The parents of a missing Colorado mom presumed murdered by her fiancé allege in a new court filing that Patrick Frazee killed Kelsey Berreth over a child custody dispute involving the couple’s 1-year-old daughter, Kaylee.
Kelsey’s parents, Cheryl and Darrell Berreth, filed a wrongful death lawsuit last month against Frazee, who already stood accused of two counts of murder and three counts of solicitation to commit murder in the case. Kelsey has not been seen since Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 22.
On Friday, Kelsey’s parents amended their lawsuit, alleging that “Frazee had motive to kill Kelsey in that he wanted full custody of [Kaylee] and/or Kelsey to leave [Kaylee] with him and Kelsey would not agree,” according to the paperwork filed by the parents’ attorney, Angela Jones, reports ABC News.
PEOPLE was unable to immediately reach Jones for comment.
Kelsey, a 29-year-old flight instructor from Woodland Park, Colorado, was last seen in public on surveillance video entering a market with her daughter.
Frazee, who did not live with Kelsey, told police that he and his fianceé had met up that same day so that Kelsey could hand off their child to him. She was not reported missing until Dec. 2, when Cheryl Berreth, who lives out of state, alerted police.
The status of Kelsey and Frazee’s relationship has remained unclear, with relatives saying Kelsey had ended their engagement weeks earlier and others claiming the couple split up the day of the alleged killing.
In their amended lawsuit, Kelsey’s parents accuse Frazee of lying to Kelsey’s mom about her daughter’s whereabouts “knowing that Kelsey was dead because he had killed her, or caused her to be killed, on November 22, 2018.”
When Kelsey didn’t answer her parents’ repeated calls or texts over the following week, and Cheryl finally called Frazee on Dec. 2, “Frazee responded with ‘here’s the story …’” and followed up with “false statements, misrepresentations, and/or calculated omissions,” according to the new court filing, reports CNN.
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Frazee said he and Kelsey had broken up on Thanksgiving Day, but had agreed to share “50/50 custody of their daughter,” according to the amended lawsuit. He suggested that Kelsey had left the child with him while she “figured out what she was going to do,” and “may have flown somewhere with a friend or co-worker,” the parents allege.
Teller County, Colorado, prosecutors have yet to detail the exact allegations behind the solicitation counts filed against Frazee. But those alleged solicitations occurred between Sept. 1 and Nov. 1, 2018, according to the charging documents, which were obtained by PEOPLE.
A friend of Frazee’s, Idaho nurse Krystal Jean Lee Kenney, pleaded guilty Feb. 8 to helping him hide evidence in the murder investigation, specifically by ditching Berreth’s cell phone, which last pinged in Idaho hundreds of miles from Kelsey’s home before the search for the missing woman began.
Kenney, who accepted a plea deal requiring her to testify against Frazee at his upcoming trial, was “very, very scared” and feared for her own life if she didn’t assist the accused killer, a friend of Kenney’s told CBS News.
According to the documents charging Frazee with murder, prosecutors filed two counts because they have two theories about the presumed killing: either Frazee killed Kelsey by himself, or he and someone else allegedly tried to rob Kelsey before she was killed.
Frazee was arrested Dec. 21 and remains in police custody without bond.
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