- I'm Kate Snow, and this is Dateline: Secrets Uncovered.
- This was personal to so many people in Aspen.
We had a brutal murder in a small town.
That house has this story to tell.
Are we going to be able to figure out what that story is?
- It's the playground of snow and gold,
and she was at its heart--
beautiful, privileged, and magnetic.
- Whether it was the taxi driver
or her movie star friends,
she had a very genuine connection with people.
- But what happened one night in her secluded chalet
sent shivers through this glamorous ski town.
- I was going in shock, hyperventilating.
- Murdered in her sleep.
- It did appear that it was a crime of rage.
- Where would investigators start?
An ex-boyfriend?
- There were some stories about there was a jilted lover.
- Her new tenants?
- They were a couple that had been pushed over the edge.
- Her old friend?
- There's no way she saw what she said she saw.
- The real killer would stun them all.
- Took my world and just flipped it upside down.
- We were all wrong.
Everybody was wrong in this case.
**
- Hello, and welcome to Dateline: Secrets Uncovered.
She was an A-lister in a town famous
for its high-end ski resorts and celebrities.
Nancy Pfister lived life with all the advantages
a family fortune afforded her.
As news of her brutal killing sent shockwaves across Aspen,
investigators entered her mountain home
to unlock its secrets.
Here's Keith Morrison with "While She Was Sleeping."
- Please, my friend-- oh, my friend.
Oh, my god!
My-- My friend.
- A cold night, February 2014.
- [indistinct shouting].
- 911 callers can often be hysterical,
this one was all but incomprehensible.
- I found my friend in the closet.
And she's dead!
- But then this sort of thing just doesn't happen
to people like the one now lying dead in the closet.
- She's dead, full of blood,
wrapped in a thing!
- And certainly not in the caller's zip code.
- We don't see very many homicides in Pitkin County.
- But there are moments when no place is safe,
no person, not this storied victim,
not her secure and pampered Shangri-La in the snow.
- There are no words for it,
you know, when a childhood friend dies.
- Aspen, Colorado.
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,
their beginner castles,
as the late Nancy Pfister used to call them,
half playfully, of course.
These were her friends, as were the passing tourists,
and ski bums, and busboys, and just about everybody.
Mary Conover met Nancy when they were both teenagers.
- You cannot come to this town without meeting Nancy.
I mean-- - Come on, really?
- Everybody met Nancy at one point or another.
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.
- Some special sauce in Nancy Pfister.
And when she smiled...
- It was just pure radiance, you know.
It was just beaming.
- Billy Clayton was perhaps closer to Nancy than anybody,
almost like a brother.
- 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.
- Nancy had reason to be grateful.
She was born into a legendary Aspen family,
bit like local royalty.
Her father, Art Pfister, made a fortune
when he turned his ranch into the Buttermilk Ski Resort.
And her mother, Betty, was a World War II pilot
who, in later years, flew a helicopter,
parked it in her driveway. And Nancy?
Stories about Nancy would fill a book
like the one about how she met Jack Nicholson.
- 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's--
she and Jack are best friends.
- Nancy could and did live any way she wanted--
out loud.
- Many, many times when I just thought we were going to have
a normal day, she would say, let's go to St. Barts,
or let's go to Hawaii,
or let's go somewhere. And I'd go, okay.
- But a relationship with the impulsive
and gregarious Nancy, Billy had to admit,
came with a price. Your business was her business.
Your stuff was her stuff.
- It was quite a job to love Nancy.
- So, after what happened to her,
flies on a carcass.
The tabloids feasted on the gossip and half truths
that flew around town.
She was a spoiled, wild child, they howled.
Jack Nicholson's party girl.
Hunter S. Thompson's drinking buddy.
An incurable flirt
once engaged to Michael Douglas.
All very breathless, these stories about the,
quote, "Aspen socialite."
And insulting, said her friends.
Didn't paint Nancy's character accurately at all.
Some people collect famous people as friends,
and it's important to them to be able to talk about them.
- Definitely not her. - Show them off. No?
- Nuh-uh. 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.
- Nancy was a traveling philanthropist,
a devoted environmentalist.
She had a daughter, too, Juliana,
born when Nancy was 29.
- Nancy had a lot of very close friends
and people who loved Juliana.
And we all raised our children together.
- Unusual? Oh, certainly. But--
- She just truly, deeply loved Juliana
and did feel that this was her greatest role of her life
was to be a mother.
- The 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.
- She loved people. You know, all kinds.
It didn't matter who you were.
- Kathy Carpenter was that teller,
and one day, seven years ago
out of the blue, Nancy asked her to lunch.
Kathy accepted and learned firsthand
another of Nancy's hallmark traits.
- She was sometimes brutally honest.
- No edit button. - No edit button.
I like that. Yes. No edit button.
She actually-- when I first met her--
told me that I was very fat.
That's-- what a thing to say to somebody
when you first meet them.
Hi, be my friend. You're fat.
- Yeah. You're fat.
You're beautiful, but you're fat.
- Though she was blunt, undiplomatic,
but irresistible.
By the time lunch was over,
Nancy and Kathy were fast friends.
It's just how Nancy was.
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.
And so she and Dr. Trey Styler and his wife,
who also happened to be named Nancy,
they all lived together like roommates.
- 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.
[suspenseful music]
- But now, in February 2014, at just 57,
Nancy Pfister was gone. Murdered.
Apparently, in her own bed.
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.
However she died, we need to celebrate her life.
That's what she would have wanted
because her life was a celebration.
- 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.
- What had happened to Nancy Pfister?
Soon, investigators will take a close look
at the awful discovery that launched this Aspen mystery.
- That house has this story to tell
and are we going to be able to figure out
what that story is?
**
- Aspen, Colorado is the center of the universe,
for a certain crowd that is.
In 2014, as always, an avalanche of skiers
crowded onto lifts and filled the restaurants
and bars and shops
that line Aspen's carefully tended avenues.
A lovely, if pricey, skiing heaven.
Except that is for Nancy Pfister.
- Did she ever think of leaving here permanently?
I know she was away a lot.
- She thought of it all the time.
She thought about-- because Aspen's changed so much.
It's not that sleepy little town.
There's traffic. I got stuck in traffic today.
- With her daughter Juliana grown
and out of the house by then,
Nancy at the peak of 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.
This year, Australia.
So it was a surprise when this February
she notified her friends she was coming home early.
She arrived in Aspen, Saturday, 22nd of February.
Kathy Carpenter picked her up at the airport.
- I hung out with her that evening.
Helped her unpack and get organized.
- How was it to have her back?
- It was wonderful. It was fun.
She shared a lot of her video clips
that she took on her trip.
- Did you stay over the weekend, or--
- I did. She asked me if I would stay with her,
um, so I did.
- On Monday morning, February 24th,
Kathy got up early and left for work
leaving Nancy and her dog, Gabe, at the house.
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.
She did not want to be disturbed.
Nancy Pfister never wanted to be disturbed when she slept.
- Right. - 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.
- Billy Clayton also left Nancy alone
but felt much better just knowing she was home.
- 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 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."
- But Billy didn't hear back. Not a word.
And then on Wednesday,
the people who'd been renting Nancy's house called Kathy.
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.
And they found it odd that they hadn't seen Nancy.
Not once.
- So this is Monday, Tuesday, and then Wednesday
and you still hadn't seen her?
- Still hadn't seen her.
- But they did see Nancy's dog, Gabe.
- And then I went and called Kathy
and said this dog has been alone for two days.
It's clear that she hasn't been back.
- I was concerned
because normally that's not Nancy's behavior.
She would call me and ask me to pick the dog up.
- So after work, Kathy drove up to Nancy's place
in Buttermilk Mountain to check on her friend.
- What was it like when you went inside the house?
- I called her name out, and Gabe was there.
He was happy to see me.
- But Nancy wasn't there. Kathy checked her bedroom.
- You know, stuff that was there that I unpacked.
It was clear. Cleaned up.
And when I turned, went to the closet, it was locked.
- Was it usually locked? - No.
Not-- I mean, not with Nancy Pfister home.
- Kathy knew that when Nancy rented her house,
she kept her personal belongings locked in a closet
in the master bedroom.
But she and Kathy had unlocked it
when she got home.
- At that point I just-- I was not feeling comfortable.
Something was not right.
- Kathy, who often house sat for Nancy,
had a spare key but it was back at her house.
So she went home, got the key, returned,
opened the closet door.
- When I opened that door-- that odor is so overwhelming.
It hit me in the face and I looked down
and I could see the shape.
- A shape hidden under a pile of blankets and coverings.
But with one glimpse, Kathy just knew, she said,
it was Nancy Pfister.
- Hard to get that image out of your mind.
- It is.
- Kind of stuck there. - It is. It's...
- Kathy fled the house. Got in her car. Called 911.
It's pretty desolate up there,
so I jumped in the car and I thought,
I'll just drive down the hill
and get to the police department.
- Her hysterics made it very hard for the dispatcher
to comprehend exactly what was going on.
Then finally, understandingly,
the dispatcher told Kathy, pull over.
Wait for the first responders.
- When the police arrived, they--
I stepped out of the vehicle.
I think I was going into shock-- hyperventilating.
- Dashcam video shows a distraught Kathy
as she was taken to the hospital.
And Sheriff's deputies arrived on Buttermilk Mountain
to look in that room and confront a mystery.
- 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?
- Hard to do that alone.
- It is awkward and difficult to move a body.
- More than one suspect and maybe more than one killer.
**
- Lisa Miller, then the DA's investigator
for the county that includes Aspen,
is a tall, rangy woman with an impish grin
that looks like it's hiding a secret.
Investigator Miller was in an unfamiliar situation
up here on Buttermilk Mountain.
Murder in Aspen?
Just doesn't happen,
or hadn't at least in more than a decade.
- I was a little surprised that we had a murder in Aspen.
- And being called to a person's home
like Nancy Pfister, I should think, especially so.
- Correct.
- And yet here she was in Nancy's living room,
looking out the big picture window.
- 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.
- Though in the bedroom
she saw surprisingly little evidence of it.
- There was a small blood smear on the headboard.
There was a couple small droplets of blood
on the carpet and a little bit of spatter on the wall.
- And the body in the closet?
Well, when first responders opened the door...
- They knew they were looking for a body.
And they open the door and they look inside
and they didn't immediately recognize the body.
You just looked down and you saw white coverings.
- And underneath those coverings--
- Ms. Pfister had been bound with extension cord.
She had multiple plastic bags over her head
that had been bound and secured tightly.
And then another large, one of the tear resistant,
darker colored bags over her body also.
- 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
but there was no hiding now.
- When the crime scene personnel started taking a look,
they flip the mattress and found blood
on the bottom part of the mattress.
- So it was clear Nancy was killed on the bed,
dragged to the closet, stashed there,
wrapped up like a mummy.
Then whoever did it took the extra trouble
to flip the mattress
in an effort to hide the soaked in pool of blood.
Andrea Bryan was the Deputy District Attorney
and started working on the case
the night Nancy's body was found.
- We learned that she had died from blunt force trauma
to the head and it appeared
she had had several blows to the head.
- Any defensive wounds? - No.
- So this appeared to come out of the blue for her?
- It did appear to be-- yes, a premeditated crime
that occurred while she was sleeping.
- It looked as if it happened early Monday morning.
And then the body lay in the closet undiscovered
until Wednesday evening.
The investigators began compiling a list
of possible suspects. A long list.
- None of us really lived like Nancy-- so open.
I mean, she was totally open to strangers.
- That openness made Nancy friends everywhere she went,
said Billy.
But when Nancy opened herself up,
people didn't always like what came out.
- Say whatever she thought. - Say what she thought.
- Did she realize she was going to maybe
make a negative impression sometimes when she did that?
- Well, she definitely pissed people off.
There's no doubt about that.
She-- you know, many times, I could just see
people's steam coming out of their ears
and they're thinking,
no one's ever talked to me like that before.
But her thinking was, someone should have a long time ago.
- No question Nancy rubbed some people the wrong way.
Spoke her mind a bit too often maybe.
Treated friends a little like her personal servants,
sometimes-- Like Kathy, for example.
- Did she treat you more like a friend
or like she was your boss?
- You know, 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.
- And her friends forgave
because they loved Nancy for who she was.
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.
- We're working diligently at that point
to follow up on other leads that were coming in.
- Like? - Leads of other people
in the community that may have had some resentment
towards Nancy Pfister.
- Like perhaps a jilted lover.
Like one of them have harbored some hidden rage.
Her friends knew that the irrepressible Nancy
was also a woman who fell in and out of love, often.
- Usually Nancy's affairs or romances
didn't last a long time. - Yeah.
- Because there were some stories
about there was a jilted lover somewhere that--
somebody I didn't know.
So when I heard that I thought there's crazy people out there,
and I said let's follow it up
because you never know. It could be, you know.
- But no.
No actual jilted lovers in Nancy's past.
Just rumor and unfounded innuendo.
And besides, after taking in the bedroom crime scene,
investigators decided they were not looking for a killer.
- Hard to do that alone. Carry a body around like that.
Flip a queen sized mattress.
- The mattress is doable, but it would be awkward
for a single person to flip the mattress on their own.
And they use the term dead weight for a reason.
I mean it is awkward and difficult to move a body.
- But it seemed like a pretty clear indication
of more than one person?
- Yes, that was our conclusion.
- Something else,
since there was no sign of forced entry,
her killer or killers, as they now believed,
must have had a house key.
Now, who might that be?
The new renters-- the doctor and his wife.
- It just seemed perfect. - What did they see?
**
- Welcome back to "Dateline: Secrets Uncovered".
I'm Kate Snow.
It was an overturned mattress and Nancy Pfister's body
secreted in a closet that led investigators
to believe they should be looking for
more than one killer.
And with no evidence of a break in,
police thought Nancy must have known
those responsible for the crime.
But fun loving Nancy seemed to be adored by everyone.
Well, detectives knew it couldn't have been everyone.
Back to Keith Morrison with "While She Was Sleeping".
- The investigation was literally closer to home now.
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.
That is, people with a key.
For example, the couple who had been renting the place
while Nancy was in Australia.
Dr. William Trey Styler and his wife,
also named Nancy, were hardly likely suspects,
but they had to start somewhere.
- Mr. Styler is anesthesiologist.
Mrs. Styler, from all accounts,
was an intelligent woman herself.
- Trey and Nancy met in the anesthesiology department
at a Denver hospital.
He a resident and she an instructor.
- 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.
- The gentle doctor chaired his anesthesiology department
by the time he retired.
They lived in an upscale area of Denver.
Their shared hobby was growing
the gasp-inducing giant Victoria waterlily.
Their unusual level of success at that or skill,
brought them world renown
within the rarefied world of specialized botany.
- In fact, the two of you lived, kind of,
a charmed existence for quite a while.
- We did.
Had 25 years of a life that I used to say,
I would never trade with anyone.
- But right around the year 2000,
it all began to fall apart.
Trey got sick and had to quit practicing medicine.
His attempt to start a medical support business failed.
He sued his medical group and lost.
He sued the lawyer who took his life savings
and got nothing.
He had to sell his house.
He moved with Nancy into a rental
where they were poisoned, said Nancy,
and very nearly fatally by carbon monoxide.
Again, they tried to sue but were too broke
to hire an attorney.
- And he was beside himself. Suicidal.
Just, you know,
I can't believe what I did to the family,
losing all this income.
And-and I said, you know, we can do this.
And so I thought of Aspen.
That we loved Aspen.
- Aspen, fresh mountain air.
A fresh start.
They could open a spa, they decided.
And that's when Nancy Styler picked up the phone
to answer another Nancy's real estate ad
in the local newspaper.
Nancy Pfister's ad.
- She said, oh, excuse me.
I was just watering my greenhouse.
I said, you know, I would love to have a greenhouse.
And so we went up there, and it just seemed perfect.
- Seemed perfect to Nancy Pfister too.
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.
So no formal lease, just a handshake.
The rent was $4,000 a month.
- It was a lot of money but not for Aspen.
- 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.
- She really like these people.
She said that she felt that they had really great karma.
- And that's part of the reason why she invited them
to move in a full month before she left.
But it wasn't long before the Stylers discovered
that living with Nancy Pfister
was not quite like they thought it might be.
- After the first couple of days,
she treated me like a slave.
Like, get my cigarettes, get this, get my drink.
And I was not used to being so disrespected.
- Treated like a slave, though?
I mean... - A slave.
It was not pretty.
- You know, I told her that is how Nancy is.
Don't take it personal.
She comes off this way
and that, you know, she-she really has a good heart.
- Anyway, Nancy left soon enough for Australia
but then the Stylers discovered
the house wasn't so perfect after all.
- So when I went to clean out
the master bedroom and bathroom
I realized the hot water was rusty.
Um, the dishwasher didn't work. The stove didn't work.
- Once again, the Stylers sought redress.
They decided to withhold rent until those things were fixed.
Nancy Pfister, half a world away,
was not happy.
- What she say?
- That she felt that these people were cons,
squatters, and she wanted them out.
- Kathy was caught in the middle.
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.
But the relationship between landlord and tenants
had soured to the point that no amount of karma
could preserve it.
- At that point, Nancy Styler said I don't want to stay.
We will be out February 22nd.
- How did Nancy Pfister feel about that?
- She was fine with it. She wanted them out.
- 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.
She got home February 22nd, the very day the Stylers said
they'd be done moving their stuff out.
The problem was they weren't.
She was not happy.
You know, she had a few choice words,
but she accepted it.
She was tired, jet lag.
She wanted to come home, see her dog.
- The Stylers ended up in a motel in Basalt.
About 25 minutes away.
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.
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.
- So time for investigators to visit that motel
and meet the Stylers.
- Coming up...
- I said, I haven't done anything wrong.
- From motel room to interrogation room.
Investigators were fishing.
- What would they catch?
- Basalt, Colorado is just down the highway from Aspen.
You could see the same mountains.
Breathe the same air.
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.
No billionaire starter castles here.
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.
And then there was a knock at the door at 5:30 AM.
It was Sheriff's deputies.
They had questions, they said, about a dead body.
- And I said, what dead body?
And he wouldn't tell me.
Who died? Wouldn't say a word.
- The deputies escorted them
to the back seats of separate cars
but said not a word as they drove down to the station.
- Nancy listened to the chatter on the radio.
- I heard her sister's names being mentioned
on the police radio.
Nancy's sister's names.
And I thought, well it must be something to do with Nancy.
- At the Pitkin County Sheriff's Office,
deputies put Nancy and Trey in different interview rooms.
- And he hadn't read me my Miranda rights beforehand
and I said, I don't need an attorney.
I said, I-I haven't done anything wrong.
I said, I'll be happy to answer questions.
- Which were, at least to begin with, pretty basic.
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.
- But she didn't think
it was that sort of thing at all, said Nancy.
She told the detective she was pretty sure
she knew exactly what happened to Nancy Pfister.
I said you're going to find the tox report
you're going to find out that she committed suicide.
I was absolutely sure that that's what happened.
- But of course, investigators knew Nancy Pfister
did not die by suicide.
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.
And about the Stylers' rapid fall
from success to ruination.
- Their financial situation was dire,
and he was trying to pawn a very nice ring.
- He was a desperate man.
- He was very desperate.
- They also knew, from Kathy Carpenter,
how angry Nancy Styler was at Nancy Pfister.
- What kinds of things did she say?
- Just that I hate that woman.
You know, Nancy Styler was upset.
- I could kill her? - She did say that.
Oh, I could just kill that woman.
- Did Nancy Styler admit
that she had threatened, uh, Nancy Pfister?
That she had said, you know, I-I'd like to kill her?
- She was, I think, pretty open about
her feelings for Nancy Pfister
and she made some statements
that were certainly con-consistent with that.
- 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.
- Investigators put Dr. Styler in a separate room.
They dressed him in an orange jumpsuit
even though he wasn't under arrest.
And they asked a few softball questions.
- But it wasn't long before the tone changed.
The accusations began.
- 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.
- But Trey insisted, they were going after the wrong guy.
He was innocent.
- 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.
- But, it had already dawned on detectives,
the more Trey claimed to be physically incapable...
the worse it looked for his wife.
- We definitely had to look at the fact
that he had assistance, potentially.
- Trey still insisted. Took a polygraph.
Maybe he shouldn't have.
- And he failed his polygraph?
- Yes, he did fail his polygraph.
- You're smiling.
Failed it badly or what?
- My understanding, from the, uh, polygrapher
that, uh, ran the test, he did fail it badly.
- Not admissible in court,
but an investigative tool, they say.
Didn't look good for the Stylers.
But desperation and anger do not, by themselves,
a murder case make.
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.
- It could easily be explained
because of where they were living.
They were staying in that bedroom.
- So the investigators drove the Stylers
back to their motel
and went on with the hard work
of a murder investigation.
They'd have to find a piece of good, solid evidence
to tie someone, maybe the Stylers, to the crime.
Didn't look, so far, as if such a thing existed.
And then...
- Occasionally, uh, something fortuitous happens
to law enforcement.
- How does that old saying go?
One man's trash is another man's treasure.
- Coming up...
- This broke the case.
- What was this stuff and where did it come from?
- Something was wrong with the equation.
Didn't add up.
Here in Aspen, in the house on Buttermilk Mountain,
the crime scene around Nancy Pfister's body
spoke in a way.
It told a story.
And what it said was that at least two able-bodied people
committed the murder.
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?
And yet their suspects, Nancy's former tenants,
were not able-bodied, spring chickens,
anything but athletic.
And besides, there was zero physical evidence
that would tie either one of them to the crime.
- I think we-we were faced with the reality that
this was always going to be a circumstantial case.
- So that bedroom was keeping its secrets
and might be keeping them still.
Except for one total fluke.
Couple of days later, one of those little gifts
that chance or fate or something just drops
at a frustrated investigator's feet.
All tied up with a neat little bow.
- What do you got here?
This is not just a standard trash thing.
- No, um, this broke the case.
- How weirdly flukey 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--
if something stood out about it.
- He actually does this stuff?
- People check it. - Opens a bag?
- And he did. And thank goodness he did,
because when he opened the bag,
he looks inside and he sees a prescription pill bottle,
and what was special about this prescription pill bottle
is it had Nancy Pfister's name on it.
- Of course the city worker recognized the name.
Aspen and the towns around it were buzzing with news
about Nancy Pfister's murder.
In addition to that pill bottle,
after which he phoned the police,
what did you guys find in that bag?
- Well, in addition to the pill bottle,
the big one was a hammer. A bloody hammer.
- A bloody hammer? Found in the same trash
as medication belonging to Nancy Pfister.
That simply couldn't be a coincidence.
Police were 99% sure they'd stumbled on the murder weapon.
They sent it off to the crime lab
to be tested ASAP.
But the trash bag wasn't done divulging
its investigative gifts.
- Another thing that we found that was, um, concerning to us
was the, uh, vehicle registration
for William and Nancy Styler's Jaguar.
- What's more, the trash bin was located
just behind the motel where the Stylers were staying.
And that was miles and miles away
from Nancy Pfister's house.
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.
I cannot think of any other time,
any other case I've ever heard about,
where such obvious evidence is just kind of there.
- Thrown-thrown out carelessly,
so close to where suspects are staying, yeah.
- Deputies hovered around the motel
to keep an eye on the Stylers
to make sure they didn't do a disappearing act.
Well, they and the DA waited for the lab
to test the hammer.
And then, three days later,
another insanely improbable discovery.
- The key was found on the ground.
It was right before the trash can.
- 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.
Lying around as if the Stylers intended
to throw it in the trash but dropped it by mistake.
- Just lying on the ground?
- On the ground.
On the-the lighter portion of the concrete
is where it was found.
- And then that very same day,
as if to punctuate the whole strange affair,
the DNA results came back.
And...
- Nancy Pfister's DNA was on the-on the hammer.
Um, so we were able to pretty clearly say that,
that was-was the murder weapon.
- The murder weapon, the key, and the motive,
pretty much everything they needed
to pin the crime on the Stylers.
It was March 3rd, 2014, not even a week
since Nancy Pfister's body was found.
- They knocked on the door.
I stepped out of the door and they said
we're arresting you for murder one.
And slapped the cuffs on me and took me away.
They led my husband out in my bathrobe.
- What is it like for a woman
who had led a very successful life,
who-who traveled around doing lectures
on Victoria lilies... - Mm-hmm.
- ...to societies of like-minded horticulturalists--
- To be in jail? - To be in jail.
For murder.
- It was a shock.
- It was a shock for some of Nancy Pfister's friends, too.
Like Mary Conover.
The Stylers, really?
- It was just a big surprise,
and-and not knowing anything about these people,
it just seemed outrageous
why you would do something like that.
- But Kathy Carpenter,
who pointed her suspicious finger at the Stylers
right after the murder, practically jumped for joy.
- When I heard that, I was joyful
that they found the person who murdered Nancy
and, you know, I just felt that there was justice.
- And swift justice at that.
What a relief to all those souls Nancy collected,
who loved her like family.
- I was relieved that, you know, this is done.
- But could one of the biggest crimes in Aspen history
really be solved that fast?
With so little drama.
Of course not.
It looked like a setup to you?
- It looked like a setup.
It really did look like a setup.
- Coming up...
Rethinking the case.
Something doesn't add up.
- Bizarre is the only way I can characterize
that 911 call.
- A call now becomes a clue.
- There's no way she saw what she said she saw.
- Welcome back to "Dateline: Secrets Uncovered".
I'm Kate Snow.
Nancy Pfister, who grew up
in one of Aspen's most prominent families,
was found in her home stuffed in a closet, dead.
Police didn't just have suspicions that the couple
renting Nancy's home killed her,
hard evidence had just landed in their laps.
The case against them had come together perfectly.
Perhaps a bit too perfectly.
Back to Keith Morrison with "While She Was Sleeping".
- It was a quick business here in Aspen, Colorado.
Not even a week after Nancy Pfister's body
was found in her own closet.
Her renters were led away in handcuffs.
But was it too quick, too easy?
- It looked fishy to me.
- Fishy? - Fishy.
- Nancy Styler's attorney, Beth Krulewitch.
Fishy how?
- In terms of you've got a-a very
well-respected physician. - Yeah.
- Who's now being accused of murder
and it didn't-- it was inconceivable to me
that he would have killed somebody.
- 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 the mattress.
- 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 motel he was staying at.
Made zero sense to me.
- It also made zero sense that Trey's accomplice was
his diminutive 62-year-old wife, Nancy.
Even though she did actually say
she could just kill that Nancy Pfister.
But then lots of people around town
said similar things about the outspoken Ms. Pfister
at some point or another.
Not meaning it literally.
- 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 do
or what she had said or the way they had been treated.
And she could have said something like
"Gee, you know, I'd like to kill her."
But, you know, listen, uh, t-that's not evidence
of first degree murder.
- Besides, Nancy Styler was more than open about it.
- We've all said that about someone at some other--
you know, I'd like to kill him or something like that
but n-not ever thinking-- you know, taking it that far.
Yes, I did say that but no, I didn't kill her.
- And if it wasn't Nancy, couldn't have been Trey either
because he was frail, yes, said Nancy,
but also because he was never alone to do it.
You were never without him? You're always together?
- Yeah, I said we were always together.
- What did make sense, said Attorney Krulewitch,
is that someone else killed Nancy Pfister
and planted the evidence against the Stylers
in an attempt to frame them.
- 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.
- It was a thought that crossed
investigators' minds as well.
- We would have been amiss had we not looked at
the possibility that someone was setting these people up.
- And so, even with the Stylers in jail,
charged with murder,
investigators were still quietly looking for
other suspects.
For someone with motive and means to kill Nancy
and the foresight to frame the Stylers.
Someone close to Nancy.
Someone Nancy trusted, even loved.
Like the person who pointed the finger of blame
right in the middle of that 911 call.
Kathy Carpenter.
- Kathy Carpenter, she said she was Nancy Pfister's dear friend
but investigators were hearing a different story.
- Their relationship had been a roller coaster.
So we knew that there had been this cycle of the ladies
having a good relationship and the things would go south
and they would have a bad relationship
for a period of time.
- And so with all that in mind, Deputy D.A., Andrea Bryan,
went back to that hysterical phone call from Kathy to 911.
- What did you make of it?
- 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 oh, you should be looking at
these two people immediately.
So that was interesting. - So it was.
And just as interesting, what Kathy told 911
about seeing Nancy Pfister's body.
- The fact that immediately
the deceased is identified as Nancy Pfister, um,
would have been impossible to do.
- Impossible, said investigator Lisa Miller,
because Nancy's body
was completely covered head to toe
when Kathy saw it in the closet.
- We're looking at photos of the crime scene
and we knew there's no way she saw what she said she saw.
- There was more.
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.
- She ended up making a statement
to another individual that Nancy would be sleeping
and resting for the next three days.
- And the three days later the body was found?
- Correct.
- And, the day that closet key magically appeared
so close to the Stylers' motel room,
Kathy Carpenter was known to be in the very same neighborhood,
right around that time, meeting with her therapist.
So next question, was Kathy Carpenter
truly Nancy's friend and helper or her murderer
trying to pin the blame on someone else?
- Coming up...
- The interrogation. Probing questions.
Puzzling actions.
- There was no tears during the time
that she was trying to portray herself as crying.
**
- Ski season in Aspen is a time to see and be seen
in crowded watering holes beneath carefully groomed
world class slopes.
But in late winter 2014, attention was diverted
from the fashionable pursuits.
Now the subject was Nancy Pfister's murder
and also her free wheeling life.
And in death, her reputation
to the consternation of her closest friends
was gleefully amplified by some media outlets
and not in a good way.
- Why do we need to throw rocks at her, you know,
just because, uh, she had too much fun really?
- 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.
A sort of thing Nancy would have loved.
What did she mean to you, personally?
- She meant, um, duration and consistency.
She was the godmother of my children.
I was the godfather of Juliana.
Um, sorry. [crying]
I'm trying.
- 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.
- We were still giving her the benefit of the doubt.
She thought something was up.
She had been worried about her friend.
- So was there an innocent explanation for
why Kathy seemed to see things she could not have seen?
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?
Could she have lifted up those blankets?
- She could have. - And seen?
- She could have.
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.
She had not touched, she had not moved,
she had not manipulated.
- And yet, at the same time, Kathy gave specific details
about the body.
- And 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 Ms. Carpenter.
- 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.
- The more Kathy talked--
- The more suspicious the investigators became.
- She's describing, in the interviews, how were--
the injuries were to the forehead.
I went and I reviewed the autopsy photos
and she was exactly spot on where she indicated
the injury to the forehead.
- It wasn't just Kathy's words, said investigator Miller.
It looked to her like Kathy's grief
was more act than real.
- And a bad act at that.
- There was no tears during the time
that she was trying to portray herself as crying.
- Some people cry without tears, surely.
- I'm sure some people do.
- What can you tell from a thing like that?
- It's just always interesting
when someone is going to such lengths
to act like they're emotionally distraught
and the body doesn't respond.
- But then she discovered what Kathy did
the day after she said she found Nancy's body.
She went to the bank where Nancy had trusted Kathy
with access to her safety deposit box.
And Kathy, took from that box, the Stylers' last rent payment,
$6,000 in cash and an heirloom ring
Nancy had inherited from her mother.
- Within 24 hours, or actually it was a little less
than 24 hours, of her friend being found, by her,
she's going into that safety deposit box
taking $6,000 and jewelry from it.
- So investigators now had an idea,
fast gathering strength,
that Kathy Carpenter was far more involved
than she claimed to have been.
- 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.
- Did she provide a rational explanation
f-for being able to do that? - No.
- They brought Kathy back again and again for questioning.
Five days, almost 20 hours, of questioning.
During one interrogation, detectives read back
the transcript of the 9/11 call.
- Threw her own words at her, the blood she reported seeing.
- And how she so quickly accused the Stylers.
- And they told her they just knew she was lying.
- Kathy Carpenter, like Trey Styler,
submitted to a polygraph test.
But if he failed his--
- Kathy Carpenter failed hers worse.
- So for detectives, the only question left
was did Kathy Carpenter kill Nancy
and try to frame the Stylers, or were they all in it together?
- Coming up...
- I don't think anyone wanted that to be found.
- Another turn in the case.
- This has been one of the more frightening
experiences of my career.
**
- Hour after hour,
Kathy Carpenter talked to the detectives
investigating the murder of her friend, Nancy Pfister.
- She was alone with them.
She could have asked for an attorney.
She did not.
She told the detective she didn't need a lawyer
because she was innocent.
But as Kathy went on and on, those detectives became more
and more sure she killed her friend Nancy
or helped at least.
- The question now,
was Kathy trying to frame the Stylers?
At first blush, it certainly looked that way.
And yet the more they thought about it,
the more unlikely it seemed. Why?
Well, the trash bag containing so much
incriminating evidence, for example.
The one the diligent city worker
just happened to stumble on.
- I really think that this was actually pure luck.
I don't think anyone wanted that to be found.
I think really the simple explanation here
is really the right explanation, which is that
we had a great break in the case
and, um, you know, thank goodness for that.
- The only conspiracy theory assistant D.A. Andrea Bryan
was buying, was one that involved
the Stylers and Kathy Carpenter.
All of them together committing the murder.
The two women perhaps bonding over their shared frustration
with Nancy Pfister's behaviors.
- It appears that they, um, almost built, at times,
a bit of a friendship around that mutual anger
toward Nancy Pfister.
- And Trey, pushed to his financial
and emotional limits,
was most likely the one to wield the hammer,
reasoned the assistant D.A.,
while the women helped hide the body
and clean up the bedroom.
But if that theory was right,
something went wrong after the murder.
The conspiracy did not hold.
- When Kathy Carpenter realized the gravity
of what she had gotten herself into,
she got worried and worried that she would be fingered.
- So Kathy struck first, the D.A.'s theory went.
Called 911 and fingered the Stylers
to deflect attention from herself.
In the interrogation room, investigators had tried to
get Trey to turn on his wife or Kathy.
- And they also tried to get Kathy to flip on the Stylers.
- But it didn't work.
- 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.
- The newest suspect arrested was Katherine Carpenter.
- Billy Clayton had been on the phone with Kathy
just the day before discussing Nancy's memorial service.
- And I think I was supposed to get something for her
to wear to the memorial.
- And now she was behind bars. Seemed crazy.
But in a town that could barely believe
one of its own had been murdered,
anything seemed possible now.
- I should have been surprised or shocked or something.
But at that moment I just-- I was like, you know, who knows.
Anything could happen. I just--
I-I-- it didn't make any sense at all
why anyone would kill her.
- And so, as Billy and the others
went on finalizing memorial plans,
Kathy, a bit late, got a lawyer.
Greg Greer.
- This has been one of the more frightening experiences
of my career, to represent a person
who is so totally and completely innocent.
- As Greer and the lawyers representing the Stylers
waded through the evidence trying to sort out
who did what, 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.
- We were all wrong about what happened.
I mean, everybody was wrong in this case.
- Coming up...
Wrong about what or about whom?
- I started praying that the truth would be revealed.
That's what I wanted. Is the truth to be revealed.
**
- Welcome back.
Kathy Carpenter was one of Nancy Pfister's
closest confidants
and also the person who found her body.
Now, Kathy found herself in a jail cell
in connection with Nancy's murder.
Investigators were about to scrutinize
every one of Kathy's words
hoping to find a secret hiding in plain sight.
Back to Keith Morrison with "While She Was Sleeping."
**
- It was just where she would have wanted
her last party, Aspen's historic Hotel Jerome.
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.
- There were so many people that they couldn't all fit
in the Jerome Hotel ballroom.
They went out the door into the hallways.
- What do you say to a crowd like that?
- I just basically wanted to celebrate her life
and her spirit of adventure.
- Billy Clayton got up too. Said what was in his heart.
- 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.
Um, she was a connector.
That was her real main role, I think, in everyone's life.
- And when you look down there in that crowd,
how were they reacting? - A lot of tears.
A lot of laughter-- certain stories.
And they were all just solidly there in that space
at that moment.
- But at that very same moment,
in a far different space just down the street
from the final Hotel Jerome,
Kathy Carpenter wept in her cell
at the Pitkin County jail and listened.
- I could hear the music-- the band--
and, um, I just-- I cried. I cried a lot.
I wanted to be there.
I should have been there and, um, it hurt.
- How could they think she had anything to do with it?
There was some suggestion that you had a motive
to harm Nancy. - Absolutely not.
What was my motive? There is no motive.
- A shared frustration with Nancy Styler
about how difficult-- - Oh heavens, no.
No. Not at all.
- Nancy was her best friend, she said.
- I loved her. - Yeah.
- She was-- I loved Nancy Pfister.
- That's why she sat through all those hours of interrogation
without a lawyer.
She said she wanted to help them understand the truth.
Like, for example, how it wasn't at all suspicious
that she knew right away it was Nancy in that closet.
- You know, the odor just about knocked me over.
And to me it was very apparent that wasn't just
a pile of clothes in the closet.
Who else but Nancy would be in that closet?
- If you weren't a complete idiot
you understood that had to be Nancy.
- Right. Who else would it be?
And when she so quickly fingered the Stylers,
she said, it was just common sense.
- They were in the house.
- You knew that they were pretty mad at Nancy.
- They were mad. They were upset with her.
- But what about those suspicious little details
like saying she saw blood on Nancy's forehead
when Nancy's forehead was completely covered up?
- That's easy to explain, said Kathy,
she never actually said that.
- They said that I saw her forehead.
- Yes. - I did not see her forehead.
I saw blood on the headboard. - Headboard?
In fact, crime scene techs did find blood
on Nancy Pfister's headboard, but headboard is not the word
that appears in the typed transcript
of the 911 call.
- And on page three of that transcript it says,
"I saw blood on her forehead."
- Kathy's attorney, Greg Greer.
- 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.
- Sure enough, Kathy, in that 911 call,
did actually say headboard.
Not forehead.
- A transcription error.
Although 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.
- 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
just to make it stop.
- And they told you, you did it?
- Yes.
- Repeatedly?
- Yes.
- And each time what would you say?
- I did not do it.
- And even though it appears, from the interrogation tapes,
that Kathy did say some improbable things--
- She was on doctor prescribed anxiety medication
the whole time, she said.
So in her confused fog
and prompted by the investigators, said Cathy,
her descriptions were unclear.
She may even have imagined things
she could not have seen.
Is it possible that you were led
into saying something like that?
- Absolutely.
Absolutely.
You know, she was in a plastic bag
and I saw, just through the transparency of the bag,
I saw a little bit of her hair.
- So why did she fail the polygraph?
- I was very upset.
It was very emotional,
and they did tell me that in order for me to
take this test properly,
I could not feel any emotions.
Just hearing the words, just hearing her name...
it's very emotional.
- But it was true, she said.
No denying it.
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.
But it wasn't for her, she said.
Rather it was to fulfill a promise to Nancy.
- She often would say if anything happens to me
in my travels, make sure you do this,
can you do that, and make sure-- my little to-do list.
- And on to do list, that ring.
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.
- That was my intention-- was to fulfill her wish.
- To give it to Juliana? - To give it to Juliana.
- Just as she had every intention of giving the money
directly to Juliana, too.
So it wouldn't disappear into some disputed family trust.
But then she said the investigators
used everything she said and did against her.
- I just thought no, this is not happening.
How can they...
be so wrong?
I had-- have had-- I had nothing to do with this.
She was my dear friend.
I loved her.
- Kathy's attorney told her, don't worry.
The case won't hold up in court.
But even if he was right, the trial might be years away.
And so she did all that was left to her.
- And I started praying.
Praying that the truth would be revealed.
That's what I wanted.
Is the truth to be revealed.
- And then, suddenly, it appeared that it was.
The truth that is.
But would anyone believe it?
- A stunner from Mr. Styler.
- Mr. Styler, I'm going to have you right here, sir.
**
- It went the way it often does in criminal cases.
A period of frenetic activity
followed by a sort of calm stasis.
So it was with the murder case of Nancy Pfister.
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.
The case now slouch towards summer.
Nancy's friend Billy, missing her more than ever--
- The last time I spoke with her,
all we talked about were plans.
Everything we were going to do this summer
and all the different ideas she had.
- But the only thing on the calendar now
was a preliminary hearing scheduled for late June.
All three defendants had pleaded not guilty
and their respective attorneys, Beth Krulewitch
for Nancy Styler, Greg Greer for Kathy Carpenter,
were deciding their strategies.
Analyzing the evidence.
- 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.
- Kathy Carpenter is innocent,
innocent, innocent. I can't say that enough.
- But Deputy DA Andrea Bryan
and her investigator Lisa Miller,
were preparing to argue it was a conspiracy
involving all three.
And then, less than two weeks before that hearing--
In the process of getting all of your material together
for the preliminary hearing, what happened?
- I got a phone call from my assistant district attorney
one afternoon. - Saying...
- Saying that he had spoken with a defense attorney--
specifically, Williams Styler's defense attorney.
And that William Styler wanted to make a statement.
- Now that could be interesting.
The good doctor was wheeled into the interview room
where Lisa Miller was waiting for him.
- Oh, but it was far more than just a statement.
Trey Styler dropped a bombshell
and blew the DA's meticulously assembled case wide open.
- It was a confession.
After months of strenuous denials,
Trey Styler told them--
- 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.
- 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.
- So he went down the stairs, got a hammer,
climbed back up to the bedroom.
- Then, strengthened by a rush of adrenaline, he said,
he single-handedly wrapped Nancy Pfister up,
dragged her into the closet, and covered her up.
- And then he grabbed and took away
some of Nancy's belongings to make it look like she was gone.
- He was very clear about what he did, how he did it,
when he did it, and in-- in very specific detail.
- As for his wife or Kathy Carpenter--
- And until this moment,
he insisted he hadn't told either one of them
a single thing about what he did.
He not only limited his wife's participation
in that statement.
He said she wasn't involved at all.
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.
You have a skeptical look on your face.
- That's what he told me, yes.
- What did you think?
Having you heard that, investigator Miller
told Dr. Styler exactly what she thought.
- At this time, investigator Miller
was convinced all three were in it together.
She looked straight at Trey Styler and confronted him.
He was a frail old man.
Surely he didn't expect she'd believe
he did it all alone.
- But Trey remained resolute.
He was the lone killer.
- How concerned are you that he decided
that he was going down anyway,
he might as well get them off the hook?
And that's really what was going on here.
- That's a concern in any case like this.
- So now it was decision time.
Take Trey Styler's confession at face value
and release both Nancy Styler and Kathy Carpenter,
or send him back to his cell
and proceed with the prosecution of all three.
- Whose story would prosecutors believe
and what will happen when the truth is revealed?
- Took my world and just flipped it upside down.
- I just hope that she would find forgiveness in her heart.
- What does she have to forgive you for?
**
- A full confession.
The best possible solution for a murder case.
If they could believe it, that is.
- But are you comfortable with that explanation of this crime?
Are you comfortable that is the whole thing?
- I don't know if we'll ever know the whole thing.
- Around the Pitkin County DA's office
was a nagging worry.
Dr. Trey Styler demanded, and the DA approved,
a quid pro quo.
His full confession in exchange
for his wife's unconditional release.
- But what if he was lying?
How would they ever prove it?
- We had no facts to refute his--
his 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.
- So you're saying to me that Kathy Carpenter
and Nancy Styler are both innocent?
Neither one participated in this crime?
- William Styler said that.
I'm not saying that.
- But despite investigator Miller's doubts,
on June 17, 2014, after three and half months in jail,
Nancy Styler was released.
- 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.
And then she said, "But there's a catch."
- She gave Nancy a letter.
It was a private note from Trey.
- 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,
"and you should believe I am too."
- Trey wrote that he was only pleading guilty to save her.
He didn't actually kill Nancy Pfister, he wrote.
He was falling on his sword for love.
- 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.
- Three days later, June 20, Dr. Trey Styler
formally pleaded guilty to second degree murder
and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
That same day, the DA dropped charges against Kathy Carpenter
and she walked out of jail a free woman.
- I was very grateful, very thankful and I felt God
answered my prayers and-- but at the same time
it was still scary.
I'm leaving jail
after being locked up.
What will people think?
How will I be judged?
- She is grateful, scared, also sad.
- But there was sorrow for still thinking
of the loss of Nancy.
And that he did something like this,
that he did it.
You know, that was still hurtful.
- But Nancy Styler added a bitter anger
to her whirlwind of grief and relief.
If Trey was innocent, as he told his wife he was,
then had the real killer just walked free?
- I had Kathy Carpenter pegged
in my own little courtroom and every little piece
of evidence that was given to me corroborated that.
- And then, it was just over two weeks later,
Nancy took a call.
Trey had something to tell her.
His letter wasn't quite true, he said.
In fact, he and he alone murdered Nancy Pfister.
Kathy Carpenter had nothing to do with it.
- It was...
took my world and just flipped it upside down.
Felt like my whole life had been a lie.
My whole life with him had been a lie.
- Nancy tried to rebuild her life,
move back to the East Coast where she grew up
and reclaimed her maiden name.
She filed for divorce.
- Do you love him at all anymore?
- I love him.
I love him. I love the man that was.
I don't love this monster.
- In 2015, William Trey Styler
was found hanging in his prison cell.
His death officially ruled a suicide.
Nancy Styler said she hopes people will remember him
for the man he once was before physical
and mental illness took over his life.
It was then that Nancy Styler's attorney Beth Krulewitch
had to admit that she had been completely wrong to think
Kathy Carpenter was involved in the murder
and set up the Stylers.
- Had Trey Styler not confessed,
I think there's a very decent chance,
the Kathy Carpenter could have ended up convicted,
and what a tragedy that would have been.
- And still I think they're a little suspicious
of you, you know?
- I've heard that there's still some questions
in people's minds.
- She knows, all too personally,
what it's like to lose the trust of her community.
She's also lost her job, her home,
and she's lost her very best friend, she said.
And she told us she feels guilty.
- That's why I wish that I could have helped her
had I been there.
What could I have done differently?
Talked her into staying there, not coming home.
- Nobody can know the future.
- Right.
But I do blame myself.
You know, it's something that I'll have to work through but--
- One person with whom Kathy had not spoken with
after all this happened
was Nancy Pfister's daughter, Juliana.
What would you want to say to Juliana?
- That I just hope that she knows the truth.
I had nothing to do with the murder of her mother.
I was never-- would still--
I just-- you know, I was looking out for her
and her mother's wishes.
And that I just hope that she would find forgiveness
in her heart.
And know that I love her and her mother very much.
- What does she have to forgive you for?
- I don't know why I would even say forgive but--
- It's curious, huh? - Yeah.
Just, I've been portrayed as this thief,
this bad person.
Untrusting, and I don't know why.
- Trust.
Something Nancy Pfister was known for.
Not so much of it these days.
- Aspen will never be the same.
My life will never be the same.
- So what has Aspen lost?
- A lot of history, you know?
Nancy was part of Aspen's history.
It's a huge loss for the community.
- Some members of which will be telling stories
about Nancy Pfister for a very long time.
- Nancy lived a fantastic life.
And I think we all need
a little more dreaming like that.
A little more-- - A little more Nancy.
- A little more Nancy, that's true.
- That's all for this edition
of "Dateline: Secrets Uncovered."
I'm Kate Snow.
Thank you for watching.