On Nov. 21, the docuseries “Lies, Crimes & Video,” on CNN Headline News, will air an episode — “Deal with the Devil” — about Berreth’s murder.

In November 2019, Patrick Frazee was sentenced to life in prison after a jury found him guilty of Berreth’s murder. Prosecutors in the case relied on a key witness, Idaho nurse Krystal Lee Kenney, who Berreth’s family felt was complicit in the murder.

“We did a deal with the devil,” said 4th Judicial District Attorney Dan May on the day of the conviction. The program will air at 10 p.m. ET/PT, check local listings.

The woman who helped cover up evidence at the scene where Woodland Park mother Kelsey Berreth was murdered and later testified against Berreth’s killer has been paroled and released from prison after being resentenced this week for her role in the crime, state records show.

Krystal Lee Kenney was in a relationship with Berreth’s fiancĂ© Patrick Frazee when he killed Berreth in her condo on Thanksgiving Day 2018. Kenney, a nurse from Idaho, then helped Frazee clean up the bloody murder scene, something she testified to at trial.

Frazee was eventually convicted of the murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole. Kenney’s testimony was key to that conviction.

Last month, the Colorado Court of Appeals threw out Kenney’s original 3-year sentence for felony tampering with evidence in the case. The higher court found that Teller County District Court Judge Scott Sells exceeded the maximum sentence allowed by her plea agreement, improperly relying on outside facts to push her prison time into the aggravated range for the crime.

On Tuesday, Sells resentenced Kenney to 18 months in prison with the same start date as her original sentence, Jon Sarché, spokesman for the Colorado Judicial Department, said in an email.

That start date, according to Colorado Department of Corrections records, was Jan. 28, 2020. But Kenney, now 34, was released on parole Tuesday, records show.

It’s not uncommon for inmates to be released early. The Colorado Revised Statutes dictate that inmates sentenced for Class 6 felonies, like Kenney, are eligible for parole after serving at least 50% of their time, contingent on other factors.

“Based on the new sentence, Ms. Kenney was now past her mandatory release date and she was released from the Denver Women’s Correctional Facility on parole on Tuesday,” department of corrections spokeswoman Annie Skinner wrote in an email Thursday. “The Department of Corrections does not decide how much time an individual serves in prison. The Department follows the sentence that the court issues and calculates the time based on the relevant state statutes.”

The 34-year-old Kenney is now assigned to the department’s parole division, records show.

Updated March 25, 2021, at 5:06 p.m. This story has been updated with additional information from the Colorado Department of Corrections.

The Colorado Court of Appeals on Thursday overturned a three-year prison sentence for the Idaho nurse who helped clean up the bloody scene of Kelsey Berreth’s murder on the grounds that the district court judge exceeded the maximum allowed sentence.

The appeals court ordered that Krystal Lee Kenney be resentenced to between one year and 18 months in prison on the felony tampering with evidence charge she pleaded guilty to in 2019.

Berreth was killed by her fiancé, Patrick Frazee, in Woodland Park in 2018. Kenney, who was in a relationship with Frazee, helped clean up the crime scene afterwards, and her testimony against Frazee at trial was key to convicting the man. He is serving life in prison.

Teller County District Court Judge Scott Sells went beyond the boundaries of the plea agreement when he sentenced Kenney to three years in prison, the appeals court found. The district judge improperly relied on facts that were not part of the plea agreement to justify the sentence, which is in the aggravated range for the crime.

Sells called Kenney’s actions “cold, calculated, cruel,” and “devoid of any compassion for human life” when he sentenced her.

A date for the resentencing has not yet been set.

Patrick Frazee, 33, wrote a letter after not testifying at his trial or speaking at his sentencing, . The letter to KCNC-TV reporter Rick Sallinger came after Frazee has appealed his life sentence.

The return address is from the Colorado Department of Correction Arkansas Valley Correctional Facility in Ordway.

“Let me start by telling you I did not kill Kelsey!” Frazee said in the letter. “I want my daughter to know the truth. Most of all I want my daughter to know I did not kill her mother!”

Kelsey Berreth, the mother of their child, went missing on Thanksgiving 2018. She was last seen on video in a Woodland Park Safeway, authorities said, adding that her body was never found.

Idaho nurse Krystal Lee, who was having an affair with Frazee, was the key witness against him, testifying that he asked her three times to kill Berreth, but she couldn’t do it, prosecutors said.

The 33-year-old nurse was sentenced to three years in a plea deal after she helped clean up Berreth’s townhome in Woodland Park where she died, court officials said.

Frazee argued in the letter that unknown male DNA was found in the sink in Kelsey’s bathroom despite investigators telling reporters that all DNA was identified. Frazee also argued his attorneys did not even try to present a defense and told him not to speak to the media.

Kenney is eligible for the placement under state law because she pleaded guilty to a non-violent offense and is less than 20 months from her release date, as calculated by the Colorado Department of Corrections, Fourth Judicial District Attorney Dan May said. Now, Kenney can apply to a local community corrections program in the state and the board of that local program will decide whether to accept her, he said.

“Serving two months out of a three-year sentence for what she did is simply unconscionable,” May said.

Sells sentenced Kenney on Jan. 28 to three years in prison for helping Patrick Frazee, her longtime friend and sometimes romantic interest, destroy evidence after he killed Berreth, his fiancĂ©e. Kenney traveled from her Idaho home to Woodland Park after the murder and cleaned Berreth’s bloodstained apartment. She told investigators that she also helped Frazee burn Berreth’s body and destroyed Berreth’s phone as she drove home to Idaho.

Before the murder, Frazee asked Kenney on three occasions to kill Berreth for him.

“When Judge Scott Sells handed down a three year prison sentence he said what she did was ‘cold, calculating and cruel’ and that if he sentenced her to probation it would minimize the depravity of her actions,” May and Senior Deputy District Attorney Jennifer Viehman said in a statement. “We believe that sending her to a halfway house would do just that.”

Kenney’s attorney, Dru Nielsen, said Kenney would make an optimal candidate for placement in community corrections because she had a good work ethic and posed no public safety risk. Nielsen also cited Gov. Jared Polis’ order issued Thursday about managing the prison population to prevent the introduction of the coronavirus into the facilities.

“Based on the current public health crisis and what Krystal can offer, I hope that she will be accepted into community corrections immediately,” Nielsen said in an email to The Denver Post.

Kenney agreed to talk to investigators in exchange for a plea deal that allowed her to enter a guilty plea for a single count of felony evidence tampering, which carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison. Prosecutors have said that the deal was crucial to charging Frazee in the case, but that they “made a deal with the devil” in doing so.

Kenney said during Frazee’s trial and at her sentencing hearing that she felt she had no choice to comply with Frazee’s demands because she was afraid he would hurt her or her family.

Kenney’s current parole eligibility date is May 28, 2021, according to the Department of Corrections. If she is accepted into community corrections, Kenney could be placed on an ankle monitor after 180 days in the program, he said.

Krystal Lee Kenney’s sentence, imposed Tuesday, was the result of a plea deal in which she agreed to testify against Patrick Frazee, Berreth’s murderer, in exchange for being allowed to plead guilty to a single charge of felony evidence tampering, which carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison.

Her testimony was crucial in Frazee’s 2018 arrest and his conviction in November, but Berreth’s parents said she deserved the maximum sentence.

“She shouldn’t have received the plea deal that she did,” Darrell and Cheryl Berreth wrote in a letter read aloud in court Tuesday. “She was an active participant in the murder. The only thing she didn’t do was swing the bat.”

Kenney’s friends and attorney told the judge in court Tuesday that Kenney never reported Frazee’s homicidal statements to police and decided to help him hide Berreth’s murder because she was trapped in an abusive relationship with Frazee. Kenney feared him, they say, and he spent years manipulating and controlling her.

Kenney sobbed as she made a brief statement in court before the sentence was handed down.

“I know that saying sorry is not good enough,” Kenney said, turning to look at Berreth’s father seated behind her in the courtroom. “And I don’t even know what the right word would be to describe the remorse that I feel.”

“I’m sorry that I didn’t save Kelsey,” she said, dressed in a black top with her hair in a long braid down her back.

But Teller County District Court Judge Scott Sells did not find her remorse, alleged fear of Frazee or the importance of her trial testimony enough to mitigate her sentence.

“Your actions were not impulsive, they were not spur of the moment,” he said. “You made an ongoing, conscious, multiday effort to tamper with evidence.”

Before Sells’ decision, Kenney’s attorney, Dru Nielsen, played a documentary-style video in which Kenney’s friends and family described the Idaho nurse as caring and driven to help others. It showed footage of Kenney riding her horses and various loved ones talking about her love for horses, rodeo and her family.

“Throughout her life, whenever someone needed help, Krystal was there,” a narrator’s voice intoned over the video.

That helping impulse, along with a deep fear of Frazee, is how Kenney became enmeshed in Berreth’s murder, friends said. Her therapist told the judge that Kenney was a textbook example of a domestic violence survivor.

“People might think she’s a fool, but I think she’s a survivor,” said family friend Shena Bingham, who once ran a cleaning business with Kenney’s mother.

Nielsen asked that Kenney be sentenced to probation or a one-year prison sentence. Kenney posed no risk to public safety, she said, and was unlikely to commit another crime.

“Krystal Lee will punish herself for the rest of her life,” Nielsen said.

Fourth Judicial District Attorney Dan May cried as he asked the judge for the maximum sentence. After the hearing, May told reporters that three years was an inadequeate sentence for Kenney’s crimes, but that law enforcement needed her cooperation to arrest Frazee.

“The right person is serving out a life sentence right now,” May said.

Kenney was the prosecution’s key witness during Frazee’s three-week trial in November, after which he was sentenced to life in prison without parole for murdering Berreth.

During her nine hours of testimony, Kenney painted a picture of the on-again, off-again romantic relationship she and Frazee maintained for more than a decade after meeting at a Teller County dance. In 2015, Kenney began cheating on her husband with Frazee and a year later had an abortion after becoming pregnant with his child.

In 2018, Frazee started to tell Kenney that Berreth was abusing Kaylee, the 1-year-old daughter he and Berreth shared. On three occasions, Frazee suggested that Kenney kill Berreth and told her how to do it. He said that if Kenney didn’t follow through that Kaylee would be in danger.

Kenney on three occasions drove to Woodland Park from her home near Twin Falls, Idaho, as part of the murder plans but never followed through. She met Berreth once, when she pretended to be a neighbor and brought a coffee to Berreth at home. Frazee had instructed Kenney to poison the coffee, but Kenney did not.

On Nov. 22, 2018, Frazee called Kenney and said she “had a mess to clean up.” She drove down the next day and cleaned pools and spatters of Berreth’s blood off the walls, floors and baby toys in Berreth’s Woodland Park condo. Kenney also watched Frazee burn Berreth’s body on his ranch and took Berreth’s phone with her when she traveled back to Idaho, destroying it along the way.

Kenney never told law enforcement or reported what she had done or seen. When law enforcement turned up at her house a few weeks later, she agreed to talk after reaching a plea deal with prosecutors.

Kenney’s trial testimony sometimes turned tearful as she explained that she feared Frazee and regretted not calling police. At the sentencing hearing Tuesday, Nielsen referred to that testimony, saying that during the trial Frazee attempted to hire people to murder her and members of her family while he sat in jail.

“She was being coerced by a sociopath,” Nielsen said.

The 18th Judicial District Attorney’s Office is investigating whether Frazee can be charged with additional crimes in connection to his attempts to hire people to kill Kenney and members of law enforcement, May said after the hearing. The 18th Judicial District Attorney’s Office was appointed special prosecutor in the case because May was one of the people Frazee named as a potential target.

Kenney’s sentencing ends the criminal court proceedings connected to Berreth’s death, for now. Frazee on Jan. 6 filed a notice he might appeal his conviction.

Frazee was convicted in November in Teller County of multiple counts of first-degree murder and of tampering with a decease human body and sentenced to life in prison without parole. The Colorado State Public Defender’s Office filed the notice on Jan. 6 on Frazee’s behalf.

The notice does not spell out grounds on which the appeal will be based.

On Tuesday, Krystal Lee Kenney, an Idaho nurse who was the key witness in Frazee’s murder trial, will be sentenced for her role in the case. She faces up to three years in prison after pleading guilty to tampering with evidence.

Kenney, who had an on-again, off-again relationship with Frazee, testified that he admitted to killing Berreth in his fiancĂ©e’s Woodland Park condo. Kenney later cleaned the bloody crime scene and watched Frazee burn Berreth’s body in a plastic tote on his ranch. Berreth’s remains have not been found.

In November, the jury deliberated for less than four hours before finding Frazee guilty.

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After the trial ended with Frazee’s conviction on murder charges, the Fourth Judicial District Attorney’s Office released some of the evidence shown to jurors. The evidence included videos of the prosecution’s key witness, Krystal Lee Kenney, showing investigators around Berreth’s apartment and Frazee’s ranch. She described for police the blood she cleaned in Berreth’s apartment and led them to tiny specks of blood left behind.

Other evidence includes photos from inside Berreth’s apartment and the scar on Frazee’s ranch where he burned Berreth’s body.

The full, unedited versions of the videos showing Kenney walking investigators through the scenes

Kenney is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 28 for her involvement in the murder. She pleaded guilty to one felony count of evidence tampering as part of a deal with prosecutors to secure her cooperation in the investigation. She faces a maximum of three years in prison.

Krystal Lee Kenney is scheduled to be sentenced on a single felony count of evidence tampering at 9 a.m. Jan. 28 in the Teller County courthouse, according to a court docket. She faces up to three years in prison.

Kenney pleaded guilty to evidence tampering as part of a deal in which she testified against Frazee, who killed his fiancée, Kelsey Berreth, in November 2018.

Kenney testified that she’d been romantically involved with Frazee, that she helped him clean up the grisly crime scene in Berreth’s Woodland Park condo and that she’d helped staged the home to make it look like Berreth left of her own free will.

Patrick Frazee will spend the rest of his life in prison for brutally murdering his fiancĂ©e, Kelsey Berreth, after a jury found him guilty Monday while the young mother’s family for years will endure the devastation wrought by the man they accepted into their family and whom Berreth once saw as her future.

In a statement read to the court by a relative before Frazee was sentenced, Berreth’s mother said the family has lived in fear of retaliation from Frazee. For months, Berreth’s parents didn’t sleep. They spent days apart as one parent traveled to Colorado for the investigation and the other stayed behind, in case Berreth came home to them. Instead of a day of relaxation, Thanksgiving Day will now alwaysĚýbe the anniversary of her daughter’s death. Before they were awarded custody, Berreth’s parents were terrified that Frazee would try to kill his and Berreth’s child, Kaylee.

And someday, the Berreths will have to explain to the little girl — shown in photos during trial with chubby cheeks and tiny pigtails — what happened to her mom. Kaylee, now 2 years old, still calls for her mom, Kelsey’s mother, Cheryl Berreth, said.

“Kaylee will eventually know the story, how she was present during the torture and murder of her mother,” Berreth said in the statement.

Minutes after the verdict, Teller County District Judge Scott Sells sentenced Frazee to life in prison without parole plus 156 years — the maximum sentence for each of the six counts he faced. The sentencing immediately followed the jury’s announcement that they found Frazee guilty on all charges, ending more than three weeks of a trial that has drawn national attention to the casino town of Cripple Creek.

“Kelsey spent her last night caring for you and you repaid that kindness … by viciously beating her to death the following day,” Sells said to Frazee during sentencing. “After that, you burned her body, like a piece of trash.”

The jury deliberated for less than four hours on Monday, weighing the more than 70 hours of detailed trial testimony from a broad swath of law enforcement, evidence experts, people who knew Berreth and Frazee and an assortment of strangers to the couple who found themselves ensnared in the case. After the verdict was read, the Berreth family sobbed and celebrated as soon as the jury left the courtroom.

The jury had to decide whether they believed the account of the prosecution’s key witness, Idaho nurse Krystal Lee Kenney, who told investigators that Frazee admitted to her that he killed Berreth in her Woodland Park condo. Kenney then drove more than 12 hours from her home to clean the bloody crime scene and watched Frazee burn Berreth’s body in a plastic tote on his ranch. Kenney also said Frazee asked her three times in the fall of 2018 to kill Berreth, and three times she drove to Colorado but could not go through with the plan. Evidence in trial corroborated Kenney’s story, but there was no direct physical evidence linking Frazee to his crime.

Kenney’s testimony was key, prosecutors said repeatedly during trial. But Kenney was excoriated by both Berreth’s family and the prosecution after the verdict. Cheryl Berreth said the plea deal Kenney received was too lenient and that the Idaho nurse was fully complicit in the murder.

“The only thing she didn’t do was swing the bat,” Cheryl Berreth said in the statement read in court.

Fourth Judicial District Attorney Dan May said that Kenney deserves every day in jail that the judge sentences her to. Kenney agreed to talk with investigators as part of a deal that allowed her to plead guilty to evidence tampering. When she is sentenced, Sells could give her to a penalty ranging from probation to a maximum of three years in prison.

“We did a deal with the devil,” May said, but it was necessary for the case against Frazee.

Frazee did not show emotion during the verdict or sentencing, even as Berreth’s father stared at him from across the room. Frazee stood and looked the judge in the eyes as Sells read his sentence. Frazee was then handcuffed and walked out of the courthouse to a waiting car. His mother, also showing no emotion, watched from the courtroom as Frazee was led away.

Prosecutors offered a variety of motives Frazee may have had for killing Berreth. Maybe he wanted sole custody of Kaylee without the legal fight, they said. Maybe he didn’t want child support. Maybe he didn’t want to risk Berreth moving out of state, taking Kaylee with her. But even after trial, prosecutors said they couldn’t narrow down motives to one they believed in most strongly.

“We have questioned our faith. We have questioned why,” Scott Morin, Berreth’s uncle, told the judge. “And we know we’ll never know.”

Beth Reed, one of the prosecutors on the case, said at a news conference that Frazee has shown signs consistent with being a sociopath.

Berreth, in contrast, was described as a loving, quiet woman enthralled with her role as a mother. She worked hard her entire life to become a pilot and took a leap of faith in 2016 when she moved to Colorado to be with Frazee, whom she met online. Even as their relationship became strained, Berreth tried to create a life and family with the Florissant rancher. Meanwhile, Frazee was spreading lies about Berreth to his friends and family.

Her coworkers sent notes to the Berreth family, which Morin read before sentencing.

“She mattered,” one coworker wrote. “And she made a direct impact and difference in the lives of so many and will continue to do so as the students she instructed will pass their knowledge along to the next generation, and so on.”

Veteran prosecutor Jennifer Viehman said the case was one of the most brutal murders she had ever tried. But the district attorney’s office didn’t seek the death penalty in the case and the Berreths said they didn’t want to pursue capital punishment, although the murder shook the very faith that led them to that mercy.

“We respect life and leave Patrick’s in God’s hand,” Cheryl Berreth said in her statement.

Investigators in the case will continue to follow any leads they may find in hopes of finding Berreth’s remains, said Gregg Slater, the lead Colorado Bureau of Investigation agent on the case. Law enforcement searched a new location as recently as a few weeks ago, May said.

“We will always search for Kelsey,” Slater said.