Krystal Lee Kenney: Sentence Vacated After Plea Agreement In Connection With Murder Of Kelsey Berreth
TELLER COUNTY, Colo. (CBS4) — Krystal Lee Kenney, who admitted knowing Patrick Frazee was plotting to kill Kelsey Berreth, and helping him clean up the murder scene, has had her sentence vacated. The Colorado Court of Appeals has also remanded Kenney's case for resentencing.
The appeals court said that Teller County District Court had "erroneously sentenced Kenney outside the presumptive maximum term" when they sentenced her to three years in prison because "aggravating circumstances" could not be applied.
Kenney took a plea bargain in the case and was sentenced to three years in the Colorado Department of Corrections. Without that deal, she could have faced a sentence of more than 100 years.
In March of last year, Kenney requested to move to a halfway house. The request was denied in June 2020.
The appeals court states in their ruling that the maximum presumptive sentence for her crime is 18 months in the Department of Corrections and that at the time of her agreement, she acknowledged that the potential sentence would be a sentence in the DOC in the range of 1 year to 18 months.
Kenney was Frazee's on-and-off girlfriend and a key witness in his trial. She claimed Frazee tried three times to get her to murder Berreth and eventually admitted to killing her himself.
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Kenney testified that Frazee beat Berreth with a baseball bat inside her Woodland Park condominium, on Thanksgiving Day 2018, while their daughter was in another room.
Prosecutors say Kenney helped them crack the case. Among other things, she showed them places in Berreth's condo where she cleaned blood from the scene. She also showed them where she said Frazee burned Berreth's body outside his home in Florissant.
Kenney remains in custody at the Colorado Women's Correctional Facility in the Denver metro area.
In letters sent to CBS 4's Rick Sallinger after the trial Frazee stated that he did not kill Berreth and that , "Dan May (the district attorney) and the media took this story and ran with it."
Frazee is serving a sentence of life plus 156 years.