. If Crystal was telling the truth, the defense team said, it was an outrage that she had never once told law enforcement about the murder plans she was part of. Not once. Until she was caught. Blood all over the floor. I saw blood up the wall. Blood all over the floor. Blood. Neither did she tell a soul about the pools of blood she had cleaned up, the spattered walls she bleached, the blood-soaked evidence she got rid of.

Patrick's defense pointed out how callous Crystal was, laying a false text message trail and taking Kelsey's phone to Idaho, where she burned it. You sat in court every day. You heard all the evidence. If Patrick Frazee didn't kill Kelsey, then who did? You can come to your own conclusion on that. You either bought Crystal's story or you didn't buy Crystal's story. And you didn't. And I didn't. Crystal's credibility had been the main concern of the prosecution team. This is a woman who's lied before. This is a woman who has admitted to covering up a murder. She's done a lot of bad things. So it would be easy for the jury to not like Crystal Lee. Sure.

And to maybe not trust her. We didn't ask the jury to like her. We just asked them to listen to her. And to match up what she says with the other pieces of evidence that we had. Bob, Christy, and Dennis, who want us to use only their first names, sat on the jury as Crystal described how Patrick instructed her three times to murder Kelsey. Some of the things that went through my mind when Crystal was testifying was, I was thinking, she was persuaded or manipulated. She seemed like a very intelligent person.

It's inconceivable how he can get into that position. This one's hard to understand, though. It's totally, everything about this is hard to understand. The jurors also blamed Crystal for covering up the murder instead of calling the police. How chilling was it to see the video of Crystal in Kelsey's condo doing that walkthrough? I think her saying, you know, she put towels over the kitchen window was probably one of the harder things for me because, you know, that's really, you know what you're doing, you know you're hiding. Yeah, that showed me she was complicit. When she walked in that condo, she could have called the

police right then. To summon court, Crystal artfully minimized her own role to make sure all the blame would fall on Patrick Frazee. Do you think Crystal told the whole story? No, I just didn't buy that. I think that she was not completely honest with her, how complicit she was. This is a woman who came, potentially came close to killing Kelsey herself. Three times. Three times she came here. Coffee, pipe, baseball bat.

Yeah. She talked about being afraid of him. But then she said after she went into the condo, she said that she didn't believe that he could actually do it. So those two statements didn't match to me. The defense argued Crystal's story was shaky, and so was some of the prosecution's evidence. They argued the security camera images showing Patrick entering and leaving Kelsey's condo on Thanksgiving Day didn't necessarily match the time they were saved to the security system. And that apparently damning tooth fragment? Not so fast. Were you able to match that tooth to Kelsey? No. It's examined by a forensic

anthropologist. They could determine that it was female DNA, but they couldn't develop a profile. So the tooth evidence wasn't the slam dunk they had hoped for. But as the jurors wrestled with the evidence and Crystal's testimony, they weren't prepared for what came next. The trial was about to reach its climax with a new witness who would stun the courtroom. Coming up, from behind prison walls, perhaps the most sinister plot of all. There were threats, very specific threats. And the verdict. Does your heart start beating really fast? I couldn't breathe.

I remember checking my pulse. On a chilly November day, one year to the week after Kelsey Barrett went missing, after a meticulous investigation from Colorado to Idaho, and after the damning testimony of his former girlfriend, Crystal Lee Kenney, 33-year-old Patrick Frazee would soon learn if he would spend the rest of his life behind bars for a monstrous premeditated murder. I was dreading like, what if? How is our family going to handle if they say not guilty? There could be one person on that jury who maybe didn't believe he was capable of that. Right. As nervous as Kelsey's family was as the trial came to a close,

there was something they hadn't counted on, a new witness for the prosecution. Right before trial, he calls actually for me. He was Jacob Bentley. He'd been housed next to Patrick Frazee in jail, and they became buddies. After he got out, Bentley came forward with a mind-blowing story about some notes Frazee slipped to him. The substance of those notes, some written on jail napkins, some written on paper, are essentially asking to assist Patrick in killing a number of witnesses that are set to testify against him in this trial. It was a hit list, with Patrick Frazee

offering to pay Bentley for arranging to kill those named. Most of the notes, seen here for the first time on TV, came with instructions to flush them. At the top of Patrick's list was Crystal Lee Kenny, followed by her family and friends. They all need to disappear, read one note, at least until after the trial. Another note instructed Bentley to use a gun to make Crystal's ex-husband talk, then dump him out in the desert. I think what was shocking in this case was usually when we get that information, it's the word of one informant without any corroborating evidence. But this particular informant had the letters, and they were clearly in Patrick's handwriting. And they contained information that only Patrick Frazee would know. No one was too high up the food chain for Patrick Frazee.

Lead investigator Greg Slater and even the DA himself were on the kill list. And perhaps even more shocking, Kelsey's mom too. There were threats to kill Cheryl Barrett. Very specific threats. The hit list, Cheryl was on it. Crazy. Crazy. It's just so insane that he has this hit list in jail.

It showed his character. It showed his guilt. The jail notes and Bentley's testimony stunned the courtroom and seemed to be a big blow to Patrick Frazee's defense. The prosecution said Frazee hadn't only murdered Kelsey Barrett, he had sought to kill

those set to testify against him. We wanted the jury to hear this evidence so they could really understand the mindset we were dealing with in terms of Patrick Frazee. He's a very troubled person. After three hours of deliberation, the jury reached a decision. You walk back into that courtroom to deliver the verdict. Yes. Are you feeling scared to death? Yeah, I felt the weight of it. Oh, yes, definitely.

It was hard. It was a lot of tension. Knowing that her family's out there, his family is out there, he's right there. Does your heart start beating really fast? I couldn't breathe. Yeah. Our heart's beating. I remember checking my pulse.

We were all holding hands. Holding hands in such anticipation, praying that a fast verdict was a good verdict. For Kelsey's family, all those prayers were answered. As soon as that first guilty came in. Then we could exhale. That was the first degree murder charge. Yep. And then when they just kept coming. And everything else was just icing on the cake. Guilty. Guilty. Yeah. Yeah.

Praising God. Praising God. Yeah. A lot of answered prayer. A lot of hugs. A lot of tears. A lot of relief. Yeah.

The prosecutors welled up to seeing Kelsey's father, Daryl. I heard the verdict. And I got choked up. And then I looked father, Daryl. I heard the verdict and I got choked up. And then I looked back at Daryl and I was just nodding at him of, thank you for being with us and going through this and being behind us 100% the whole time. Amid all the emotion in the courthouse, a swift verdict was followed by a swift sentence. Patrick Frazee got everything he deserved coming to a life sentence plus 156 years.

About three months went by, and it was a very different set of emotions when Crystal Lee Kenny was sentenced just last week. The judge called her actions cold, calculated, and cruel. But of all the things Crystal admitted to in her deal with prosecutors, she pleaded guilty to only one thing, tampering with evidence by moving Kelsey's phone. The judge gave her the maximum sentence, three years in prison. Do I think she should have gotten a lot more time? You betcha.

But the D.A. laments she may serve a lot less time. It's not unusual for someone to serve maybe 25% of their sentence on a crime, no matter what it is. So Crystal could end up serving just nine months. The D.A. said to convict Patrick Frazee, he was forced into a devil's bargain with Crystal. We did a deal with the devil. You called this making a deal with the devil. I did. That was absolutely a deal with the devil, and I'm not proud of it. I'm not telling

you it's justice for Crystal Lee. It's not justice for Crystal Lee, but it got justice for Kelsey in the end. You said something to me that was just really powerful about your feelings toward Crystal Lee. Part of me wants to strangle her. Part of me wants to hug her. That's a very complex statement right there. She could have stopped this from happening altogether. And for that, I want to choke her.

But she finally fessed up. And for that, I want to hug her and thank her. For that, we have closure. As Kelsey's family tries to move on, little Kaylee is living with Kelsey's mom and dad, who are seeking legal custody. If Kaylee watches this someday when she's older, what would you say right now about her mom? Her mom loved her. Her mom was fearless. Her mom loved the Lord, and the best thing in the world would be to see her daughter committed to the Lord as well.

The communities where Kelsey lived and worked are also doing what they can to ensure she is remembered. The local furniture store placed a memorial bench near Kelsey's condo. Kelsey's family has set up an aviation scholarship and even some of the jurors are supporting it.

They are all testaments to the young mother whose life was so cruelly taken, but whose spirit continues to uplift. If Kaylee does get to watch this at some point, then it would be her mom telling her, don't back down. Dream big. Dream big. Run hard. Soar. Go get them. Because you've got the support of this family behind you. That's all for this edition of Dateline. We'll see you again next Friday at 9, 8 central. And of course, I'll see you each weeknight for NBC Nightly News.

I'm Lester Holt. For all of us at NBC News, good night.