CRIPPLE CREEK, Colo. — Patrick Frazee, the man accused of killing his fiancee Kelsey Berreth and burning her remains on a makeshift pyre, pleaded not guilty on Friday morning in Teller County District Court.
Frazee is being held without bond. Berreth’s remains have not been found despite a search in an El Paso County landfill.
Teller County District Court Judge Scott Sells set a three-week trial to begin on Oct. 28.
Berreth was last seen with her 1-year-old daughter on Thanksgiving in a Woodland Park grocery store. Frazee, the father of the girl, has denied the allegations.
Frazee was arrested on murder and other charges in December, about a month after Berreth was last seen alive.
He was formally charged on Dec. 31 with first-degree murder, first-degree felony murder and three counts of solicitation to commit first-degree murder.
In February, prosecutors added a charge accusing Frazee of tampering with a deceased body and two charges of committing a crime of violence.
According to an arrest affidavit, Frazee allegedly beat Berreth to death with a baseball bat after failing to persuade Krystal Lee Kenney, an Idaho nurse he was having an affair with, to commit the killing.
Kenney told Colorado Bureau of Investigation detectives that she watched Frazee burn Berreth’s body on a pyre of gasoline-soaked wood on a cattle water trough at his ranch in Florissant.
Frazee allegedly later convinced Kenney to help him cover up the crime by cleaning up the bloody crime scene before he burned Berreth’s remains, investigators said.
Kenney told investigators that Frazee planned to throw the the remains in a dump or river.
On Feb. 8, Kenney pleaded guilty to tampering with evidence for moving Berreth’s cellphone after she disappeared.
She is cooperating with prosecutors and is required to testify against Frazee in his pending trial as part of her plea agreement.
Investigators started searching Midway Landfill for Berreth’s body in late February and has not yet been found.
The girl is in the custody of Berreth’s parents.
