While She Was Sleeping

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Speaker 7 tonight on Dateline.

Speaker 13 We had a brutal murder, murder, personal to so many people in Aspen.

Speaker 13 That house has this story to tell. Are we going to be able to figure out what that story is?

Speaker 13 Oh my God!

Speaker 13 No!

Speaker 14 I was going in shock, hyperventilating.

Speaker 6 Hard to get that image out of your mind.

Speaker 13 It is.

Speaker 16 There are no words for it.

Speaker 18 You know, Nancy was part of Aspen's history.

Speaker 1 This appeared appeared to come out of the blue.

Speaker 13 Yes, a crime that occurred while she was sleeping.

Speaker 17 There's no way she saw what she said she saw.

Speaker 20 It looked like a setup. It really did look like a setup.

Speaker 21 A murder in a secluded chalet sent shivers through a glamorous ski town.

Speaker 22 Took my world and just flipped it upside down.

Speaker 14 I started praying that the truth would be revealed.

Speaker 15 We were all wrong.

Speaker 20 Everybody was wrong in this case.

Speaker 23 I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline.

Speaker 24 Here's Keith Morrison with While She Was Sleeping.

Speaker 24 Mike, my friend.

Speaker 25 Oh my God. Mike, my friend.

Speaker 26 The cold night.

Speaker 27 February 2014.

Speaker 25 He's not, he's so smart.

Speaker 28 911 callers can often be hysterical.

Speaker 31 This one was all but incomprehensible.

Speaker 25 I got my hand in the closet. He's dead!

Speaker 33 But then, this sort of thing just doesn't happen to people like the one now lying dead in the closet. He's dead, full of blood, wrapped in a free.

Speaker 37 And certainly, not in the caller's zip code.

Speaker 13 We don't see very many homicides in Pitkin County.

Speaker 1 But there are moments when no place is safe.

Speaker 2 No person, not the storied victim, not her secure and pampered Shangri-La in the snow.

Speaker 16 There are no words for it, you know, when a childhood friend dies.

Speaker 41 Yes, and Nancy Pfister, life of the party, confidant of bellhops and billionaires.

Speaker 7 Who would want to harm her?

Speaker 26 And why?

Speaker 45 Aspen, Colorado.

Speaker 1 The tiny municipal airport here tells a story in the long line of private jets parked and waiting for their well-heeled owners to come down from their mountainside chalets.

Speaker 35 Their beginner castles, as the late Nancy Pfister used to call them.

Speaker 52 Half playfully, of course, these were her friends, as were the passing tourists, and ski bums and busboys and just about everybody.

Speaker 46 Mary Conover met Nancy when they were both teenagers.

Speaker 16 You cannot come to this town without meeting Nancy.

Speaker 15 I mean,

Speaker 16 everybody met Nancy at one point or another.

Speaker 54 I'll be showing you all the rich and famous people that I know.

Speaker 55 Including this French TV crew.

Speaker 44 Nancy gave them a tour of Aspen Glitz.

Speaker 56 And this is where all the rich and famous people come in their private jet.

Speaker 16 I've never known another person like her. As joyful and outsized personality and all of that that she was, she had a very deep and soulful connection to the world.

Speaker 38 Some special sauce in Nancy Pfister.

Speaker 60 And when she smiled.

Speaker 61 It was just pure radiance, you know, it was just beaming.

Speaker 48 Billy Clayton was perhaps closer to Nancy than anybody, almost like a brother.

Speaker 61 It was like she had a secret and she wanted to share it with you. And that secret was let's all lighten up and have fun and enjoy life and be grateful.

Speaker 62 Nancy had reason to be grateful.

Speaker 64 She was born into a legendary Aspen family, a bit like local royalty.

Speaker 1 Her father, Artfister, made a fortune when he turned his ranch into the buttermilk ski resort.

Speaker 35 And her mother, Betty, was a World War II pilot who, in later years, flew a helicopter, parked it in her driveway.

Speaker 69 And Nancy, stories about Nancy would fill a book, like the one about how she met Jack Nicholson.

Speaker 61 A convertible pulled up and asked them directions. And Nancy said, well, I'll take you there, but I want to ride in that nice car of yours.
And the next thing you know, she and Jack are best friends.

Speaker 71 This is the house of Jack Nicholson.

Speaker 45 Nancy could and did

Speaker 35 live any way she wanted.

Speaker 26 Out loud.

Speaker 61 Many, many times when I just thought we were going to have a normal day, she would say, let's go to St. Bart's or let's go to Hawaii or let's go somewhere.
And I'd go, Okay.

Speaker 25 But

Speaker 63 a relationship with the impulsive and gregarious Nancy, Billy had to admit, came with a price.

Speaker 73 Your business was her business. Your stuff was her stuff.

Speaker 55 Sometimes she just expected her friends to give her the stuff she wanted.

Speaker 61 It was quite a job to love Nancy.

Speaker 6 Quite a job to love Nancy.

Speaker 61 Yeah, she would do things she felt

Speaker 61 were

Speaker 27 okay

Speaker 61 at any time.

Speaker 75 So, after what happened to her, flies on a carcass.

Speaker 55 The tabloids feasted on the gossip and half-truths that flew around town.

Speaker 47 She was a spoiled wild child, they howled.

Speaker 81 Jack Nicholson's party girl, Hunter S.

Speaker 51 Thompson's drinking buddy, an incurable flirt, once engaged to Michael Douglas.

Speaker 26 All very breathless, these stories about the, quote, Aspen socialite.

Speaker 33 And insulting, said her friends.

Speaker 38 Didn't paint Nancy's character accurately at all.

Speaker 6 Some people collect famous people as friends, and it's important to them to be able to, you know, talk about her.

Speaker 15 Definitely not her.

Speaker 16 She had a lot of famous friends. She had a lot of friends who were not famous.
She treated everyone the same way. She had a very genuine connection with people.

Speaker 61 She didn't have the entitlement that made a snooty little rich kid or something. She had an entitlement that every day of life was precious and should be lived to the fullest.

Speaker 73 Nancy was a traveling philanthropist, a devoted environmentalist.

Speaker 30 She had a daughter, too, Juliana, born when Nancy was 29.

Speaker 1 And sometimes she took Juliana with her when she traveled, but sometimes she didn't.

Speaker 16 Nancy had a lot of very close friends and people who loved Juliana, and, you know, we all raised our children together.

Speaker 7 Unusual?

Speaker 15 Oh, certainly.

Speaker 61 But she just truly deeply loved Juliana and did feel that this was her greatest role of her life, was to be a mother.

Speaker 55 Thing is, Nancy Pfister trusted people, even with the care of her own daughter, with her house, with her money. Like the teller she happened to meet in her local bank.

Speaker 84 She loved people, you know, all kinds.

Speaker 14 It didn't matter who you were.

Speaker 28 Kathy Carpenter was that teller.

Speaker 31 And one day, out of the blue, Nancy asked her to lunch.

Speaker 7 Kathy accepted and learned firsthand another of Nancy's hallmark traits.

Speaker 14 She was sometimes brutally honest.

Speaker 9 No edit button.

Speaker 14 No edit button. I like that, yes.
No edit button.

Speaker 14 She actually, when I first met her, told me that I was very fat. That's funny.

Speaker 86 What a thing to say to somebody when you first meet them, though.

Speaker 87 Hi, be my friend. You're fat.

Speaker 14 Yeah, well, you're fat.

Speaker 26 You know, you're beautiful, but you're fat.

Speaker 49 Oh, she was blunt, undiplomatic, but irresistible.

Speaker 53 By the time lunch was over, Nancy and Kathy were fast friends.

Speaker 3 Just how Nancy was.

Speaker 83 Like when she made plans to leave town for the winter, she decided to rent her house to a retired doctor and his horticulturalist wife, total strangers, whom she befriended in a heartbeat, actually invited them to move in a month early.

Speaker 33 And so she and Dr.

Speaker 42 Trey Styler and his wife, who also happened to be named Nancy, they all lived together like roommates.

Speaker 22 She kind of said, I'm going to take you under my wing and have you meet all my friends and I know a lot of people around here.

Speaker 55 But now, in February 2014, at just 57, Nancy Pfister was gone.

Speaker 19 Murdered, apparently in her own bed.

Speaker 48 While the grief was still very fresh, much of Aspen crowded into the storied Hotel Jerome for a memorial that was more like a goodbye party.

Speaker 61 However, she died, we need to celebrate her life. That's what she would have wanted, because her life was a celebration.

Speaker 48 Except one person, notably absent from the overflow crowd in the Jerome, wasn't celebrating, but certainly could hear the music and laughter that burst out of hotel windows that night and drifted down the street and into a particular cell in the county jail.

Speaker 21 When we come back,

Speaker 21 what had happened to Nancy Pfister?

Speaker 21 The awful discovery that launched this aspen mystery.

Speaker 6 Hard to get that image out of your mind.

Speaker 13 It is.

Speaker 13 That house has this story to tell. And are we going to be able to figure out what that story is?

Speaker 15 Aspen, Colorado, February 2014, any February, is the center of the universe for a certain crowd, that is.

Speaker 76 That year, as always, an avalanche of skiers crowded onto lifts and filled the restaurants and bars and shops that line Aspen's carefully tended avenues.

Speaker 4 A lovely, if pricey, skiing heaven.

Speaker 55 Except, that is, for Nancy Pfister.

Speaker 54 It used to be really different in the old days, but now it has gotten more towards the champagne.

Speaker 6 Did she ever think of leaving here permanently?

Speaker 26 I know she was away a lot.

Speaker 61 She thought of it all the time. She thought of it because Aspen's changed so much.
It's not that sleepy little town. There's traffic.
I got stuck in traffic today.

Speaker 81 With her daughter Juliana grown and out of the house by then, Nancy, at the peak of the ski season, had no reason to winter in Aspen, which is why she rented her house to that retired doctor and his wife from Denver, while she sipped her champagne in warmer climes that year, Australia.

Speaker 1 So it was a surprise when that February she notified her friends she was coming home early.

Speaker 28 She arrived in Aspen Saturday, the 22nd of February.

Speaker 45 Kathy Carpenter picked her up at the airport.

Speaker 14 I hung out with her that evening, helped her unpack, kind of get organized.

Speaker 89 How was it to have her back?

Speaker 14 It was wonderful. It was fun.
She shared a lot of her video clips that she took on her trip.

Speaker 78 Did you stay over the weekend?

Speaker 14 I did. She asked me if I would stay with her.

Speaker 14 So I did.

Speaker 1 On Monday morning, February 24th, Kathy got up early and left for work, leaving Nancy and her dog Gabe at the house.

Speaker 55 Knowing Nancy would need peace and quiet to get over her jet lag, she put a note on the front door asking would-be visitors to leave Nancy alone.

Speaker 14 She did not want to be disturbed. Nancy Pfister did never want her to be disturbed when she slept.

Speaker 14 You do not call her, you do not wake her, she always slept with her earplugs and her eye mask, everything shut, close the door, and do not disturb.

Speaker 10 Billy Clayton also left Nancy alone, but felt much better just knowing she was home.

Speaker 61 I worried about her constantly when she was away from Aspen. But when she returned to Aspen, I didn't worry about her.
I would relax. I sent her an email.
There was a photo of my four-year-old son

Speaker 61 to Aunt Nancy. We're so glad you're home because when you're home, we don't worry about you and everything's good.

Speaker 26 But Billy didn't hear back, not a word.

Speaker 49 And then on Wednesday, the people who'd been renting Nancy's house called Kathy.

Speaker 2 They'd moved out quickly on Nancy's return, had been going back and forth to the house all week, clearing out the last of their stuff.

Speaker 72 And they found it odd that they hadn't seen Nancy.

Speaker 31 Not once.

Speaker 6 So, this is Monday, Tuesday, and then Wednesday, and you still hadn't seen her.

Speaker 22 Still hadn't seen her.

Speaker 51 But they did see Nancy's dog, Gabe.

Speaker 22 And then I went and called Kathy

Speaker 22 and said, this dog has been alone for two days. It's clear that she hasn't been back.

Speaker 14 I was concerned because normally that's not Nancy's behavior. She would call me and ask me to pick the dog up.

Speaker 55 So after work, Kathy drove up to Nancy's place in Buttermilk Mountain to check on her friend.

Speaker 6 What was it like when you went inside the house?

Speaker 14 I called her name out and Gabe was there. He was happy to see me.

Speaker 4 But Nancy wasn't there.

Speaker 6 Kathy checked her bedroom.

Speaker 14 You know, the stuff that was there that I unpacked, you know, it was clear, cleaned up.

Speaker 14 And when I turned, went to the closet, it was locked.

Speaker 58 Was it usually locked? No.

Speaker 14 I mean, not with Nancy Pfister home.

Speaker 26 Kathy knew.

Speaker 67 that when Nancy rented her house, she kept her personal belongings locked in a closet in the master bedroom.

Speaker 68 But she and Kathy had unlocked it when she got home.

Speaker 14 At that point, I just was not feeling comfortable. Something was not right.

Speaker 29 Kathy, who often house sat for Nancy, had a spare key, but it was back at her house.

Speaker 2 So she went home, got the key, returned, opened the closet door.

Speaker 14 When I opened that door, that odor was so overwhelming. It hit me in the face, and I looked down and I could see the shape.

Speaker 1 A shape hidden under a pile of blankets and coverings.

Speaker 55 But with one glimpse, Kathy just knew, she said, it was Nancy Pfister.

Speaker 6 Hard to get that image out of your mind.

Speaker 13 It is.

Speaker 27 Kind of stuck there.

Speaker 14 It is.

Speaker 76 Kathy fled the house, got in her car, called 911.

Speaker 3 Oh my God!

Speaker 14 It's pretty desolate up there, so I jumped in the car and I thought, I'll just drive down the hill and

Speaker 14 get to the police department.

Speaker 47 Her hysterics made it very hard for the dispatcher to comprehend exactly what was going on.

Speaker 25 Can you get near your friends? No, no, I can't.

Speaker 62 Then, finally, understanding.

Speaker 76 The dispatcher told Kathy, pull over, wait for the first responders.

Speaker 17 I want you to pull over and put your flashers on.

Speaker 23 When the police arrived, they, you know, I stepped out of the vehicle.

Speaker 26 I think I was going into shock, hyperventilating.

Speaker 78 Dashcam video shows a distraught Kathy as she was taken to the hospital.

Speaker 7 And sheriff's deputies arrived on Buttermilk Mountain to look in that room and confront a mystery.

Speaker 13 That house and that room in particular has this story to tell. And are we going to be able to figure out what that story is?

Speaker 21 Coming up.

Speaker 17 They knew they were looking for a body.

Speaker 21 The discovery in the closet.

Speaker 5 Who was behind it?

Speaker 19 Hard to do that alone.

Speaker 17 It is awkward and difficult to move a body.

Speaker 21 More than one suspect, and maybe more than one killer. When Dateline continues.

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Speaker 43 Lisa Miller, then the DA's investigator for the county that includes Aspen, is a tall, rangy woman with an impish grin that

Speaker 58 looks like it's hiding a secret.

Speaker 6 Investigator Miller was in an unfamiliar situation up here on Buttermilk Mountain. Murder in Aspen?

Speaker 19 Just doesn't happen.

Speaker 19 Or hadn't, at least, in more than a decade.

Speaker 17 I was a little surprised that we had a murder in Aspen.

Speaker 6 And being called to a person's home like Nancy Pfister, I should think, especially so.

Speaker 26 Correct.

Speaker 1 And yet, here she was in Nancy's living room, looking out the big picture window.

Speaker 17 The juxtaposition of arriving at that house and taking a look at this beautiful scenery and then knowing an act of terrible violence had occurred just down the hallway.

Speaker 81 Though in the bedroom she saw surprisingly little evidence of it.

Speaker 17 There was a small blood smear on the headboard. There was

Speaker 17 a couple small droplets of blood on the carpet and a little bit of a spatter on the wall.

Speaker 7 And the body in the closet?

Speaker 64 Well, when first responders opened the door.

Speaker 17 They knew they were looking for a body. And they opened the door and they look inside and they didn't immediately recognize the body.
You just looked down and you saw white coverings.

Speaker 51 And underneath those coverings?

Speaker 17 Miss Pfister had been bound with extension cord. She had multiple plastic bags over her head that had been bound and secured tightly.

Speaker 17 And then then another large one of the tear-resistant darker colored bags over her body also.

Speaker 7 With blankets wrapped all around that. Investigator Miller could clearly see that the killer, whoever it was, had gone to a lot of trouble to hide what he or she had done.

Speaker 10 But there was no hiding now.

Speaker 17 When the crime scene personnel started taking a look, they flipped the mattress and found

Speaker 17 blood on the bottom part of the mattress.

Speaker 47 So it was clear Nancy was killed on the bed, dragged to the closet, stashed there, wrapped up like a mummy.

Speaker 52 Then whoever did it took the extra trouble to flip the mattress in an effort to hide the soaked-in pool of blood.

Speaker 29 Deputy District Attorney Andrea Bryan started working on the case on the night Nancy's body was found.

Speaker 13 We learned that she had died from Bluntthorce trauma to the head, and it appeared she had had several blows to the head.

Speaker 6 Any defensive wounds?

Speaker 33 No.

Speaker 39 So this appeared to come out of the blue for her.

Speaker 13 It did appear to be, yes, a premeditated crime that occurred while she was sleeping.

Speaker 29 It looked as if it happened early Monday morning, and then the body lay in the closet undiscovered until Wednesday evening.

Speaker 52 The investigators began compiling a list of possible suspects.

Speaker 94 It was a long list.

Speaker 61 None of us really lived like Nancy. So open.
I mean, she was totally open to strangers.

Speaker 46 That openness made Nancy friends everywhere she went, said Billy.

Speaker 35 But when Nancy opened herself up, people didn't always like what came out.

Speaker 28 Say whatever she thought.

Speaker 61 Say what she thought when she did.

Speaker 6 Did she realize she was going to maybe make a negative impression sometimes when she did that?

Speaker 61 Well, she definitely pissed people off. There's no doubt about that.

Speaker 61 She, you know, many times I could just see people's, you know, the steam coming out of their ears and they're thinking, no one's ever talked to me like that before.

Speaker 61 But her thinking was, someone should have a long time ago, you know.

Speaker 3 No question Nancy rubbed some people the wrong way.

Speaker 10 Spoke her mind a bit too often, maybe.

Speaker 52 Treated friends a little like her personal servants sometimes.

Speaker 3 Like Kathy, for example.

Speaker 6 Did she treat you more like a friend or like she was your boss?

Speaker 14 You know, we were friends and just depending on the day. And some days, you know, she would boss me around and I would express how I felt and she always apologized.

Speaker 1 And her friends forgave because they loved Nancy for who she was.

Speaker 74 But investigators now had to figure out if someone in Nancy's life had stopped loving her or if she had simply opened herself up to the wrong person.

Speaker 17 We're working diligently at that point to follow up on other leads that were coming in.

Speaker 12 Like?

Speaker 17 Leads of other people in the community that may have had some resentment towards Nancy Pfister.

Speaker 47 Like perhaps a jilted lover?

Speaker 9 Might one of them have harbored some hidden rage?

Speaker 46 Her friends knew that the irrepressible Nancy was also a woman who fell in and out of love often.

Speaker 61 Usually Nancy's affairs or romances

Speaker 61 didn't last a long time.

Speaker 61 Because there were some stories about there was a jilted lover somewhere, somebody I didn't know. So when I heard that, I thought, you know, there's crazy people out there.

Speaker 61 And I said, let's follow it up, because you never know. Could be, you know.

Speaker 79 But no.

Speaker 82 No actual jilted lovers in Nancy's past, just rumor and unfounded innuendo.

Speaker 59 And besides, after taking in the bedroom crime scene, the investigators decided they were not looking for a killer.

Speaker 19 Hard to do that alone, carry a body around like that?

Speaker 6 Flip a queen-size mattress?

Speaker 17 The mattress is doable, but it would be awkward for a single person to flip the mattress on their own. And

Speaker 17 they use the term deadweight for a reason. I mean, it is awkward and difficult to move a body.

Speaker 51 But it seemed like a pretty clear indication of more than one person.

Speaker 13 Yes, that was our conclusion.

Speaker 81 Something else.

Speaker 5 Since there was no sign of forced entry, her killer or killers, as they now believed, must have had a house key.

Speaker 26 Now,

Speaker 26 who might that be?

Speaker 78 The investigation was literally closer to home now.

Speaker 43 That is to say, the detectives investigating the murder of Nancy Pfister began looking at anybody who had access without permission to Nancy's house.

Speaker 83 That is, people with the key.

Speaker 63 For example, the couple who had been renting the place while Nancy was in Australia.

Speaker 32 Dr.

Speaker 31 William Trey Styler and his wife, also named Nancy, were hardly likely suspects, but they had to start somewhere.

Speaker 17 Mr. Styler is an anesthesiologist.
Mrs. Styler, from all accounts, was an intelligent woman herself.

Speaker 63 Trey and Nancy met in the anesthesiology department at a Denver hospital.

Speaker 6 He a resident and she an instructor.

Speaker 22 I heard him go up to a woman on a gurney and say, hello, I'm Dr. Styler.
I'll take care of you as though I were taking care of my mother, and I love my mother.

Speaker 67 The gentle doctor chaired his anesthesiology department by the time he retired.

Speaker 46 They lived in an upscale area of Denver.

Speaker 5 Their shared hobby was growing the gasp-inducing giant Victoria water lily.

Speaker 94 Their unusual level of success at that, or skill, brought them world-renowned within the rarefied world of specialized botany.

Speaker 58 In fact, you two of you lived a kind of a charmed existence for quite a while.

Speaker 65 We did.

Speaker 22 Had 25 years of a life that I used to say I would never trade with anyone.

Speaker 55 But right around the year 2000, it all began to fall apart.

Speaker 2 Trey got sick and had to quit practicing medicine.

Speaker 59 His attempt to start a medical support business failed.

Speaker 36 He sued his medical group and lost.

Speaker 4 He sued the lawyer who took his life savings and got nothing.

Speaker 36 He had to sell his house.

Speaker 55 He moved with Nancy into a rental where they were poisoned, said Nancy, and very nearly fatally by carbon monoxide.

Speaker 53 Again, they tried to sue, but were too broke to hire an attorney.

Speaker 22 And he was beside himself. Suicidal.

Speaker 22 Just, you know, I can't believe what I did to the family, losing all this income. And

Speaker 22 I said, you know, we can do this. And so I thought of Aspen, that we loved Aspen.

Speaker 81 Aspen.

Speaker 15 Fresh mountain air, a fresh start.

Speaker 90 They could open a spa, they decided.

Speaker 77 And that's when Nancy Steiler picked up the phone to answer another Nancy's real estate ad in the local newspaper, Nancy Pfister's ad.

Speaker 22 She said, oh, excuse me, I was just watering my greenhouse. I said, you know, I would love to have a greenhouse.

Speaker 22 And so we went up there and it just seemed perfect.

Speaker 59 Seemed perfect to Nancy Pfister, too.

Speaker 49 Her share of the family fortune was doled out in regular but limited allowances, and by renting her multi-million dollar house with the billion-dollar views, she would have extra cash for her upcoming trip to Australia.

Speaker 68 So, no formal lease, just a handshake.

Speaker 83 The rent was $4,000 a month.

Speaker 22 It was a lot of money, but not for Aspen.

Speaker 83 Nancy asked her good friend Kathy to help the renters take care of her dog while she was away, collect the rent, and be her general go-between.

Speaker 14 She really liked these people.

Speaker 14 She said that she felt that they had really great karma.

Speaker 64 And that's part of the reason why she invited them to move in a full month before she left.

Speaker 55 But it wasn't long before the Stylers discovered that living with Nancy Pfister was not quite like they thought it might be.

Speaker 22 After the first couple of days, she treated me like a slave.

Speaker 22 Like, get my cigarettes, get this, get my drink.

Speaker 22 And I was not used to being so disrespected.

Speaker 95 Treated like a slave, though?

Speaker 26 I mean...

Speaker 22 A slave. It was

Speaker 22 not pretty.

Speaker 14 You know, I told her that is how Nancy is.

Speaker 14 Don't take it personal. She comes off this way and that, you know, she really has a good to heart.

Speaker 42 Anyway, Nancy left soon enough for Australia, but then the stylers discovered the house wasn't so perfect after all.

Speaker 22 So when I went to clean out the master bedroom and bathroom, I realized the hot water was rusty.

Speaker 22 The dishwasher didn't work. The stove didn't work.

Speaker 53 Once again, the Stylers sought redress.

Speaker 48 They decided to withhold rent until those things were fixed.

Speaker 15 Nancy Pfister, half a world away, was not happy.

Speaker 6 What'd she say?

Speaker 14 That she felt that these people were cons,

Speaker 14 squatters, and she wanted them out.

Speaker 81 Kathy was caught in the middle.

Speaker 52 She arranged the repairs. The Stylers paid the money they owed, gave Kathy $6,000 in cash that she put in a safe deposit box for Nancy.

Speaker 59 But the relationship between landlord and tenants had soured to the point that no amount of karma could preserve it.

Speaker 14 And at that point, Nancy Styler said, I don't want to stay. We will be out February 22nd.

Speaker 6 How did Nancy Pfister feel about that?

Speaker 14 She was fine with it. She wanted them out.

Speaker 44 Unable to find new tenants now, Nancy Pfister was faced with doing exactly what she hoped to avoid when she went to Australia, spending peak ski season in Aspen.

Speaker 52 She got home February 22nd, the very day the Stylers said they'd be done moving their stuff out.

Speaker 3 The problem was, they weren't.

Speaker 14 She was not happy. You know,

Speaker 14 she had a few choice words, but she accepted it. She was tired, jet-lag.

Speaker 14 She wanted to come home, see her dog.

Speaker 62 The Stylers ended up in a motel in Basalt about 25 minutes away.

Speaker 19 They stopped by the house again a few times during the week to get their things, saw the dog, but not Nancy, and made that first alarming call to Kathy that something seemed wrong.

Speaker 55 And when Kathy found the body, knowing better than anyone about the tension between the Stylers and Nancy Pfister, she made sure to clue in investigators.

Speaker 25 She has some people living there. She really kicks them off

Speaker 25 and

Speaker 25 she made threats to them without owing money.

Speaker 63 So, time for investigators to visit that motel and meet the stylers.

Speaker 21 Coming up.

Speaker 22 I said, I haven't done anything wrong.

Speaker 21 From motel room to interrogation room, investigators were fishing.

Speaker 25 You did this, man.

Speaker 25 You did it.

Speaker 21 What would they catch when dateline continues?

Speaker 64 Basalt, Colorado, just down the highway from Aspen. You could see the same mountains, breathe the same air.

Speaker 64 But when Trey and Nancy Styler checked into their motel, they were entering a world far beneath the rarefied heights of Nancy Pfister's mountainside retreat.

Speaker 46 No billionaire starter castles here.

Speaker 34 This is where many of the people who work in Aspen live. And here the Stylers thought they were done with Nancy Pfister, moving on.

Speaker 63 And then there was a knock at the door, 5.30 a.m.

Speaker 48 It was sheriff's deputies.

Speaker 86 They had questions, they said, about a dead body.

Speaker 56 And I said, what dead body?

Speaker 22 And he wouldn't tell me.

Speaker 22 Who died? Wouldn't say a word.

Speaker 24 The deputies escorted them to the back seats of separate cars, but said not a word as they drove down to the station.

Speaker 80 Nancy listened to the chatter on the radio.

Speaker 22 I heard her sister's names being mentioned on the police radio, Nancy's sisters' names.

Speaker 22 And I thought, well, it must be something to do with Nancy.

Speaker 78 At the Pitkin County Sheriff's Office, deputies put Nancy and Trey in different interview rooms.

Speaker 22 And he had read me my Miranda rights beforehand. And I said, I don't need an attorney.
I said,

Speaker 22 I haven't done anything wrong. I said, I'll be happy to answer questions.

Speaker 5 Which were, at least to begin with, pretty basic.

Speaker 22 Where did you and Trey come from? We're from Denver.

Speaker 22 We met at the University of Colorado Medical School. They asked me if I knew any of the men that she, you know, had dated, if I knew anyone that would want her dead.

Speaker 42 Well, she didn't think it was that sort of thing at all, said Nancy.

Speaker 78 She told the detective she was pretty sure she knew exactly what happened to Nancy Pfister.

Speaker 22 I said, you're going to find... the talks report.
You're going to find out that she committed suicide. I was absolutely sure that that's what happened.

Speaker 85 But of course, investigators knew Nancy Pfister did not die by suicide.

Speaker 5 They knew someone beat her to death, attacked her as she slept, and they knew all about the rental arrangement that started well and went to hell.

Speaker 85 And about the Stylers' rapid fall from success to ruination.

Speaker 17 Their financial situation was dire, and he was trying to pawn a very nice ring.

Speaker 6 He was a desperate man.

Speaker 17 He was very desperate.

Speaker 3 They also knew from Kathy Carpenter how angry Nancy Styler was at Nancy Pfister.

Speaker 67 What kinds of things did she say?

Speaker 14 Just that I hate that woman. You know, Nancy Styler was upset.

Speaker 83 I could kill her?

Speaker 14 She did say that. Well, I could just kill that woman.

Speaker 33 Did Nancy Styler admit that she had threatened Nancy Pfister?

Speaker 6 That she'd said, you know, I'd like to kill her?

Speaker 13 She was, I think, pretty open about her feelings for Nancy Pfister, and she made some statements statements that were certainly consistent with that.

Speaker 97 I said, you know, I would like to wring her neck because she is such a

Speaker 22 drunk and making me so crazy.

Speaker 59 Nancy Styler's personal opinion of Nancy Pfister had soured to such a degree, she did not hesitate to speak ill of the dead, whether true or not.

Speaker 22 There is not one person who said a nice thing about her. Not one person.

Speaker 48 Investigators put Dr. Steiler in a separate room.

Speaker 64 They dressed him in an orange jumpsuit, even though he wasn't under arrest.

Speaker 55 And they asked a few softball questions.

Speaker 55 And John William would

Speaker 55 without Trey, or frankly, I'll answer anything, but...

Speaker 2 But it wasn't long before the tone changed.

Speaker 58 The accusations began.

Speaker 58 Maybe you don't even know, but I know it's true.

Speaker 59 I know it's true.

Speaker 78 The sheriff himself, a close friend of the late Nancy Pfister, tried to get Trey Styler to admit that in a desperate rage, he killed Nancy. You did this, man.
You did it.

Speaker 78 And the quicker you start saying that, the better this is going to be.

Speaker 7 But Trey insisted.

Speaker 49 They were going after the wrong guy.

Speaker 83 He was innocent. How can you know it's true when it's not true?

Speaker 36 Over and over, Trey stressed and demonstrated how his 65-year-old body, ravaged by disease, was far too frail to have done what was done to Nancy.

Speaker 80 But it had already dawned on the detectives.

Speaker 7 The more Trey claimed to be physically incapable, my condition is such that I don't think I could be either kidding.

Speaker 6 The worse it looked for his wife.

Speaker 17 We definitely had to look at the fact that he had assistance potentially.

Speaker 25 My wife does everything. I'm

Speaker 25 disabled.

Speaker 25 I can't do.

Speaker 24 Trey, he still insisted, took a polygraph.

Speaker 81 Maybe he shouldn't have.

Speaker 53 And he fails his polygraph?

Speaker 17 Yes, he did fail his polygraph.

Speaker 41 You're smiling.

Speaker 26 Failed it badly or what?

Speaker 17 My understanding from the polygrapher that ran the test, he did fail it badly.

Speaker 7 Not admissible in court, but an investigative tool, they say.

Speaker 78 Didn't look good for the Stylers.

Speaker 81 But desperation and anger do not by themselves a murder case make.

Speaker 35 And to make things a little extra difficult, investigators knew they couldn't count on DNA at the scene to link the Stylers to the crime.

Speaker 13 It could easily be explained because of where they were living. They were staying in that bedroom.

Speaker 30 So the investigators drove the Stylers back to their motel and went on with the hard work of a murder investigation.

Speaker 40 They'd have to find a piece of good, solid evidence to tie someone, maybe the Stylers, to the crime.

Speaker 48 Didn't look so far as if such a thing existed.

Speaker 72 And then?

Speaker 17 Occasionally, something fortuitous happens to law enforcement.

Speaker 67 How's that old saying go?

Speaker 2 One man's trash is another man's treasure.

Speaker 97 Hey, weirdos!

Speaker 98 I'm Elena, and I'm Ash, and we are the hosts of Morbid Podcast.

Speaker 97 Each week, we dive into the dark and fascinating world of true crime, spooky history, and the unexplained.

Speaker 100 From infamous killers and unsolved mysteries to haunted places and strange legends, we cover it all with research, empathy, humor, and a few creative expletives.

Speaker 97 It's smart, it's spooky, and it's just the right amount of weird.

Speaker 84 Two new episodes drop every week, and there's even a bonus once a month.

Speaker 101 Find us wherever you listen to podcasts. Yay! Woo!

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Speaker 79 Something was wrong with the equation. Didn't add out.

Speaker 64 Here in Aspen, in the house on Buttermilk Mountain, the crime scene around Nancy Pfister's body spoke in a way.

Speaker 38 It told a story.

Speaker 86 And what it said was that at least two able-bodied people committed the murder.

Speaker 50 How else would a heavy mattress get flipped and Nancy's body get dragged across the room and into the closet and get packaged in bags and wrapped up in blankets?

Speaker 3 And yet their suspects, Nancy's former tenants, were not able-bodied spring chickens, anything but athletic.

Speaker 52 And besides, there was zero physical evidence that would tie either one of them to the crime.

Speaker 13 I think we were faced with the reality that this was always going to be a circumstantial case.

Speaker 78 So, that bedroom was keeping its secrets and might be keeping them still, except for one total fluke.

Speaker 42 A couple of days later, one of those little gifts that chance or fate or something

Speaker 35 just drops at a frustrated investigator's feet, all tied up with a neat little bow.

Speaker 85 What do you got here, everything?

Speaker 52 This is not just a standard trash thing.

Speaker 22 No, um,

Speaker 17 this

Speaker 62 broke the case how weirdly fluky was this the town of basalt who knew had a rule that you can't put personal garbage in public trash cans and a city worker a little extra diligent happened to be poking around in the trash just randomly checking for illegal garbage disposal tell me what this guy did and how he came across this stuff he pulls the trash and then he goes to another location he was going to actually check it to see if there was any it something stood out about it.

Speaker 62 Just actually does this stuff.

Speaker 23 People check it. Opens a bag.

Speaker 17 And he did. And thank goodness he did, because when he opened the bag, he looks inside and he sees a prescription pill bottle.

Speaker 17 And what was special about this prescription pill bottle is it had Nancy Pfister's name on it.

Speaker 8 Of course, the city worker recognized the name.

Speaker 3 Aspen and the towns around it were buzzing with news about Nancy Pfister's murder.

Speaker 9 In addition to that pill bottle, after which he phoned the police, what did you guys find in that bag?

Speaker 17 Well in addition to the pill bottle, the big one was a hammer, a bloody hammer.

Speaker 55 A bloody hammer found in the same trash as medication belonging to Nancy Pfister?

Speaker 70 That simply couldn't be a coincidence.

Speaker 59 Police were 99% sure they'd stumbled on the murder weapon.

Speaker 69 They sent it off to the crime lab to be tested ASAP.

Speaker 2 But The trash bag wasn't done, divulging its investigative gifts.

Speaker 17 Another thing that we found that was concerning to us was the vehicle registration for William and Nancy Stylers Jaguar.

Speaker 82 What's more, the trash bin was located just behind the motel where the Stylers were staying.

Speaker 6 And that was miles and miles away from Nancy Pfister's house.

Speaker 52 Again, as we say, a little gift, actually a big fat, juicy gift, dropped right into investigators' laps, and it, no question, linked the Stylers to the crime.

Speaker 69 I cannot think of any other time, any other case I've ever heard about, where such obvious evidence is just kind of

Speaker 65 there.

Speaker 17 Thrown out carelessly, so close to where suspects are staying?

Speaker 15 Yeah.

Speaker 52 Deputies hovered around the motel to keep an eye on the Stylers to make sure they didn't do a disappearing act while they and the DA waited for the lab to test the hammer.

Speaker 60 And then, Three days later, another insanely improbable discovery.

Speaker 17 The key was found on on the ground. It was right before the trash can.

Speaker 8 Right there, just a few feet from the door of the Stylers' motel room, was the owner's key to the closet in which Nancy Pfister's body was found.

Speaker 69 Lying around as if the Stylers intended to throw it in the trash, but dropped it by mistake.

Speaker 6 Just lying on the ground?

Speaker 17 On the ground, on the lighter portion of the concrete is where it was found.

Speaker 55 And then that very same day, as if to punctuate the whole strange affair, the DNA results came back.

Speaker 13 And And Nancy Pfister's DNA was on the on the hammer.

Speaker 13 So we were able to pretty clearly say that that was the murder weapon.

Speaker 44 The murder weapon, the key, and the motive.

Speaker 52 Pretty much everything they needed to pin the crime on the Stylers.

Speaker 76 It was March 3rd, 2014, not even a week since Nancy Pfister's body was found.

Speaker 22 They knocked on the door. I stepped out of the door and they said, we're arresting you for murder one.

Speaker 22 And slapped the cuffs on me and took me away. They led my husband out in my bathrobe.

Speaker 6 What is it like for a woman who'd led a very successful life, who'd traveled around doing lectures on Victoria lilies

Speaker 6 to societies of like-minded horticulturalists?

Speaker 22 To be in jail. To be in jail.

Speaker 27 For murder.

Speaker 22 It was a shock.

Speaker 30 It was a shock for some of Nancy Pfister's friends, too, like Mary Conover.

Speaker 45 The Stylers?

Speaker 26 Really?

Speaker 16 It was just a big surprise and not knowing anything about these people, it just seemed outrageous why you would do something like that.

Speaker 47 But Kathy Carpenter, who pointed her suspicious finger at the Stylers right after the murder, practically jumped for joy.

Speaker 14 When I heard that, I was joyful that they found the person who murdered Nancy.

Speaker 14 And, you know, I just felt that there was justice.

Speaker 78 And swift justice at that.

Speaker 36 What a relief to all those souls Nancy collected who loved her like family.

Speaker 14 I was

Speaker 14 relieved that, you know, this is done.

Speaker 59 But could one of the biggest crimes in Aspen history really be solved that fast?

Speaker 38 With so little drama? Of course not.

Speaker 41 Looked like a setup to you.

Speaker 20 It looked like a setup. It really did look like a setup.

Speaker 21 Coming up, rethinking the case. Something doesn't add up.

Speaker 25 Oh my God.

Speaker 13 Bizarre is the only way I can characterize that 911 call.

Speaker 21 A call now becomes a clue.

Speaker 25 He's dead full of black.

Speaker 17 There's no way she saw what she said she saw.

Speaker 21 When dateline continues.

Speaker 46 It was a quick business here in Aspen, Colorado, not even a week week after Nancy Pfister's body was found in her own closet.

Speaker 58 Her renters were led away in handcuffs.

Speaker 73 But was it too quick? Too easy?

Speaker 20 It looked fishy to me.

Speaker 37 Fishy?

Speaker 2 Fishy.

Speaker 59 Nancy Steiler's attorney, Beth Krulwich.

Speaker 60 Fishy, how?

Speaker 20 In terms of,

Speaker 20 you've got a very well-respected physician who's now being accused of murder. And it didn't, it was inconceivable to me that he would have killed somebody.

Speaker 36 Plus the elderly man they led away wrapped in his wife's blue bathrobe looked far too frail and weak to bludgeon a woman to death, carry her body, wrap it up, flip a mattress.

Speaker 20 And then been stupid enough to take the murder weapon, some pill bottles with the victim's name on them, his vehicle registration and insurance, package it all up in one bag, and then put it in a dumpster that was close to the botel he he was staying at.

Speaker 20 Made zero sense to me.

Speaker 69 It also made zero sense that Trey's accomplice was his diminutive 62-year-old wife, Nancy.

Speaker 78 Even though she did actually say she could just kill that Nancy Pfister.

Speaker 64 But then lots of people around town said similar things about the outspoken Miss Pfister at some point or another, not meaning it literally.

Speaker 20 I could see where she could be sitting around with Kathy Carpenter and they could be commiserating about, you know, what Nancy Pfister did or didn't didn't do or what she had said or the way they had been treated.

Speaker 20 And she could have said something like, you know, gee, you know, I'd like to kill her. But, you know, listen,

Speaker 20 that's not evidence of first-degree murder.

Speaker 64 Besides, Nancy Steiler was more than open about it.

Speaker 22 We've all said that about someone at some other, you know, I'd like to kill him or something like that, but not

Speaker 22 ever thinking it, you know, taking it that far. Yes, I did say that, But no, I didn't kill her.

Speaker 5 And if it wasn't Nancy, couldn't have been Trey either.

Speaker 48 Because he was frail, yes, said Nancy.

Speaker 34 But also because he was never alone to do it.

Speaker 32 You were never without him.

Speaker 89 You're always together.

Speaker 22 I said we were always together.

Speaker 48 What did makes sense, said Attorney Kruelwich, is that someone else killed Nancy Pfister and planted the evidence against the Stylers in an attempt to frame them.

Speaker 20 The final piece of it was that the owner's closet key kind of magically appears on the sidewalk near the Stylers motel room the day they get arrested.

Speaker 64 It was a thought that crossed investigators' minds as well.

Speaker 17 We would have been amiss had we not looked at the possibility that someone was setting these people up.

Speaker 58 And so, even with the Stylers in jail, charged with murder, investigators were still quietly looking for other suspects.

Speaker 46 For someone with motive and means to kill Nancy and the foresight to frame the Stylers.

Speaker 63 Someone close to Nancy.

Speaker 6 Someone Nancy trusted, even loved.

Speaker 81 Like the person who pointed the finger of blame right in the middle of that 911 call.

Speaker 27 Kathy Carpenter.

Speaker 25 Does he have some people living there? Is he really kissed them off?

Speaker 72 Kathy Carpenter.

Speaker 79 She said she was Nancy Pfister's dear friend, but investigators were hearing a different story.

Speaker 17 Their relationship had been a roller roller coaster. So we knew that there had been this cycle of the ladies

Speaker 17 having a good relationship and that things would go south and they would have a bad relationship for a period of time.

Speaker 3 And so with all that in mind, Deputy DA Andrea Bryan went back to that hysterical phone call from Kathy to 911.

Speaker 6 What did you make of it?

Speaker 13 You know, I think bizarre is the only way I can characterize that 911 call. Immediately identifying suspects, it was not getting help for Nancy Pfister.
It was,

Speaker 13 oh, you should be looking at these two people immediately. So that was interesting.

Speaker 7 So it was.

Speaker 1 And just as interesting, what Kathy told 911 about seeing Nancy Pfister's body.

Speaker 13 The fact that

Speaker 13 immediately the deceased is identified. as Nancy Pfister

Speaker 13 would have been impossible to do.

Speaker 48 Impossible, said investigator Lisa Miller, because Nancy's body was completely covered head to toe when Kathy saw it in the closet. She's dead, full of lamps!

Speaker 17 We're looking at photos of the crime scene, and we knew there's no way she saw what she said she saw.

Speaker 72 There was more.

Speaker 82 Kathy, of course, had keys to Nancy's house, including a key to the closet, was the last person to admit seeing Nancy alive, and when she left, pinned up that do not disturb sign on Nancy's door, supposedly because her friend needed to get over her jet lag.

Speaker 17 She ended up making a statement to another individual that Nancy would be sleeping and resting for the next three days.

Speaker 6 And it was three days later, the body was found.

Speaker 7 Correct.

Speaker 64 And the day that closet key magically appeared so close to the stylus motel room, Kathy Carpenter was known to be in the very same neighborhood right around that time, meeting with her therapist.

Speaker 62 So, next question.

Speaker 8 Was Kathy Carpenter truly Nancy's friend and helper?

Speaker 48 Were her murderer trying to pin the blame on someone else?

Speaker 98 Hey weirdos, I'm Elena and I'm Ash and we are the hosts of Morbid Podcast.

Speaker 97 Each week we dive into the dark and fascinating world of true crime, spooky history, and the unexplained.

Speaker 100 From infamous killers and unsolved mysteries to haunted places and strange legends, we cover it all with research, empathy, humor, and a few creative expletives.

Speaker 97 It's smart, it's spooky, and it's just the right amount of weird.

Speaker 84 Two new episodes drop every week, and there's even a bonus once a month.

Speaker 101 Find us wherever you listen to podcasts. Yay! Woo!

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Speaker 2 Ski season in Aspen is a time to see and be seen in crowded watering holes beneath carefully groomed world-class slopes.

Speaker 29 But in late winter 2014, attention was diverted from the fashionable pursuits Nancy Pfister once described to that French TV show.

Speaker 54 We call Aspen adult Disneyland.

Speaker 35 Now the subject was her.

Speaker 36 Her murder, of course, but also her freewheeling life.

Speaker 45 And in death, her reputation, to the consternation of her closest friends, was gleefully amplified by some media outlets.

Speaker 7 Not in a good way.

Speaker 61 Why do we need to throw rocks at her, you know, just because she had too much fun, really?

Speaker 1 Billy and the others defended their remarkable departed friend and devoted their energy to plans for a special memorial event, which they decided would be a party.

Speaker 72 The sort of thing Nancy would have loved.

Speaker 40 What did she mean to you, personally?

Speaker 61 She meant

Speaker 61 duration and consistency. She was the godmother of my children.
I was the godfather of Juliana.

Speaker 27 Sorry.

Speaker 27 I'm trying.

Speaker 52 But while Billy and the others worked through their grief, Nancy's buddy Kathy Carpenter was at the Pitkin County Sheriff's Office answering questions.

Speaker 55 What did you see? I just remember opening the door.

Speaker 55 And I saw her.

Speaker 55 She wasn't.

Speaker 55 She was covered.

Speaker 17 We were still giving her the benefit of the doubt.

Speaker 72 She

Speaker 17 thought something was up. She had been worried about her friend.

Speaker 52 So, was there an innocent explanation for why Kathy seemed to see things she could not have seen?

Speaker 48 Why she knew it was Nancy's bloodied body that was in the closet, even though the first responders saw what looked like just a pile of blankets when they arrived?

Speaker 82 Could she have lifted up those blankets?

Speaker 58 She could have.

Speaker 60 And seen?

Speaker 17 She could have.

Speaker 17 And during the interviews, I specifically asked her, Did you step into the closet? Did you lift any of the blankets? Did you touch? Did you manipulate in any way? And her answers repeatedly were no.

Speaker 17 She had not touched. She had not moved.
She had not manipulated. She did not touch.

Speaker 25 I ran ever so fast.

Speaker 55 And yet, at the same time, Kathy gave specific details about the body.

Speaker 55 I saw her first the head.

Speaker 55 I don't remember the position, but I knew her the blonde hair.

Speaker 17 She tells me she immediately recognized her friend because of the blonde hair and the length of that hair. How much hair did you see? I would ask Miss Carpenter.
Seems like

Speaker 17 maybe

Speaker 17 maybe something.

Speaker 17 I just

Speaker 17 had highlights.

Speaker 25 So how many strands would you say that you saw?

Speaker 25 So would it be like, was it matted with blood or just a little blood?

Speaker 25 I didn't have to be sent for that hair.

Speaker 17 If you've seen the crime scene photographs of how that body was found and how that body was in the closet, she did not see that.

Speaker 7 The more Kathy talked.

Speaker 25 How much blood did you see? How much blood would you say you saw?

Speaker 25 Because you saw

Speaker 25 her hair on the head.

Speaker 52 The more suspicious the investigators became.

Speaker 17 She's describing in the interviews

Speaker 17 where the injuries were to the forehead. I went and I reviewed the autopsy photos.

Speaker 17 And she was exactly spot on to where she indicated the injury to the forehead.

Speaker 58 It wasn't just Kathy's words, said Investigator Miller.

Speaker 36 Looked to her like Kathy's grief.

Speaker 15 It was more act than real.

Speaker 15 I mean, for all the tears.

Speaker 26 And a bad act at that.

Speaker 17 There was no tears during the time that she was trying to portray herself as crying.

Speaker 33 Some people cry without tears, surely.

Speaker 17 I'm sure some people do.

Speaker 6 What can you tell from a thing like that?

Speaker 17 It's just always interesting when, you know, someone is going to such lengths to act like they're emotionally distraught and the body doesn't respond.

Speaker 59 Then she discovered what Kathy did the day after she said she found Nancy's body.

Speaker 52 She went to the bank where Nancy had trusted Kathy with access to her safety deposit box.

Speaker 81 And Kathy took from that box the Styler's last rent payment, $6,000 in cash, and an heirloom ring Nancy had inherited from her mother.

Speaker 17 Within 24 hours, or actually it was a little less than 24 hours of her friend being found by her,

Speaker 17 she's going into that safety deposit box, taking $6,000 in jewelry from it.

Speaker 30 So investigators now had an idea, fast-gathering strength, that Kathy Carpenter was far more involved than she claimed to have been.

Speaker 13 She just made some very detailed descriptions of that body that she couldn't have made unless she had seen her before she was put in that closet, meaning right after she was actually murdered.

Speaker 6 Did she provide a rational explanation for the reason for being able to do that?

Speaker 26 No.

Speaker 36 They brought Kathy back again and again for questioning.

Speaker 9 Five days, almost 20 hours of questioning.

Speaker 52 During one interrogation, detectives read back the transcript of the 911 call.

Speaker 25 You talked about my friend in the closet is dead. There's impossible that you knew that she was dead.

Speaker 14 Impossible.

Speaker 72 Threw her own words at her.

Speaker 83 The blood she reported seeing.

Speaker 25 In the dispatcher said, blood on the forehead.

Speaker 77 And how she so quickly accused the stylers.

Speaker 83 And they told her they just knew

Speaker 61 she was lying.

Speaker 17 I believe

Speaker 25 that you know what happened. And no, listen.
And

Speaker 25 I am going to

Speaker 25 be able to prove that

Speaker 25 because that's my job.

Speaker 48 And Kathy Carpenter, like Trey Styler, submitted to a polygraph test.

Speaker 50 But if he failed his...

Speaker 17 Kathy Carpenter failed hers worse.

Speaker 25 You absolutely bombed a polygraph. Not only that, on the 911,

Speaker 25 on the 911,

Speaker 25 right here.

Speaker 25 Here's all this documentation of deceit and guilt.

Speaker 50 So for detectives, the only question left was, did Kathy Carpenter kill Nancy and try to frame the Stylers?

Speaker 4 Or were they all in it together?

Speaker 25 I don't know what they think. I don't lie here.

Speaker 25 In the dispatch, you said blood on the forecast.

Speaker 76 Hour after hour, Kathy Carpenter talked to the detectives investigating the murder of her friend, Nancy Pfister.

Speaker 25 What did you see? I just remember opening the door.

Speaker 25 She was covered.

Speaker 8 She was alone with them.

Speaker 2 She could have asked for an attorney.

Speaker 3 She did not.

Speaker 50 She told the detectives she didn't need a lawyer because she was innocent.

Speaker 77 But as Kathy went on and on, Those detectives became more and more sure she killed her friend Nancy.

Speaker 4 or helped at least.

Speaker 25 So right now, I'm telling you, everything

Speaker 25 is crashing down on you.

Speaker 25 I'm kid you not, it's absolutely coming down.

Speaker 94 The question now, was Kathy trying to frame the stylers?

Speaker 45 At first, Blosh had certainly looked that way, and yet the more they thought about it, the more unlikely it seemed.

Speaker 26 Why?

Speaker 43 Well, the trash bag containing so much incriminating evidence, for example, the one the diligent city worker just happened to stumble on?

Speaker 13 I really think that this was actually pure luck. I don't think anyone wanted that to be found.

Speaker 13 I think really the simple explanation here is really the right explanation, which is that we had a great break in the case and

Speaker 13 thank goodness for that.

Speaker 24 The only conspiracy theory Assistant DA Andrea Bryan was buying was one that involved the Stylers and Kathy Carpenter, all of them together committing the murder.

Speaker 48 The two women perhaps bonding over their shared frustration with Nancy Pfister's behaviors.

Speaker 13 It appears that they almost built, at times, a bit of a friendship around that mutual anger toward Nancy Pfister.

Speaker 35 And Trey, pushed to his financial and emotional limits, was most likely the one to wield the hammer, reasoned the assistant DA, while the women helped hide the body and clean up the bedroom.

Speaker 45 But if that theory was right, something went wrong after the murder.

Speaker 64 The conspiracy did not hold.

Speaker 13 When Kathy Carpenter realized the gravity of what she had gotten herself into, she

Speaker 13 got worried and worried that she would be fingered.

Speaker 1 So Kathy struck first, the DA's theory went, called 911 and fingered the stylers to deflect attention from herself.

Speaker 64 In the interrogation room, investigators had tried to get Trey to turn on his wife or Kathy.

Speaker 25 Nancy, your wife, do you want her to be involved in this? She's wrapped up in this man. We've had her here as long as as you have.
She's telling us a lot of good stuff.

Speaker 28 And they also tried to get Kathy to flip on the Stylers.

Speaker 25 Somebody's going to come clean and say, I did it, but this is what she knew. I'm like, she didn't tell us that.
Now you are responsible for it just like them.

Speaker 25 But you're going to be the one that didn't tell the truth.

Speaker 35 But it didn't work.

Speaker 98 I just have my suspicion.

Speaker 25 What you're saying. No, no, no, no, no.
Okay,

Speaker 25 oh, you're.

Speaker 36 On March 14th, three weeks after Nancy Pfister was murdered, Kathy Carpenter, like the Stylers before her, was charged with first-degree murder and put in the county jail.

Speaker 61 The newest suspect arrested was Catherine Carpenter.

Speaker 24 Billy Clayton had been on the phone with Kathy just the day before, discussing Nancy's memorial service.

Speaker 61 And I think I was supposed to get something for her to wear to the memorial.

Speaker 59 But now she was behind bars.

Speaker 33 Seemed crazy.

Speaker 80 But in a town that could barely believe one of its own had been murdered, anything seemed possible now.

Speaker 61 I should have been surprised or shocked or something, but at that moment I just, I was like, you know,

Speaker 61 who knows? Anything could happen. I just, I, I, it didn't make any sense at all why anyone would kill her.

Speaker 66 And so as Billy and the others went on finalizing memorial plans, Kathy, a bit late, got a lawyer, Greg Greer.

Speaker 89 This has been one of the more frightening experiences of my career

Speaker 89 to represent a person who is so totally and completely innocent.

Speaker 36 As Greer and the lawyers representing the Stylers waded through the evidence trying to sort out who did what,

Speaker 3 it became pretty clear to them at least that the truth about what happened in that bedroom on Buttermilk Mountain was still very much hidden.

Speaker 20 We were all wrong about what happened. I mean, everybody was wrong in this case.

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Speaker 31 It was just where she would have wanted her last party, Aspen's historic Hotel Jerome.

Speaker 35 And by their hundreds, locals crowded in out of the frigid March night two and a half weeks after the murder to tell crazy stories and remember the amazing life of Nancy Pfister.

Speaker 16 There were so many people that they couldn't all fit in the Jerome Hotel ballroom.

Speaker 16 They went out the door, into the hallways.

Speaker 6 What do you say to a crowd like that?

Speaker 16 I just basically

Speaker 16 wanted to celebrate her life and her

Speaker 16 spirit of adventure.

Speaker 50 Billy Clayton got up too, said what was in his heart.

Speaker 61 I said that if you've known me over the last 40 years or so, you know me because of Nancy. When you see me, you think of Nancy.

Speaker 61 She was a connector. That was her real main role, I think, in everyone's life.

Speaker 75 And when you look down there in that crowd, how were they reacting?

Speaker 16 A lot of tears,

Speaker 16 a lot of laughter, certain stories, and they were all just solidly there in that space at that moment.

Speaker 35 But at that very same moment, in a far different space just down the street from the fine old Hotel Jerome, Kathy Carpenter wept in her cell at the Pitkin County Jail and listened.

Speaker 14 I could hear the music, the band, and

Speaker 14 I just, I cried. I cried a lot.

Speaker 14 I wanted to be there.

Speaker 14 I should have been there.

Speaker 14 And it hurt.

Speaker 55 How could they think she had anything to do with it?

Speaker 6 There was some suggestion that you had a motive to harm Nancy.

Speaker 14 Absolutely not. What was my motive?

Speaker 14 There is no motive.

Speaker 6 A shared frustration with Nancy Styler about how difficult it is.

Speaker 25 Oh, heavens, no.

Speaker 14 No.

Speaker 14 Not at all.

Speaker 59 Nancy was her best friend, she said.

Speaker 23 I loved her.

Speaker 17 Yeah. She was.

Speaker 14 I love Nancy Pfister.

Speaker 47 That's why she sat through all those hours of interrogation without a lawyer, she said.

Speaker 28 She wanted to help them understand the truth.

Speaker 50 Like, for example, how it wasn't at all suspicious that she knew right away it was Nancy in that closet.

Speaker 14 You know, the odor just about knocked me over, and

Speaker 14 to me it was very apparent that that wasn't just a pile of clothes in the closet. Who else but Nancy would be in that closet?

Speaker 6 If you weren't a complete idiot, you understood that it had to be Nancy.

Speaker 14 Right. Who else would it be?

Speaker 78 When she so quickly fingered the stylers, she said, it was just common sense.

Speaker 14 They were in the house.

Speaker 28 You knew that they were pretty mad at Nancy?

Speaker 14 They were mad. They were upset with her.

Speaker 96 But what about those suspicious little details?

Speaker 67 Like saying she saw blood on Nancy's forehead forehead when Nancy's forehead was completely covered up.

Speaker 25 In the dispatcher said blood on the forehead.

Speaker 50 That's easy to explain, said Kathy.

Speaker 33 She never actually said that.

Speaker 14 They said that I saw her forehead. Yes.
I did not see her forehead. I saw blood on the headboard.

Speaker 15 Headboard?

Speaker 1 In fact, crime scene text did find blood on Nancy Pfister's headboard, but headboard is not the word that appears in the type transcript of the 911 call.

Speaker 89 And on page three of that transcript, it says, I saw blood on her forehead.

Speaker 32 Kathy's attorney, Greg Greer.

Speaker 89 I go home and listen to the tape, and I hear headboard. But I listened to it, I bet, 10 times by myself before I told anybody else.

Speaker 89 Yeah, I don't know. I felt my love on her hands for it.

Speaker 53 Sure enough, Kathy in that 911 call did actually say headboard, not forehead.

Speaker 7 I felt

Speaker 25 The closet was locked.

Speaker 67 A transcription error.

Speaker 48 And though investigators said that made no real difference to them, Kathy's attorney is sure the little error planted suspicion of Kathy from the very beginning and started investigators off in an inaccurate and inappropriate direction.

Speaker 89 They used every technique in the book on her. And honestly, As I watched those interrogations, I started thinking I might have confessed to doing something

Speaker 89 just to make it stop.

Speaker 25 Here's all this documentation of deceit and guilt.

Speaker 19 And they told you you did it.

Speaker 14 Yes.

Speaker 58 Repeatedly?

Speaker 14 Yes.

Speaker 6 And each time, what would you say?

Speaker 14 I did not do it.

Speaker 85 And even though it appears from the interrogation tapes that Kathy did say some improbable things.

Speaker 25 I saw her turn the head, so I don't remember the position, but I knew her the blonde hair.

Speaker 37 She was on doctor-prescribed anxiety medication the whole time, she said.

Speaker 36 So in her confused fog and prompted by the investigator, said Kathy, her descriptions were unclear.

Speaker 37 She may even have imagined things she could not have seen.

Speaker 78 Is it possible that you were led into saying something like that?

Speaker 16 Absolutely.

Speaker 14 Um, absolutely.

Speaker 14 You know, um, she was

Speaker 14 in a plastic bag, and I saw just what through the transparency of the bag, I saw a little bit of her hair.

Speaker 26 So,

Speaker 51 why did you fail the polygraph?

Speaker 14 I was very upset.

Speaker 14 I was very emotional.

Speaker 14 And

Speaker 14 they did tell me that in order for me to

Speaker 14 take this test properly, I could not feel any emotions.

Speaker 14 And just hearing the words, just hearing her name

Speaker 14 is very emotional.

Speaker 63 But it was true, she said, no denying it.

Speaker 2 She did take $6,000 in cash and an heirloom ring from Nancy Pfister's safe deposit box the day after she found the body.

Speaker 62 But it wasn't for her, she said.

Speaker 45 Rather, it was to fulfill a promise to Nancy.

Speaker 14 And she often would say, you know, if anything happens to me in my travels, you know, make sure you do this, can you do that? Make sure you, you know, my little to-do list.

Speaker 62 And on the to-do list, that ring.

Speaker 14 She inherited a family ring from her mother, and her sisters wanted it, and she had asked me, you make sure that Juliana, if anything would happen to me, that she would get this ring.

Speaker 14 That was my intention, was to fulfill her wish.

Speaker 23 To give it to Juliana.

Speaker 14 To give it to Juliana.

Speaker 52 Just as she had every intention of giving the money directly to Juliana too.

Speaker 55 so it wouldn't disappear into some disputed family trust.

Speaker 33 But then she said the investigators used everything she said and did against her.

Speaker 14 I just thought, no, this is not happening.

Speaker 14 How can they

Speaker 14 be so wrong?

Speaker 14 I had nothing to do with this. She was my dear friend.
I loved her.

Speaker 2 Kathy's attorney told her, don't worry, the case won't hold up in court.

Speaker 52 But even if he was right, the trial might be years away.

Speaker 78 And so she did all that was left to her.

Speaker 14 And I started praying, praying that the truth would be revealed. That's what I wanted, is the truth to be revealed.

Speaker 10 And then, suddenly, it appeared that it was truth, that is.

Speaker 75 But would anyone believe it?

Speaker 51 It went the way it often does in criminal cases.

Speaker 64 A period of frenetic activity followed by a sort of calm stasis.

Speaker 48 So it was with the murder case of Nancy Pfister.

Speaker 64 The flurry of action loosed from the moment her body was found in February 2014 to the arrest of the third and final suspect, Kathy Carpenter, in mid-March, dissipated with the spring thaw.

Speaker 7 The case now slouched towards summer.

Speaker 51 Nancy's friend Billy, missing her more than ever.

Speaker 61 The last time I spoke with her, all we talked about were plans, everything we were going to do this summer, all the different ideas she had.

Speaker 48 But the only thing on the calendar now was a preliminary hearing scheduled for late June.

Speaker 64 All three defendants had pleaded not guilty, and their respective attorneys, Beth Krowich for Nancy Styler, Greg Greer for Kathy Carpenter, were deciding their strategies, analyzing the evidence.

Speaker 20 The evidence as I was seeing it suggested to me very strongly that Kathy Carpenter may have done this and that she was setting up the stylers.

Speaker 89 Kathy Carpenter is innocent, innocent, innocent. I can't say that enough.

Speaker 53 But Deputy DA Andrea Bryan and her investigator Lisa Miller were preparing to argue it was a conspiracy involving all three

Speaker 3 in the

Speaker 63 less than two weeks before that hearing.

Speaker 10 In the process of getting all of your material together for the preliminary hearing, what happened?

Speaker 17 I got a phone call from my assistant district attorney one afternoon.

Speaker 6 Same?

Speaker 17 Saying that he had spoken with a defense attorney, specifically William Styler's defense attorney, and

Speaker 17 that William Styler wanted to make a statement.

Speaker 75 Now that could be interesting.

Speaker 50 The good doctor was wheeled into the interview room where Lisa Miller was waiting for him.

Speaker 50 Mr.

Speaker 25 Styler, I'm going to have you right here, sir.

Speaker 51 Oh, but it was far more than just a statement.

Speaker 63 Trey Styler dropped a bombshell and blew the DA's meticulously assembled case wide open. I lost my mind, or at least I lost my rational mind.

Speaker 24 It was a confession.

Speaker 69 After months of strenuous denials, Trey Styler told them. He had all his name.

Speaker 48 Okay.

Speaker 63 Detail by detail, Trey took them through the killing, how he slipped out of his motel room while his unknowing wife was sleeping, and drove to Nancy Pfister's house, intending to confront her.

Speaker 25 I stuck my head in the door far enough to ascertain that she was, in fact, in my head, and

Speaker 25 I told her name again.

Speaker 6 And she didn't respond.

Speaker 78 Then, he said, as he stood over the still-sleeping Nancy Pfister, all the rage that built up inside him during his dreadful physical and financial decline suddenly focused on a singular idea.

Speaker 25 There she was, vulnerable, helpless.

Speaker 81 So he went down the the stairs, got a hammer, climbed back up to the bedroom.

Speaker 13 I went, got the hammer, came back,

Speaker 25 and struck her in the head with the hammer.

Speaker 55 Then, strengthened by a rush of adrenaline, he said, he single-handedly wrapped Nancy Fister up, dragged her into the closet, and covered her up. I wasn't as strong as I used to be,

Speaker 55 and I so was able to do that.

Speaker 59 And then he grabbed and took away some of Nancy's belongings to make it look like she was

Speaker 17 He was very clear about what he did, how he did it, when he did it, in very specific detail.

Speaker 17 And so

Speaker 17 you

Speaker 17 do what?

Speaker 17 Where?

Speaker 17 Where are they? And

Speaker 17 in what was when she was in that position, the top of her head, which would have, if you don't find it. I do want to make sense for me, quite frankly, in the case.

Speaker 7 As for his wife or Kathy Carpenter?

Speaker 7 Neither one of them them were involved in any way.

Speaker 8 And until this moment, he insisted he hadn't told either one of them a single thing about what he did.

Speaker 6 He not only limited his wife's participation in that statement, he said she wasn't involved at all.

Speaker 6 And that Kathy Carpenter wasn't involved at all, that he did the whole thing himself, that he had a burst of energy, and he was able to do all of those things on his own.

Speaker 6 You have a skeptical look on your face.

Speaker 17 That's what he told me, yes.

Speaker 67 What did you think?

Speaker 69 Having heard that, Investigator Miller told Dr.

Speaker 51 Styler exactly what she thought. I want you to walk out of here thinking that I have believed you, hooked my insane, because I will be very frank.

Speaker 25 Remember, I've told you, I'm call it like I see it.

Speaker 25 I don't buy everything that you're selling me today, okay?

Speaker 68 By this time, Investigator Miller was convinced all three were in it together.

Speaker 24 She looked straight at Trey Styler and confronted him.

Speaker 63 He was a frail old man.

Speaker 78 Surely he didn't expect she'd believe he did it all alone.

Speaker 25 And you tell me you can't stand up. However, you were giving me an accounting of a story where you were saying you were up and downstairs multiple times.
Moving down weights, not easy to work, Mr.

Speaker 25 Stuyler. When I've thought about it since then,

Speaker 25 I'm reminded of those stories of

Speaker 25 women lifting cars off of their children.

Speaker 25 Mr. Stuyler, I will do a lot of things in the interview room, but I'm not going to compare a mother saving a child with you murdering Nancy Pfister, so let's don't go there.

Speaker 73 The tray remained resolute.

Speaker 8 He was the lone killer.

Speaker 25 The essential truths are that

Speaker 25 Kathy Carpenter really and truly had nothing to do with this.

Speaker 25 Nancy Steiler really and truly had nothing to do with this. I have done my best to hide it from even myself, my solicitor,

Speaker 25 and

Speaker 6 How concerned are you that he decided

Speaker 10 that he was going down anyway?

Speaker 6 He might as well get them off the hook.

Speaker 6 And that's really what was going on here.

Speaker 13 That's a concern in any case like this.

Speaker 42 So now it was decision time.

Speaker 78 Take Trey Styler's confession at face value and release both Nancy Styler and Kathy Carpenter?

Speaker 47 Or send him back to his cell and proceed with the prosecution of all three.

Speaker 1 A full confession, the best possible solution for a murder case.

Speaker 90 If they could believe it, that is.

Speaker 25 I lost my mind, or at least I lost my rational mind.

Speaker 6 But are you comfortable with that explanation of this crime? Are you comfortable that that is the whole thing?

Speaker 13 I don't know if we'll ever know the whole thing.

Speaker 59 Around the Pitkin County DA's office was a nagging worry. Dr.

Speaker 83 Trey Styler demanded, and the DA approved, a quid pro quo, his full confession, in exchange for his wife's unconditional release.

Speaker 30 But what if he was lying?

Speaker 7 How would they ever prove it?

Speaker 17 We had no facts to refute his

Speaker 17 statement to me. We weren't in that room that night that Nancy Pfister was murdered, so we had no facts to refute what William Styler was saying.

Speaker 6 So you're saying to me that Kathy Carpenter and Nancy Styler are both innocent. Neither one participated in this crime.

Speaker 17 William Styler said that. I'm not saying that.

Speaker 76 But despite Investigator Miller's doubts, on June 17, 2014, after three and a half months in jail, Nancy Styler was released.

Speaker 22 And my attorney, Beth, was there and she said, good news, you're getting out. And I said, great, you know, they figured it out.

Speaker 22 And then she said, but there's a catch.

Speaker 82 She gave Nancy a letter.

Speaker 6 It was a private note from Trey.

Speaker 22 And in this letter, he tells me about the plea bargain that he took. And one of the sentences that I've read a million times over said, I know you're innocent,

Speaker 22 and you should believe I am too.

Speaker 2 Trey wrote that he was only pleading guilty to save her.

Speaker 82 He didn't actually kill Nancy Pfister, he wrote. He was falling on his sword for love.

Speaker 22 I cried that whole day. Even though I was getting out, it should have been a great time.
I can't believe he's having to do this. This system is sick.
It's, you know, messed up.

Speaker 5 Three days later, June 20th, Dr.

Speaker 52 Trey Styler formally pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Speaker 50 That same day, the DA dropped charges against Kathy Carpenter, and she walked out of jail a free woman.

Speaker 14 I was very grateful, very thankful.

Speaker 14 I felt God answered my prayers,

Speaker 14 but at the same time, it was still scary. I'm leaving

Speaker 14 Jill

Speaker 14 after being locked up. What will people think? How will I be judged?

Speaker 45 She is grateful, scared, also sad.

Speaker 14 But there was sorrow for still thinking of the loss of Nancy and that he

Speaker 14 did something like this, that he did it.

Speaker 14 You know, that was still hurtful.

Speaker 35 But Nancy Styler added a bitter anger to her whirlwind of grief and relief.

Speaker 51 If Trey was innocent, as he told his wife he was,

Speaker 45 then had the real killer just walked free?

Speaker 22 I had Kathy Carpenter pegged in my own little courtroom, and every little piece of evidence that was given to me corroborated that.

Speaker 40 And then, it was just over two weeks later, Nancy took a call.

Speaker 55 Trey had something to tell her.

Speaker 96 His letter wasn't quite true, he said.

Speaker 49 In fact, he and he alone murdered Nancy Pfister.

Speaker 43 Kathy Carpenter had nothing to do with it. It was.

Speaker 22 Took my world and just flipped it upside down. Felt like

Speaker 22 my whole life had been a lie.

Speaker 22 You know, my whole life with him had been a lie.

Speaker 46 Nancy divorced Trey and moved on with her life, writing a memoir about her experience of being charged with murder.

Speaker 67 In August 2015, Trey Styler hanged himself in his prison cell.

Speaker 5 He was 67 years old.

Speaker 55 He had a million-dollar life insurance policy that Nancy collected.

Speaker 85 A year after that, she settled a wrongful death lawsuit brought by Nancy Pfister's daughter, Juliana.

Speaker 85 As for Kathy Carpenter, In the aftermath of the murder, she lost her job, her home, and she lost her very best friend, she said.

Speaker 27 And she told us she felt guilty that's why I say I wish that I could have helped

Speaker 26 her and been there

Speaker 14 what could I have done differently

Speaker 91 talked her into staying there not coming home

Speaker 6 nobody can know the future right

Speaker 14 But I do blame myself.

Speaker 14 You know, that's something that I'll have

Speaker 14 work through.

Speaker 63 And back then, she told us she had a message for Nancy Pfister's daughter, Juliana.

Speaker 26 I had nothing to do with the murder of her mother. I was

Speaker 14 never with still.

Speaker 14 And I just,

Speaker 14 you know, I was looking out for her and her mother's wishes.

Speaker 14 And that.

Speaker 14 I just hoped that she would find forgiveness in her heart and know that I love her and her mother very much.

Speaker 67 What does she have to forgive you for?

Speaker 99 I don't know. I.

Speaker 15 Nothing really.

Speaker 14 But there's just, you know, what she's had to go through. And I don't know why I would even say forgive.

Speaker 7 But.

Speaker 7 It's curious, huh? Yeah.

Speaker 23 It's just.

Speaker 14 I've been portrayed as this thief, this bad person,

Speaker 14 untrusting, and

Speaker 14 I don't know why.

Speaker 26 Trust.

Speaker 59 Something Nancy Pfister was known for.

Speaker 76 Not so much of it these days.

Speaker 16 Aspen will never be the same. My life will never be the same.

Speaker 6 So what has Aspen lost?

Speaker 16 A lot of history, you know.

Speaker 18 Nancy was part of Aspen's history. It's a huge loss for the community.

Speaker 86 Some members of which will be telling stories about Nancy Pfister for a very long time.

Speaker 61 Nancy lived a fantastic life, and I think we all

Speaker 61 need a little more dreaming like that, you know, a little more dreaming.

Speaker 6 A little more Nancy in it.

Speaker 61 A little more Nancy in this, yeah.

Speaker 21 That's all for this edition of Dateline. We'll see you again Friday at 9 8 Central.
And of course, I'll see you each weeknight for NBC Nightly News.

Speaker 23 I'm Lester Holt.

Speaker 21 For all of us at NBC News, good night.

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