A judge has issued a deadline for the defense attorneys of accused killer Patrick Frazee to introduce a possible second suspect.

Frazee has been charged with murder in the presumed death Kelsey Berreth, the mother of his toddler daughter, on Thanksgiving Day 2018 — the last day Berreth, 29, was seen alive.

According to CBS4 Denver, the judge in Frazee’s upcoming murder trial issued an order that Frazee’s defense team must introduce an alternate suspect by September 16. 

As CrimeOnline previously reported, prosecutors in the case filed a motion earlier this month to “require the defendant to endorse alternate-suspect defense if he intends to present such evidence at trial,” indicating that prosecutors believed Frazee’s defense intended to try and pin the crime on someone else.

The court papers related to the motion, obtained by the Denver Post, did not name a possible second suspect. But Frazee’s onetime girlfriend Kelsey Kenney pleaded guilty earlier this year to one count of tampering with evidence, in exchange for her testimony against Frazee.

Kenney appears to be the prosecution’s key witness and has already provided investigators with a detailed account of the alleged murder. Kenney, who was working as a nurse in Idaho at the time of Berreth’s presumed murder, reportedly admitted that she drove from Idaho to Woodland Park, Colorado, on the weekend following Thanksgiving after Frazee ordered her to clean up the crime scene after he allegedly bludgeoned Berreth to death in her townhouse. Kenney also told investigators that Frazee had asked her on three separate occasions to murder Berreth herself, and that she had considered it before changing her mind.

Berreth’s body has not yet been found, and Kenney reportedly claimed that she witnessed Frazee burn Berreth’s remains at his property in Florissant, Colorado.

Frazee’s murder trial is expected to begin in October.

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