Colorado Supreme Court upholds murder conviction of Teller County man found guilty of killing fiancée
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) – The Colorado Supreme Court is upholding a first-degree murder conviction for the Teller County man found guilty of killing his fiancée in 2018.
Investigators say Patrick Frazee killed his fiancée Kelsey Berreth in her home in Woodland Park. Berreth, who was also the mother of Frazee's daughter, was last seen on Thanksgiving Day 2018. Her disappearance prompted a statewide search before Frazee was arrested and charged with her murder.
In 2019, Frazee was found guilty of Berreth's murder, along with three counts of solicitation of murder, and one count of tampering with a deceased body. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole and an additional 156 years for the other charges.
On Monday, the Colorado Supreme Court discussed Frazee's appeal, which focused on if a Department of Human Services caseworker should have read him his Miranda rights before an interview while he was in custody.
Court documents reveal that during a meeting on Dec. 26, 2019, DHS caseworker Mary Longmire visited the jail to inquire about Frazee's daughter and her family situation in order to gather information needed to complete assessment paperwork.
But after Longmire was later called to the stand as a witness, Frazee moved to suppress all of the statements that he had made to her during their meeting, arguing that the meeting was conducted without the required Miranda warnings and admission of his statements to her would "violate his constitutional rights."
Ultimately, the court ruled that Longmire was "not acting as an agent of law enforcement" and therefore, Miranda rights laws did not apply to their interview.
"To the contrary, her actions in this case were consistent with her duties under the Children’s Code, and because a court had placed legal custody of the child with the Department, she was required by law to investigate the matter and to make a recommendation to the court regarding child placement," the Supreme Court's opinion summary read in part.
Read the court's full opinion here.
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