Murder of Nancy Pfister

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Murder of Nancy Pfister
Nancy Pfister.png
Born
Nancy Merle Pfister

July 4, 1956
Orofino, Idaho, United States
DiedFebruary 26, 2014(2014-02-26) (aged 57)
Buttermilk, Colorado, United States
Cause of deathMurder (Exsanguination and blunt force trauma)
OccupationTour guide
Children2
Parent(s)Art and Betty Pfister

Nancy M. Pfister was an American woman who was found murdered on February 26, 2014 in a walk-in closet of her secluded home in the Rocky Mountains. She had been beaten in the head and chest with a hammer, ax, and lamp. Pfister has been described as having been a "small-town socialite" and was well known in her small community. In October 2014, Trey and Nancy Styler, Pfister's former roommates were charged with the crime. Shortly thereafter, Trey Styler confessed to her murder, and received life imprisonment in exchange for the charges against his wife to be dropped.

Styler claimed he killed Pfister as "punishment" for adding an interest rate to the couple's rent after they refused to pay for over three months. The Stylers had stopped paying rent after living with Pfister for 2 months, due to minor broken utilities in the home that she refused to fix.

Early life[]

Nancy Pfister was born on July 4, 1956[1] in Orofino, Idaho, a small city on the north bank of the Clearwater River. She was raised both in Aspen, Colorado and Basalt, Colorado, and attended Basalt High School. Nancy was the daughter of Art Pfister, who made a fortune when he turned his family cattle ranch into the Buttermilk Ski Resort.

Her mother Betty Haas Pfister was a member of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) in World War II, who in later years flew a helicopter, which she was notoriously known for parking in the family's driveway. Pfister was raised in Aspen, and later graduated from Aspen High School. She took classes at Brooklyn's Pratt Institute. In her youth, she met John F. Kennedy, Jack Nicholson, Cher and Michael Douglas when they vacationed at her parents' ski resort. Pfister briefly was engaged to Douglas.

At age 29 and never having been married, Nancy gave birth to her daughter Juliana. She later gave birth to a son at age 39. Pfister was a member of the Roaring Fork School District PTA.

Shortly before the time of her death, she rented her house to retired doctor Trey Styler and his wife Nancy as a way to help pay off her mortgage.[2] Pfister abruptly evicted the Stylers from her house, and refused to let the Stylers collect their belongings from the home.[1]

Death[]

On the evening of February 26, 2014, Kathy Carpenter, a bank teller and close friend of Nancy Pfister,[1] became concerned when Pfister had not returned her phone call from two days earlier.

When she learned that Nancy had not shown up for her job as a tour guide for two days, Carpenter drove to Pfister's secluded log home in rural Buttermilk, Colorado. However, there seemed to be no trace of the missing woman. She later told police that as she entered the bedroom, she noticed the bed in disarray, the comforter draped over the side, and the sheets pulled off one side of the mattress.

As she drew closer, she noticed a very small stain of blood spattered on the bed frame. Carpenter found the bedroom closet locked, returned home to get her copy of the key, then made her way to the walk-in-closet, where she found Nancy Pfister's lifeless body. Carpenter immediately called 911, and investigators arrived to examine the body before taking it to the crime lab. Nancy Pfister had a large gash in her torso, where she had been struck with an ax.

The wounds to Nancy Pfister's face were later determined to have been caused by someone beating her with a hammer. There were no defensive wounds on Nancy Pfister's body, which led the medical examiner to believe that Nancy had been beaten while she slept. He determined that the cause of her death was due to blunt force trauma to the head and exsanguination. Pfister's memorial service was held at Hotel Jerome, her favorite place in Aspen. Hundreds of people came to the memorial.

Investigation[]

Police immediately became suspicious when they received information that Pfister had returned home early from vacation a week before her murder. Kathy Carpenter told them that she had picked Pfister up from the airport, driven her home, and was asked by Pfister if she could stay at the house over the weekend.

After spending the weekend with Pfister, Carpenter got up early and left for work, leaving Pfister alone at the house. Carpenter left a note on the door for guests, saying that Pfister was sleeping, and to call her to see if she was awake enough to talk before entering the house. Another one of Nancy's friends, Billy Clayton, said that he did not want to bother Pfister while she was sleeping, so he sent her an email. Pfister never replied.

Things became even more strange on Wednesday when Pfister's roommates Trey and Nancy Styler called Kathy Carpenter to tell her that they had recently moved out. They told her that they had moved into a motel in Basalt, Colorado, only returning to the home to clear out their belongings. Carpenter, as well as the police, found it odd that the Stylers had not once seen Pfister in her own home. Nancy Styler came upon Pfister's dog. The dog had been alone for a while, given that the dog's food and water dishes were empty. Carpenter drove over to pick up the dog and decided to check on her later that night, then she found Nancy's body in the closet.

Investigators turned their attention to the mattress, where they believed Pfister had been murdered. When they flipped the mattress over, they found a large pool of blood, indicating that whoever killed Pfister had flipped the mattress in order to cover his or her tracks.

The police believed that Pfister had been dead since Monday morning and had lain in the closet for two days before Carpenter had discovered her. Based on where her body was placed, investigators also believed that she had been attacked by two people, both of whom carried her body to the closet. Shortly afterward, they zeroed in on Trey and Nancy Styler, the couple who had been renting her house because there were no signs of forced entry.

The Stylers had met each other 25 years earlier in a hospital in Wichita, Kansas. Trey worked as a doctor and Nancy as an instructor. After the two were married, they moved to a large house in Kanorado, Kansas, which they had built together, and became world-renowned for their shared hobby of growing the Victoria water lily. In 2000, Trey became ill and had to stop practicing medicine. The two lost everything. After they were near fatally poisoned by carbon monoxide,[citation needed] Nancy had the idea to move to Aspen to open a spa and contacted Nancy Pfister to inquire about her real estate offer in the local paper.[1]

Police had no reason to suspect the two until they discovered that they had been in a monetary dispute with Pfister. The Stylers also complained about the house smelling like cigarettes (Nancy Pfister was a smoker) and accused Pfister of blaming the smell on them in order to keep their security deposit. Nancy Pfister was unhappy, but asked Kathy Carpenter to help arrange the repairs because she was on vacation at the time.

The Stylers paid Carpenter $6,000, which she kept in a safe deposit box for Nancy. Nancy called Carpenter and told her she was kicking the couple out when she returned. By this point, the Stylers had become fed up with Pfister and told Carpenter that they would be out by February 22. Pfister returned the day that the Stylers said they'd be gone, but they had not yet removed all their belongings. Pfister allowed them to come back a few times a week in order to move all of their belongings to the motel in Basalt, Colorado.

When the couple failed to do so in a timely manner, Pfister began locking the house during the day while she went to work. After Nancy Pfister's body was discovered, the two were separately questioned by police, and they both denied any involvement in the crime. Trey Styler took and failed a polygraph test, which added to investigators' suspicions, but they could not make a murder case against the two. DNA could not be used, because it could easily be explained because the couple had lived with Pfister for two months before the murder. The Stylers were released later that day.

A few days later, a Basalt city worker was picking through a public trash bin when he discovered a bloody hammer, pill bottles with Nancy Pfister's name printed on them, and a vehicle registration for Trey and Nancy Styler's Jaguar. The city worker immediately contacted police. Police discovered that the trash bin was behind the motel where the Stylers were staying. Another important piece of evidence came when investigators discovered the owner's key to the closet in which Nancy Pfister's body was found outside the Stylers' hotel room. The Stylers were arrested on March 3, 2014. Shortly afterward, investigators developed a theory that Kathy Carpenter had helped the two commit the crime based upon multiple statements Carpenter made to investigators describing items she had seen at the crime scene that seemed impossible to have been observed. Kathy Carpenter was arrested and charged with first degree murder three weeks later. Kathy Carpenter maintained her innocence.

In her interview with the police, Nancy Styler said that Pfister was a liar and an alcoholic (Pfister had been arrested on DUI charges) as well as hated by everyone in the community. Pfister had called her and her husband "trailer trash" and said they should be living in a "trailer park". According to Nancy Styler, Pfister treated her "like a slave" and treated Carpenter the same way. Prosecutors used this to say the Stylers and Carpenter had motive to kill Pfister.[1][3]

Trey Styler's confession[]

Less than two weeks before the preliminary hearing, Trey Styler told police that he wanted to make a statement regarding the murder. He had taken a plea bargain: Confess and plead guilty to first degree murder, and both his wife Nancy and Kathy Carpenter would be released. Trey Styler began his statement when he told the police "I lost my mind, or at least my rational mind. It was me. It was all me".

Trey Styler described how he slipped out of his motel room while his wife Nancy was sleeping. He then drove his Jaguar to Nancy Pfister's house to confront her about the way she treated his wife when they rented her home. He then made the statement "I stuck my head in the door, far enough to ascertain that she was in fact in bed, and I called out her name again, and she still didn't respond". Styler described the gruesome details of what happened that morning. He told police that he quietly made his way to the bedroom, and while he watched Nancy Pfister sleep, all the rage that had built inside him, from the time his health began to decline, spilled out of him all at once. He began to focus his anger on Pfister and all of the difficulties she had caused.

He made his way back downstairs and grabbed a hammer and an ax. He also obtained orange extension cords and a plastic garbage bag, which he later used to tie her up. He then described how he struck her in the face with the hammer, over and over again, until she stopped moving. When he realized she was still breathing, Styler plunged the ax into her chest, killing her. Styler then wrapped Pfister's body in her bed sheet and multiple plastic bags and left her in the closet. He grabbed some of her belongings, such as her medication and cigarettes, to make it look like she was gone. He never told his wife, ruling her and Kathy Carpenter out as suspects. As part of the plea deal, charges were dropped against Nancy Styler. She cannot be charged for the crime in the future. Suspicion remains that Nancy Styler may have been involved in the murder.

The charges against Carpenter were dropped, but pending any future information investigators may learn, Carpenter can be charged in Pfister's murder. However, they have found no concrete evidence linking Carpenter to Nancy Pfister's death. Carpenter's possible involvement in the case has been widely disputed by friends and family of Nancy Pfister. Many believe that the police were suspicious of Kathy Carpenter due to intense media coverage in the aftermath of the murder. In 2015, Carpenter, along with Pfister's daughter, petitioned the city of Aspen, Colorado to have Nancy Pfister's name added to the shrine titled In Memory of Friends of Aspen in Snowmass Village, Colorado. The shrine honors Colorado natives and former Aspen residents, such as John Denver and Molly Brown. Her name was added in 2016.

Aftermath[]

In 2015, Nancy Styler came out with the book Guilt by Matrimony: A Memoir of Love, Madness, and the Murder of Nancy Pfister. The book was poorly received in Aspen, described by the Aspen Daily News as "jarring" and "a giant hate speech".[4] Styler describes Pfister as having borderline personality disorder and seems to glorify her husband's killing her (one chapter is titled "Trey to the Rescue"), and she maintained she knew nothing about the murder. Styler accused Pitkin County investigators of mishandling evidence, a point about which Carpenter's attorney strongly agreed, and "having it out for her from the beginning".

Pfister's family, along with Kathy Carpenter, attempted to stop the book from being published, but failed to do so. Pitkin County Sheriff Brad Gibson said about the book "Throwing those kinds of stones at a woman who's been the victim of a murder is a horrible thing to do. That's right in line with the kind of people we're talking about. You don't need to do that. She's dead. Your husband killed her. Leave it alone."[4]

Trey Styler pleaded guilty to first degree murder and received 20 years in prison. On August 6, 2015, Styler committed suicide in his cell at Arrowhead Correctional Facility in Cañon City, Colorado. He was 67 years old.[5]

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e "Murder in Aspen". CBS News. Retrieved 2016-08-28.
  2. ^ 687 days. "While She Was Sleeping". NBC News. Retrieved 2016-08-28.
  3. ^ "Glenwood Springs Police Report". PostIndependent.com. Retrieved 2016-08-28.
  4. ^ Jump up to: a b [1]
  5. ^ "William "Trey" Styler found dead". Aspen Public Radio. 2015-08-06. Retrieved 2016-08-28.

Further reading[]

External links[]

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