Investigation yields few clues in disappearance of Colorado woman

DENVER (AP) — Kelsey Berreth was last seen on Thanksgiving Day, captured on surveillance video entering a grocery store with what appears to be her 1-year-old daughter in a baby carrier. Weeks later, investigators don't know what happened to the 29-year-old Colorado mother.

Her fiancé told police that the couple, who did not live together, had met over the holidays to exchange their child. After that, police said the only signs of Berreth were text messages from his cellphone. His disappearance has intrigued his family and the police who are conducting searches in several states.

“Kelsey, we just want you to come home,” her mother, Cheryl Berreth, pleaded at a news conference Monday. “Call us if you can. We won't stop looking.”

The woman's fiancé, Patrick Frazee, told police she last texted him on Nov. 25, the Sunday after Thanksgiving. His airline employer received a text message from Berreth's phone that same day, informing him that the flight instructor was planning to take the following week off.

Police then received data indicating that Berreth's phone was located near Gooding, Idaho, that same day, nearly 800 miles from his home in Woodland Park, Colorado.

A police investigation was opened on December 2 after Cheryl Berreth requested a welfare check for her daughter. The Woodland Park Police Department classified the disappearance as a missing person case.

Investigators who went to the woman's home found cinnamon rolls in Berreth's kitchen and her two cars still sitting outside the home. Woodland Park Police Chief Miles De Young said the company where Berreth worked, Doss Aviation, had accounted for all of its planes and that police had no reason to believe she used the someone else's plane for a flight.

In surveillance video released this week, Berreth is seen entering a Woodland Park grocery store at 12:05 p.m. Her hair is tied in a bun and she carries a purse and baby carrier covered largely by a blanket. She then pushes a shopping cart into the store, perching the carrier on top.

Police have not said what time she and Frazee met to exchange their daughter. The child remains with his father, police said.

Frazee's attorney, Jeremy Loew, said in a written statement Wednesday that his client was interviewed by police and provided investigators with a DNA cheek swab using his cellphone. Loew said neither he nor his client would make additional comments “because he does not want to hinder law enforcement's investigation.”

Frazee missed Monday's news conference in which Cheryl Berreth asked for information about her daughter, but Loew said his client only learned of the event an hour before it began and that he would have attended with more notice.

“Mr. Frazee hopes and prays for Ms. Berreth's return,” Loew said. “Mr. Frazee will continue to cooperate with law enforcement and raise the child he shares with Ms. Berreth.”

Berreth's family continued to urge people to share a poster showing two smiling photos of the little woman.

“Kelsey loves her God,” Cheryl Berreth said at the press conference. “She loves her family and friends and she loves her job. She is reliable, considerate and honest.”

According to public records, Kelsey Berreth previously lived in Washington state. In 2016, she moved to Woodland Park, a mountain community of about 7,500 located two hours south of Denver.

“She’s not running away and someone knows where she is,” her mother said.

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Associated Press writers James Anderson and Colleen Slevin contributed to this report.