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Maybe you are now listening to True Murder The most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that have written about them Gasey Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker DTK. Every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with
your host, journalist and author Dan Zufanski, Good Evening. In February twenty fourteen, Aspen socialite Nancy Fister was murdered in her own home, brutally bludgeoned, wrapped in a sheet, and stuffed inside a locked closet. Fewer than twelve hours after her body was found and without any evidence, police decided
a married couple from Denver had killed her. Within a few days, they arrested and charged Nancy Styler, a friend of Fisters who had a falling out with her after a business deal went sour, and doctor Trey Styler, Nancy's disabled husband, who recently lost a family home, his medical practice in any hope of a peaceful retirement for himself and his wife. Eleven days later, police charged Kathy Carpenter,
Fister's underpaid and overworked personal assistant and closest friend. Months later, Trey Styler, who was slowly losing his grip on realities he battled with mental illness, confessed to the crime. Rampant speculation spread about whether he was involved at all, or if his confession was that of a man on his deathbed because a medical condition appeared to have left him barely able to walk, much less carry out such a heinous crime. And then the only interview before his death,
Trey gives his account of that faithful day. New York Times bestselling author Dayleen Barry covers this compelling story from the inside, following the Stylers from their fairy tale life in Denver to the morning of their simultaneous arrest, to Nancy's release from jail and her attempt to rebuild her shattered life. The book that we're featuring this evening is Guilt by Matrimony with my special guest, journalist and author
Dayleen Berry. Welcome back to the program and thank you for a Greenness interview, Dayleen Berry, Thank you Dan, Thank you Dayleen. Incredible story. Like I say, it never ceases to surprise me, some of these stories, so and this one is very very surprising. So let's get right to as we as I spoke to in the introduction. Let's talk talk about first about Nancy Styler and a little bit of her life. And she has a sister named
Cindy and her mother's name Tess. So tell us a little bit about her life, and before we talk about how her and Trey met and ventured into this life that we will we'll talk about in this and you do so well in this book. So tell us a little bit about Nancy Styler before she met her husband, Trey.
She was educated in the Boston area and started working at a makeup counter at an upscale department stour when she was sixteen. And then she went to college in
France and was educated there as an anesthesist. Now in France she would have had the equivalent of a medical degree, but when I believe it was the Gailier you got all the American students, she was forced to return to the US sence she finished her studies here in the US and became an anste zeologist an instructor in the antesiologist program in Colorado, and that's where she met Trey Styler.
Now, tell us a little bit about Trey Styler and his life before they met.
Well. Trey came from the Oklahoma area, and he was born into a family that had made a good bit of money. They seemed to have money, but Nancy said that through his father's business that they made more money. Trey also said that before he died, and his mother was pretty frugal and was able to build make a lot more money out of what she had saved, and they had put into stocks and bonds. So he came
from a pretty wealthy family. And the other important thing about the family is that they had a serious problem with depression. His mother, his brother, and Trey himself and the younger brother actually committed suicide, and when the police found his brother, they called Trey to come and identify the body because their parents were in Texas on a business trip at the time.
Right, now, tell us about his successful rise in his profession, and then you can tell us about how the two met.
Well. Trey was at first not a great college student and he actually his father because he wanted to party. He took him out of college and said, you need to go to work because I'm not paying for college if this is how you're going to spend my money. And so Trey went to work for a while and while he was working, I believe it's an orderly in a hospital. And he decided he liked that field, and so he applied to medical school and eventually he was accepted and became a de and he from that went
into the field of anesthesiology. And what was so interesting about his work is that he was so gentle and kind that there were patients, not only fellow people in the professional field he worked in, like nurses and other doctors that sought out his services as an anesthesiologist, but he had a lot of patients who were pretty wealthy
and they would request him, even from other hospitals. At times they refused to let anybody else do their anesthesia, and he just had this air of compassion and empathy and reassured the patient that he would take good care
of them. And in addition to that, he was adept at understanding that if a person was afraid, that could actually lead to a case of being scared to death, literally being scared to death, and so he was really good at keeping them relaxed and talking them out of the fear before they had surgery, so much to the point where people who had previously been so afraid and refused to ever have surgery again, he was able to talk them back into that and they after that was never using never excsiologists.
Now you talk about the gentle man that Trey Styler was in his again unusual treatment of patients, and that was very endearing to a lot of people, including Nancy. So tell us how they met and again her first reaction, again, her reaction of Trey. When she did meet him.
She was teaching in the anesthesia department and he was a resident and so he was technically her student. And the first time she interacted with him, she heard him tell a female patient exactly what would be going on during the procedure and how he would be taking care of her, and he walked her through stuff by step, and Nancy said that he was just so gentle and caring.
It was unlike many other of the residents that she had seen, who would just simply put the mask over the patient and then count backwards without telling them anything that they were going to do, and she was very
impressed by that. So over the course of about a year they started going out, and then eventually they were separated for a while because story had a rotation in another part of the state in Colorado, and then they got back together several months later and started dating and then ended up getting married a year or two later.
What was the characteristic She found him very gentle in terms of him professionally, what was leading up to the marriage and all indications of from the beginning that they met. What was his character like.
Well, he was very kind and he was also very gentle. That was Those were the two adjectives that she used to describe him over and over again. And actually many of the professional people at the hospital he worked at where he eventually became the chief of anisthesiology in his department, they said the same thing, that they had never seen him backed in a way that was angry or caused any alarm or concern. He was just a very gentleman. In fact, Nancy was on the back end of a divorce.
Her first marriage had ended and she and her first husband divorce, and when she met Trey he joked that she he really appreciated her first husband because he kept her, uh, Nancy as a playfolder. He kept he kept a playfolder so that Trey could flipped in. And Trey never looked at himself with somebody that would win a woman like Nancy's heart, because he was booking. She was a geek. He didn't, you know, stand out in any way except this gentle kind character that he had.
Now we talk about they being married. They met, they married, and they also have plans for a child. So within three years they have a child. So tell us a little bit about what their decision is as a couple to do now that they do have the child, and so tell us how things change as a result.
Well, they changed in the fact that Nancy had been doing work with patients and she felt like it was not safe to continue doing that pregnant. She didn't want to put her child at risk, and so they decided together that she would leave her profession in medical field. And that was something she wanted to do because she
wanted to be a full time mother. And at that time she began getting into botany, and she became very skilled in the field of botany, fell in love with a flower called the Victoria lily, which has an eight foot in circumference their diameter excuse me, lily pad. And these are typically grown in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil, and so she fell in love with its flower and on a trip to Amazon at that time they could
bring some home. Since then it's become illegal, but they brought home some seedlings basically and started planning them there. And before long their home had become what the Denver Botanical Society called UH jokingly, I believe uh Denver Botanical West because their whole garden, their whole garden in the backyard was built and designed to cultivate these Victoria lilies.
And it was in that setting that she and her husband raised their son Trey, continued working at the head of the antistesiology department.
Now, is this the home that they built that you talk about and you show a photo in the book of the two point two million? Were they at that point where they built this dream home, including these incredible gardens that she had become this master gardener.
Yes, And the gardens were built over a period of several years. She kept adding to them every year, and the home was that two point two million home which was exclibit just it had, you know, everything you can want can front, including it into a waterfall. At that time. They had a theater room, which was uncommon at that time. It's more common nowadays with some homes. Just a lot of amenities and that beautiful home.
Now in terms of lifestyle, it was there anything other than this, again, the appearance of normalcy behind the scenes, raising their son Daniel, and tell us a little bit about again organics in her interest in organic agriculture and horticulture. So tell us if there was anything beyond this veil of normalcy behind the scenes.
Well, at first there was not. The only thing that was going on in the early years when their son was growing up was Nancy had become such an adept expert. I mean, she really excelled at gardening, and before long she was teaching gardening classes. She was traveling around the
country speaking to different conservatories. And in addition, she and Trey and their son Daniel were cultivating these Victoria lilies which they would then send either the seedlings or the plants around the country and sometimes even the well every year they said them around the world to different conservatories, and they would a lot of times, they didn't even
charge for them. The way it was like a gift to the world, and everybody that knew their work and the extent of how much volunteerism was involved in it was just amazed at how just gracious and generous they were.
Now, let's talk a little bit about some of the bad times that begin to happen, and so let's talk about Trey's health and what eventually does happen to him. In terms of his health.
Well, in nineteen ninety nine, he started developing He'd had foot problems for quite a while, but nobody really knew that it was a symptom of anything. Nancy said, his feet just looked weird. But he started having problems in nineteen ninety nine, and that was when he was having
trouble basically walking and making his legs work. He noticed some muscle symptoms, things that he thought were problematic with his muscles, and so he went to one doctor after another, and the first diagnosi is that he received was not actually the correct one, Nancy believes, but he ended up the illness. The symptoms kept getting worse, and so the doctors were prescribing one medication after another just to try to help him function so that he could continue working
and have a normal life. And it was during this time that he got so bad that he was having to use a scooter to get around because he would just be worn out from walking very far. He figured out one time that he was walking an average of seven miles a day on his medical rounds to see
all his patients. And so what the turning point finally came when he couldn't remember whether he had given a patient the medicine that he needed before the patient was anesthesized, and he realized in retrospect that it was a life or decision and it was a mistake that he just couldn't live with. So he at that time gave up his job.
So how did that change their life at that moment.
Well, for a while it was it was okay because they had a lot of money in savings, but then it turned out that the insurance that he had been paying for wasn't It wasn't as much as they thought
it was going to be. In addition to that, he had been in the process of trying to develop this piece of computer software and he was a part of this antisseusiology group that had formed their own corporation, and they actually hired him to finish that software, and he brought on a computer program programmer to do that, to help him do that. And then somehow during the course of the next several years, what happened was it looks like that, well it doesn't look like this is actually
what happened. The Antistesiology group claimed software is their own, and Trey tried to take them to court to fight it, and in the ensuing lawsuit, he basically ran the family dry. He paid this attorney eight hundred thousand dollars to fight this case, and the attorney actually was guilty in no practice because he didn't even do what he was hired to do. So with the money gone then, of course,
by then his job was gone. They had to give up their home and you know, moved to a smaller place, and by then they were living on Trey's disability and what little bit of money Nancy was bringing in, which wasn't much.
We mentioned you mentioned earlier about the history of his family with depression. Tell us about what ensues in terms of again we might be jumping a little bit ahead, but what this Prussian manifests in terms of a threat to the family of his again the suicide. So let's let's talk a little bit about just this depression leading to Tray's whether it's it's not very serious, but it is a threat of suicide.
Yes, yes, And actually that started when he stopped working until the time when he was While he was working, even though he was ill, he was he seemed to be okay. But then when he had to give up his job, he started becoming very introspective and kind of pulling away from people. He would have angry outbursts, nothing to the point of violently striking anyone, but he would just have these frustrated fits of anger where he was upset over his condition and he said he'd be better
off dead. And that seemed to be the first of it, and Nancy didn't take it very seriously. But then over time from the illness, he became more and more depressed. And as the lawsuit progressed and he ended up giving this attorney so much money, that was part of the depression too. You know, what came first and what the end result was can be debatable. Whether it was the depression and then that led to his bad decisions with the attorney or whether it was the attorney's actions and
then you know that led to the depression. We don't know. But what we do know is that he was being treated for this depression and he was taking several drugs by that time, both for what they thought was then some type of a similar form of Blue Garrett's disease at the time and the depression he was being treated for all that those problems.
Now you talked about the two point two million dollar home, and it's a beautiful home and you have a great photo of it in the book. They had to sell for eight hundred and forty thousand. So we've already outlined the conditions that these people are not in great condition financially whatsoever, in physically, and so their luck has turned to say the least. Now with the selling of that home,
they are looking for a fresh start. So what do they where do they look to and what do they do in this bid for a fresh start.
Well, they actually they actually rented a couple of different homes before they went to Aspen, and during that time they tried a couple of businesses, one which was a printing business, the other I don't remember off the top of my head. But neither one of those lasted very long for different reasons, nothing that was essential to the outcome of the story.
In the book.
But what they did decide, and this is Nancy's idea, She wanted to open up a medical spa because she felt that with her training that she received in France and her knowledge of and as an aspetition, she felt that she could provide people with beauty treatments such as botox and different things like that. And she felt like they could invest what little bit of money they had left into some equipment and training, and then they could open up a medical spat and they weren't sure where to do it.
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But there was somebody in the Colorado area that suggested they go in the Denver area that suggested they go to Aspen, and so they checked out Aspen and a couple of people there were very very encouraging. One was a local businesswoman, Rita Bellina, who owns the Queen Bee, and she said, oh, yeah, you could definitely make a
living here. So with that encouragement, they went up there several times and until they found a home treat and that's where they that's where the story started with Sister and they planned to open their medical spot.
Now, they initially meet Nancy Fister and they look at they they'd try to judge her character from the very beginning, tell us about the background of Nancy Fister, which they don't know when they first meet her, but tell us a little bit about her background that they eventually, unfortunately find out about a little too late.
Nancy Fister was, by everyone's accounts in the Aspen area, a party girl, and she was a heavy drinker. She had a problem with alcoholism. She used a lot of painkillers. She would daily take handfills of pills with her champagne, this stink champagne that she preferred to drink. And it seemed that according to the people that knew her well, that she would be intoxicated by name every day.
Now she's the goddaughter of Hunter S. Thompson. As such, she talks about her background and uses that to her advantage to gain leverage over people. And as you describe in the book, she never has her hands in her own pockets to pay for anything. So tell us about some of the dealings with people and what characterizes Nancy Fister at this time in her life. When Trey and Nancy meet.
Her, she is actually in the fall wanting to go to Australia because she has gotten to the point in her life where she doesn't like the cold, snowy weather in Aspen. So she was making plans to travel to Australia for a few months. She thought she might invest her mother's inheritance, which she was due to receive in November two thousand and thirteen, and she wanted to get that out of the way. And then she did what
she usually did in a later time. She put an ad in the paper to rent out her home, and the stylers saw that ad and they answered it, and that's how they met her. She was unfortunately known for kicking her tenants out early almost without fail every time, including people, but she had rented too that she considered close friends. But the Stylers, of course, being outsiders and not from the area, we're not familiar with that pattern.
Now in their first conversation when they do answer this ad, that's very interesting. What is the end result of that conversation? And in regards to Nancy and her enthusiasm they've had, they went from incredible luck and fortune and wealth and affluence to the exact opposite. So she is looking for
again this fresh start. They have been convinced to move to aspen As that this would be a great place for those kinds of people, the kind of people and couple that they were so tell us about this phone call they have with Nancy Fister and why is it so encouraging to Nancy and Trey.
Well, they couldn't find a house to rent that would one either accommodate trays disability. He couldn't do stairs well, he could do them that, he couldn't do them well, and so they wanted something that would accommodate him. But in addition to that, he has he had an allergy a catalogy. So a lot of the humes that they looked at were hadn't been inhabited with kat, so it kind of made them a place difficult to find. And so when they came across the ad for sister's home,
they Nancy actually called. And Nancy Fister thought that it was serendipity karma, if you will, that they wanted a home right away, and that she had one to rent and that met the criteria supposedly meth the criteria. So she told them to come right over because there was another family that was scheduled to show up and looked at it, but those that couple had children, and she didn't really want anybody with children in her home, and
so she encouraged them to come over. And when they met her, she had you know, the usual champagne in her glass, and she was very very bubbly and social, and they took to her right away. She seemed very friendly and gracious, and they liked that. They thought that it was a one welcome And in addition to that, when she heard what they're playings were, she told them that they could open up their medical spa in her home.
And they thought that that was just perfect because it would save them the cost of brning both a location for the spa and a place for them to live.
Now, Nancy Fister is a really gregarious, like you say, a party girl. She's drinking champagne and again very outgoing and friendly and promising Nancy and Trey that they could they're welcome to come into her home and set up their business. But soon after the real character of Nancy Fister is evident. And what little things do Nancy and Trey find out almost immediately, well, they.
Found out that she was, indeed, as you would say, a cheap skate. She didn't want to pay for anything out of clock that she would offer, she would not offer, but she would ask them, like to pick her up some of her champaigne that she liked when one of them was making a trip to Denver, and they thought that that meant she would repay them, and of course she thought that meant in her mind that that was just a gift that they were getting for her. And
so little things like that happened. But in addition to that, she seemed to be very overly friendly with men, not with women, but with men, And Nancy was never jealous of sister's behavior, even though it extended to Trey and Trey wasn't the least bit looking at it as something that he would exercise the right to help himself to what this woman seemed to be offering, and she did a lot of the men who showed up there, but Nancy was just taken back by how blatant it was.
And they saw several men come and go, different men that she would spend the night with there in her home, and it just was not what they expected.
With this as well, with the drinking and the lifestyle and the various men dropping by, and then you talk about the arguments that she would have, but also that not so gradually the Trey and Nancy realized that they were almost her slave, that she would expect them to rubb her feet, rub her shoulders, go get this, go do that. So a lot of chauffeuring, a lot of personal things that she would get them to do. So they realized that this relationship came with many many strings attached, didn't it.
Yes, And in fact that was part of the problem, and that was the growing frustration for Nancy Styler, not so much for Trey, because Trey actually wasn't around as much as Nancy was. She was going back and forth getting furniture and taking care of business where they'd lived before, but Nancy was there much more and expected to basically, yeah, be her servant.
Now, tell us about the circumstances that Nancy Fister introduces Kathy Carpenter to Trey and Nancy.
Kathy Carpenter was Nancy Fister's closest friend, and she was also like an unpaid personal assistant. She helped Nancy with her banking because Kathy was a bank teller at Alpine Bank and she had worked there for several years I believe about fifteen years, and she introduced her to Nancy and to Trey, and they actually shared the care of
sister's labradoodle, a black labradoodle whose name was Gabe. He was a puppy, and so Nancy and Trey met Kathy under those circumstances, and before long before them were very very attached to Gabe, not just Fister and Carpenter, but also Nancy and Trey.
Part of the attraction as friends between Kathy Carpenter and Nancy Fister was that, of course, being a party person, Nancy Fister was a drinker and Kathy was a drinker. But tell us about the why things were a strain between the relationship, especially with Kathy and Nancy.
At that time, well, they became a strange. They were strained because Kathy was trying to become sober and she had started going to AA meetings and she was getting her life back on track, and she had a very hard time maintaining her sobriety when she was around Fister.
So she was trying to put some distance between herself and Nancy Fister, and that actually came into play more after Fister left for Australia, but it had already started a little bit before sister went to Australia, and so Nancy saw that and thought that it was you know,
she's a health care worker first and foremost. She takes care of people, and so she could discern that Kathy needed to be stronger, and she tried to encourage her at different times when she could too, to do what she had to and to not let sister have that hold over her anymore.
Now we talked about Nancy's plan to go to Australia. So in this ensuing period between Trey and Nancy moving into this home, the promises of letting Trey and Nancy or Nancy operate her SPA out of this home. What happened in an ensuing period before she left Australia was their opinion of the prospect of this business being open in her home. Still on the forefront, did they still
believe that? But what things had changed in terms of their assessment of the relationship with Nancy before she left us really.
Well, in addition to the in addition to the feeling of servitude and of noticing that she was entitled and expected the world to revolve around her, they also realized that as and as they had paid the first six thousand dollars that they owed her, that she became a little bit difficult. And by that, I mean that she would she would become angry, and she would be uh, what's the word. She would be belittling to them, especially to Nancy sister, not like Nancy Styler, not so much Trey.
She did.
She definitely did not treat Trey as badly as she did his wife. And then there was the sense that she was not going to be It was kind of like her stories would change and they didn't know whether she was forgetting things because of the alcoholism or what.
They thought maybe they could help her at first, Tray especially, but then they came to realize by the time she left for Australia that she was pretty much beyond help and they just wanted to be able to open their spa and live in her home and then you know, when she came back six months later.
Originally that was.
The plan, they would you know, have to have something different between by then. But once she left for Australia November, yes, the plan was still for them to open the spot in her home.
Now let's fast forward a little bit to what happens during the trip that would have alarmed them or changed anything at all, and then the return from Australia and her behavior nancies well.
Within two weeks of leaving for Australia, they were getting emails from her demanding the rest of the money and the total money that they owed from the time they moved in when she left for Australia. They actually were living there free until she left for Australia, because that was the charms that she gave them was if you move in here and help me get ready for Australia,
you know, you can look for a month free. But anyway, there was a three month period and they were going to pay first, last, and present month's rent, so that would have been a total of twelve thousand dollars. And so they gave her six thousand before she left, and they were getting the other six thousand. There was a little bit of a lap, so it wasn't coming as
quickly as they thought it would. But she became serious and within two weeks she was demanding the money, and within probably a week after that, she was demanding that they leave, basically saying they were trailer trash they needed to go back where they came from. And by the end of December, she was just all out in war with them through these emails, having her attorney call them and send them harrassing letters. She had looped in with
CC's and her emails. The sheriff, the former sheriff, Bob brought us from the deputies, and she had even gone so far as ask law enforcement to evict them because they weren't paying, which wasn't true at all. They were laid in pain, but they actually did pay. But she just changed. It was just amazing her change. After she left for Australia.
There was a point when Nancy bragged to Nancy Styler that she was close friends or family friends with the sheriff Joe de Silva. Is that correct?
Yes, yes, she did. In fact, she said that she would go down there and shoot the ball all the time.
Now tell us about Nancy's return, and at that point Nancy and Trey are planning to do what.
Well by the time sister was well, let me back up a minute. Nancy and Trey realized in Janeanuary, it was not too long after January first, that they couldn't stay there and that they had to try to get out as soon as they could. So they actually began
looking for other places to live. But in the meantime, sister kind of pulled the rug out from under them and gave them four days notice that she was returning onnor about February twenty second, and so they Kathy Carpenter, a couple of other friends of Carpenters came up and helped them load up the U haul to get all
their stuff out. And then in those days when they were moving, Carpenter and the Skylar's traded cards because Carpenter had a station wagon that would accommodate more things in it, and she took their Jaguar to the airport on that Saturday to pick Fister up as she returned from Australia.
And tell us at that point what was Kathy saying to Nancy in terms of about her friend Fister.
She was telling Nancy that sister wanted her to get everything set up for her return, have her champagne on ice, have her bed made up the way she wanted it, have all their things out, and then at the last minute, she wanted to know if they didn't want to leave the home that weekend when she got in, if they would pay whatever the rate was for the hotel Jerome, which was I think like maybe two thousand the night, that she would just stay there and they could stay
there for the weekend and continue moving because they weren't completely moved. Like I said, she only gave them four
days notice. But then after they didn't do that. Of course, they went to the cheapest hotel they could find, the Abstronaut Lodge, and they moved everything they could into storage and went to the motel and hoped that everything would be okay when she came back, because what they had done after she left for Australia was they put all her valuables in the upstairs closet and walked it and Carpenter helped with this, and they did that to make
sure everything was protected and nothing was damaged or stolen, and that was what she requested, and they did that. So they had to put everything back up, They had to hang pictures on the wall, they had to new furniture, they had to get everything back in order. Nancy had washed all of sister's linens and she had put them back in the house instead of having them in the basement where they'd been stored. And everything was just put back in order, and so they were in the hotel
hoping that everything was okay. And what ultimately happened was that Sunday, when Carpenter and Trey traded vehicles back, Carpenter handed him an envelope on which Fister had written on the back that they owed her about fourteen thousand dollars in damages. The damageards were totally totally made up. They weren't There wasn't anything significance they had done that would
have caused them to owe her fourteen thousand dollars. But what she said was was that since they hadn't gotten their spot equipment out of her home yet, which they hadn't even had a chance to use because as it turned out, there was a water problem that wouldn't let them set it up. She was going to hold on to that equipment, and it was about one hundred hundred
and fifty thousand dollars worth of equipment. And so what Tray realized, and he didn't share this with Nancy because Nancy was becoming depressed over the whole situation, what Tray realized was that if Fister kept that equipment, they wouldn't be able to support themselves.
Now, they did talk to some people. They did talk to Susan Worcoh And again there's dispute on what was said in the phone call, but apparently the sun Sam said, you know, if anything goes wrong there, if anything's taken from there, they'll blame you. So in response to what Nancy said she heard from Sam, what did they do in terms of contacting the police and why?
Well, yeah, and that was a very important, important part of a story that a lot of the media didn't have. They didn't have the details of when they reported on
this case. But Nancy actually called an attorney because a couple of people, including one of her sister's closest friends, advised her to check with an attorney and see what their rights were, and also to call the sheriff's department and ask if they would send a deputy up when they interacted with sister after her return, so that there would be you know, projection there if she grew angry
and accused them of anything. So Nancy made that call to the show department, and she called twice two days in a row, and she was told that what they had to do was show up and if there was a problem then the police would come to their assistance.
At that time, at that moment in time, Because this will be important. What was Trey's styler's health? What was his actual health like? And in terms of his bad health, what did that prevent him from doing?
In practical terms, Well, his health was it was bad.
I don't think it was as bad as everyone thought it was. And I'm not sure if I'm answering your question correctly, so he might need to redirect me. But he was still having trouble to some extent with stairs.
But he was seeing.
Lifting boxes as they were moving. People saw him lifting boxes and according to their son, Daniel. There would be times a lot of time when Trey actually could do a lot physically, but then he would pay for it because he would be so wiped out afterwards. Is that what you meant, right?
Yes? Yes, So let's talk about the moving day and what Trey and Nancy experienced, at least what especially what Nancy saw and experienced that day. They had hired some movers to help them with this move as well, So tell us about what happened that day and Nancy's experience in that move.
Okay, well, they had been moving for the four days, notice that they have, and then they were actually staying in a motel about Saturday night when sister came back. That was her first night in the hotel in the Asthmall. And then Sunday night they didn't hear from her, and on Monday morning they went up to her house to try to move the moving van that had gotten stuck in the snow and left there, and when they knocked on the door, she wasn't around. Well, actually, let me
let me step back Monday morning. Okay, let's see, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me Monday afternoon was when this happened. I'm sorry. Monday afternoon was when this happened, and they went up there and nobody came to the door, and so they let themselves in because they wanted to try to get the rest of their stuff, and they if she wasn't there, it would be easier for them
to get it. And what they were met with was a mess from Gaye, sister's labradoodle puppy, who had basically, you know, peted all over the place and made a mess everywhere and torn food down to eat, and he didn't have hardly any water. And so they were both upset over that and couldn't understand why sister, who really really loved this dog, would not have taken better care of him. And so they were immediately wondering, you know, what had she done? Why why was she not taking
care of the dog? Where was she? Had she run off with a guy she you know, gone somewhere and forgotten to tell somebody? They just didn't know.
With that as well, they saw that they thought it was unusual. But at the same time, you write in the book that part of Nancy's behavior was this sort of irresponsibility. So did they reconcile both of those things with a little bit of the information, despite the unusual nature of just leaving this dog to its own devices.
Yeah, they did, actually, and I'm sure it was easy to tell themselves, well, she's done this before. She had actually done it with her daughter when her daughter was little. That was something that was the history even wrote about in a semi autobiographical play. She wrote, but it was common knowledge that she had done that with her and daughter, and that she would, you know, go away, you know, now and then, and just no one would know where she was.
So they did.
They did say, well, that's probably what's happened. But at the same time, the dog not being cared for was what made them worry. But there was something wrong, and also there was a smell, and Nancy chopped it up to Gabe having gone to the bathroom in the house. Trey didn't have any sense of smell, so he couldn't smell it, but Nancy did, and she thought it was, you know, nothing major, but but you know, just a nasty smell. She cleaned everything up and took care of
it so that it would be in good shape. But she also called Carpenter and said, you know, I don't know what happened to Nancy, and we need to find out, you know, what to do about Gabe. And so they began trying to track her down through phone calls to people.
Now, Nancy Fister has a daughter named Julianna. So tell us who looks for Nancy first? And what do they do in that in that investigation to find out where she is first?
Well, on on Tuesday, Kathy Carpenter and Nancy talk repeatedly and they decide that if they can't find Kathy or Nancy by that evening, that Kathy will come home. Before she goes home, get the dog Gabe and takes him to her house. But what she does in the meantime is she talks to Patricia Stranahan. And Patricia Stranahan and her husband George raised Juliana. They were kind of like
her her godparents. And she just happens to come into the bank to make a deposit, and Kathy flaps her down and starts telling her that she can't find Nancy. And even you know, even Patty Stranahan doesn't worried because she knows Nancy's like that kind of flighty. And so Kathy says to her, would you please call and see if you can find out where she might be. And so that's the first thing that she does, and of course, later you know, that day and the next aid no one has found her.
So tell us about how everything proceeds in terms of that search and who actually makes this grim discovery.
Well, while Kathy's talking to Patty Stranahan, Nancy is talking to Susan Lascow and a couple of other people and says, you know, we don't know where where Nancy's at. We're surprised that she left Dave. It's just not like her. And you know, they went from Monday afternoon to Tuesday afternoon, to Tuesday evening to Wednesday morning, and then you know, it's it's kind of become apparent that something has happened to her because it's just not like no one to
hear from her. And so at that point on Wednesday afternoon, that was the day that Nancy and Kathy had decided that if no one had heard from sister they couldn't find her, that Kathy would get Gabe. So she actually does go to Nancy's Buttermilk homeb to get Gabe, and when she walks in, the smell just hits her in the face, and she realizes coming from the bedroom, and when she gets to the bedroom, she realizes that something's wrong.
She doesn't have the key to the closet, but that seems to be where the smell's coming from, so she went someone gets she. She's on the phone to her mom, to Patty Stranahan, to a couple of different people while she's doing this, and she's clearly already very worried, scared. She doesn't know what's going on. They're trying to tell her, Look, it's all right, you're just your imagining. She's getting the
best of you. She's starting to have a panic attack because she'd had breathing problems and actually had almost died while sister was in Australia and Trey had saved her life and gotten her medical care into the hospital. But she's having this breathing panic attack where she can't breathe, and then she goes and gets the key and comes back and finds sister's body in the closet.
Now, right away, the police are called and this main character, Joe Da Silva, and you mentioned a deputy's name as well, so they are familiar with Fister and so what is their reaction.
Well, the Salado and Brad Gibson. Brad Gibson's like the chief deputy or he's a detective. He's not the chief deputy, but he's a detective.
Then he.
They think that almost within I'd say within about two hours, they think that the Silar's had something to do with it. And that is in large part because when Kathy Carpenter finds sister's body in the closet, she loses it. She just has a nervous breakdown, almost on the spot. You can hear it in her voice on the nine one one call as she's driving away, fleeing for her own life, thinking that someone, the killer is probably after her and
she needs to get to safety. You can hear all that in her voice on the nine one call.
And she is.
When the police, when the police take her to the hospital. She's taken to the hospital and they kind of man guard there and try to get her to talk. You know, she's under she's heavily medicated, she's tranquilized. But what she says during that time while she's tranquilized is that they they said they were going to kill her, they hated her,
you know what if they did something to her. Now she's talking of her head, but the police immediately took it seriously and by the next morning having basically arrested the stylos.
Before we get to that, there's and again you we talk about you talk about it a little bit later, but there is a conversation, So Mayby could set me straight on this. There's a conversation with Patrick Karney. So who does does Nancy talk with Patrick Karney? Because this becomes very incredibly important. So when does this phone call happen? Before we talk about the contents of that, but when does that phone call? When was that phone call made?
Well, Patrick told police that sister left him a message at two thirty in the morning on Monday, February.
Twenty fourth, asking for a ride.
Later that day, he was in the hospital. He had shattered his collar bone and he tried to call her back on Monday night. Center text message didn't get her.
So when does he get to when does he actually have a conversation with Nancy Styler though about this or who does he have a conversation with?
Yeah, he did have a conversation with Nancy Styler, and that would have been let's see here. I believe that that was Tuesday, Yes, yeah, because he was in the hospital on Monday, and after they discharged him, he went to get his car and then he drove up to check on Fister because he thought that she needed a ride to town. That's what she'd said in her message
to him, because her car was snowed in. And so when he gets there, he sees that they're moving, and what he says to police at least is that it's interesting because what Patrick says in his interview with police is it's kind of it's not what they say back to him and said before you know it. The whole interview has the police basically leading him to say, well, yeah, they did say that she was there in the upstairs and for me not to go up there and check
on her. But that's not what Patrick told police. He basically told police, no, we didn't. They said that we didn't see her.
Yes, very interesting. What you have in the book is you talk about the specifics of how they did this in terms of they already assume that they have their suspect. Yeah, so then they ask leading questions and when he is unsure of certain things, they they disregard the inconsistencies, which again is not great police work at all, and then again which is not good police work, leading questions and never ask him for a polygraph, so never ever clarify
exactly what specifically he did say. And it's important because he is speaking about statements regarding Nancy and her whether Nancy Styler and Trey Styler even saw Nancy Fister. So it's very very important what he does say and what he doesn't say. And it's very interesting how you show how they can come to this kind of conclusion. So tell us about Joe de Silva, and you talk about the quest to have these people arrested sooner than they
actually were, but there was something holding them back. So tell us a little. It's very fascinating about this adamant Joe Deslva and his quest to have these people arrested very very quickly and have this case solved.
Well, they found her body around I'm going to say six o'clock on that Wednesday night, and by five point thirty am the next morning on Thursday, they were busting into the hotel room where the stylers were and they immediately you have them both get naked, take pictures of them, which was just completely beyond police protocol for male officers to be even in the room when that happens to
a female suspect. And then they take them, separate them, question them, and DiSalvo is involved in the questioning of Trey, and interestingly Nancy doesn't give the same kind of treatment trade but DiSalvo it's basically in Trey's fay saying we know you did this, we know your life helped, we know you're responsible. Tell us why you did it, tell us what happened. He takes more of an active role in the investigation that most sheriffs do that I've been familiar with in my in my work.
You also talk about the things that he does say when he's yelling in his face, is that we have the DNA on you.
And.
Also that you failed the polygraph. You don't talk about that time of whether that's true or not, but it seems like that's not true at that point, is it.
No no DNA at that point the DNA takes longer than they had time to get DNA.
See that was failed the polygraph at that sorry, did he fail the polygraph at that time as well?
We don't know because the defense team was never provided with the results of the polygraph.
Now you talk about the ordeal, and you describe in great detail this ordeal at the motel with Trey and Nancy. So you also talk about again their naivity before they contact their son Daniel, or Nancy talks to her son Daniel about they just being cooperative. Again, many people are familiar with this sort of thing where people think they're innocent. Well, jeez,
I'm going to be exonerated very quickly. So tell us a little bit about this naivity and their approach in terms of not calling a lawyer right away.
Well, it was the same thing with Kathy Carpenter. But they felt like they were innocent. They didn't have anything to hide, they were telling the truth. And so why did they even meet an attorney, Because innocent people don't
go to jail. And so even though I believe Nancy especially was in a state of shell shock from what happened that morning, being forced to stand naked in front of a room full of mail officers and have her pictures taken, I believe that her tone of voice and some of this came from the investigator that worked for the defense, David Olmstead. You know, it was just they
were so respectful and they were appalled. They couldn't understand why they were being treated that way, but they were so respectful and they wanted to help, you know, they were willing to do whatever they could to help. Nancy was like, you know, I'll tell you anything you need. I want to help find her. We've been worried about her for the last three days.
In this investigation too, police do find many many people that had the same kind of again sentiment that they would like to kill these people or wring their neck. But with that information, the police did not look at anyone else as a possibility and in fact tell us about the theory that they have in regards to who murdered. In total, who murdered Nancy Fister and why.
He is just really bizarre. It goes beyond any police work I've ever seen before. But there were several people who said that they harbored ill will towards Fister. They even said the same thing that Nancy Styler did, I'd
like to kill her. There were many strange men that she had slept with over the years, and all of them there was even a serial killer, one woman called and gave them a tip that there was a serial killer who had attacked women that looked and were about the same age as Fister, and the police followed up on those leads tap heartedly, but they never ever questioned or gave telegraphs to any of the people, including Patrick Carney, who admitted that, you know, he took this draft to
dinner every Thursday night and that now she would never stick her hand out to pay, that he always was expected to pay the bill. Or another friend, a male friend, that would you know, take her home and make sure she got to bed safe after she was on a bender. The police never ever looked at those people seriously, even though you know, to my way of thinking as an investigative reporter, it seems like they were equally they were they were equally possible suspects to the Stilers. So what
the police did instead was just bizarre. They looked at the fact that the Stilers and Carpenter had traded cars. They looked at the fact that when Nancy went into the motel to get the motel room, she wrote down on her the intake sheet that they were driving at
Subaru because they were they were driving Carpenter's Subaru. They looked at the fact that Nancy and Kathy had exchanged a lot of text messages about how Nancy had been sixteen Kathy's care and makeup, and Kathy was really appreciative of that, and everybody was telling her how great she looked. They looked at all those things which were in and of themselves nothing that would have anything to do with sister's murder at all. They looked at the as a conspiracy to kill the woman.
As a result, there are arrests made, and as such, tell us about that, but also tell us about the hammer that's found on February twenty eighth.
Well Nancy and Trey, even though it was not officially labeled on arrest on that Thursday morning, when the police came into their motel room, it wasn't arrest because they were detained and they couldn't leave. But then the police let them go because they really had no evidence that night, and then they arrested them again the following Monday. By then, there had been DNA found both sisters and Trays in a garbage bag where some of sisters and Styler's belongings
had been tossed. The defense team thought that the stylers at that point were being set up when they came into the case because there was nothing of Carpenter's found, and they thought perhaps Carpenter was setting them up. But she was arrested eleven days later, as you know, part of the conspiracy that the three of them had supposedly had to kill sister.
But this hammer that was.
Found in this trash bag that was dumped in a Carbondale garbage can, and Carbondale is the little town that is outside of Aspen, and it's it's it's actually just the little town where the astronaut lodges the stylers were staying in and the trash can wasn't too far from their motel, so that looked really suspicious. But the hammer had been used by Trey both when sister left and he was doing different things to the house to take the pictures down off the wall, but it was definitely
used right before she came back. Of course, they had to take all those pictures out of storage and hang them back up on the walls.
Again, Why was that hammer so important in terms of evidence or did they feel.
Because it was it was the murder weapon, it was what had they found some of Hister's DNA on it, and it was the murder weapon. That's what they That's a conclusion they came to.
Now you have a very profound this is a very profound book, but very profound moment in the book where the detectives the police are looking at Nancy as this accomplice. They have, like you say, evidence that links trade. They believe, and they believe that based on witnesses, that he has the ability, despite talking about a disability, that to be able to do this. So they have a meeting with Nancy and they show her the crime scene photos and they're gauging her reaction. Tell us about that.
Yeah, Garth McCarty wanted her to defense attorneys. He and he actually said he could not get out of his mind the response that he saw on Nancy's face when he brought his iPad with all of photos from the crime scene and saw her basically look through them. And he said, for probably twenty thirty minutes she was silent. And he said, Nancy Styler is just not a woman that doesn't speak. She speaks, you know, a lot, She
talks a lot. She's a very social person herself. But he said he could tell by the horror that he saw on her face, that there was no way she had ever seen that dead woman. So at that point he believed conclusively that she was innocent.
Now with this you talk about the day that she gets information. I guess I'm obviously fast forward here. But how do they get to the point where Nancy Styler is being released? And again another profound part of the book where she is told she is being released and believes in her mind again naivity, that her and Trey are going to finally walk out of this sell this
jail exonerated. So tell us about what circumstances lead to Nancy being released, and tell us about that scene that you create in the book.
Well, all along, Nancy has been saying to anybody that would listen, and look, when the police gets the DNA, science is going to prove that we didn't do this, because there's no way that the DNA will lie at the evidence, the medical or not the medical. But the science is not going to prove that we did it because we didn't. The police will know that, so we'll get out. But then they didn't get out until finally
after a little over one hundred days. That's Kruea, which Nancy's other defense attorney, shows up in our cell one morning and has a change of clothes that she's gotten for at a thrift shop, some flip flops, and a letter, and she explains to Nancy. Garth gets it shortly after, and by that time, Beth had explained to Nancy that she's being released, the chargers will be dropped, and that Tray had pled guilty to get her release and to
have the police exonerate her. And so she reads the letter, and the letter sounds like Trey has basically taken the fall to get her out of prison or get her out of jail. At that time, she is immediately horrified and her attorneys by then, the two of them are there together, Garth and Beth, and they are terrified by her reaction because she's crying. She can't understand, she doesn't
know what she's really what he's really done. She can't understand or make sense of it, and they're afraid that she is going to do something to sabotage his confession. They don't know what, but you know, they asked that the jail officials keep an eye on her until she's released that day because They don't want her to do anything that would be there would be, you know, out of her head, some type of crazy reaction in response to what Trey did. But by confessing.
Now her reaction again the audience might be asking, well, what again a confession? But he writes a three page letter, and what exactly is in that letter? And again, because it will be evident that there's a reason why Nancy doesn't either completely believe it or believe it to be a confession, or has some idea that maybe Trey is falling on his sword, as you mentioned in the book, tell us what's written in that letter and why it isn't so clear exactly what he is seeing in that letter.
Because he tells her that I know you're innocent, and I know that I'm innocent. You should believe that the basically I think that's what you're referring to.
Is that right?
Right? So she's still not clear. She's again, to add to her horror, is that she's finally being released, but her husband, who's disabled, her soulmate, the person that she loves and believes is innocent, is still in this jail. So she's devastated. Even though she's elated, to finally be out and to be treated like a human being again and afforded those little comforts like bed sheets and clean clothes and pillows.
Right, it's like simultaneously the best and the worst day of her life together wrapped up him on.
Now she is told that she is to be released, and she is released, and that she's also told that Trey is going to plead guilty and receive a twenty year sentence, and again incredible in the book where the lawyer tells Nancy, Jesus is a this is a fantastic deal that he's getting. Tell us a little bit about that.
Well, Beath and Garth don't want her to do anything to compromise, to try to like, you know, they thought they had this thought. And Garth told me that she might suddenly decide to plead guilty to keep Trey from having to take the fall for her. She truly thought that her husband, this man that she'd only ever been with intimately since she married him, and the thing was true of him, that he loved her so much that he was willing to take the fall so that she
could be free. And she, you know, couldn't comprehend that he would do that she was also terrified because of his tendency to have depression. And I'm not sure, am I getting it what you're thinking of? Dan?
Yes? Yes, Now tell us how the whole entire case and trial proceeds from this point, with Trey deciding to confess, with Nancy distraught with the constant contact with their grown son Daniel.
Uh.
There you do talk about in the book also that again if police didn't look at people that really had a hate on for Nancy Fister, including her own sister Suzanne. So tell us how what happens next in this case.
Well, you can imagine that their son Daniel and his mom Nancy were just beside themselves. But at the same time, Daniel couldn't understand why his dad would pray a letter like that if he hadn't actually he thought that there was something that wasn't quite right. And so the two of them decide that they were going to fight to
get him free. And this is a family who had been involved in the legal system for probably fifteen years in terms of fighting, first one battle to get the rights to the computer software, then another battle for a malpractice against the bat they corrupt attorney, and then there was a house that they had lived in and gotten poisoned from carbon monoxide, and they looked at that as being a possible legal action. So they'd been involved with different lawyers, all of whom had mostly not been able
to help them in one way or another. And they've been left in, you know, a destitute situation and out all their money basically. So they told his attorney, Tina Fang, that they were going to fight to free him. And at that point she went to Tray and told him that. And then do you want me to ultimately say how it turned out?
That's up to you.
Do we want to keep it read?
I know that we talked about the interview. We mentioned that, the interview that he has on his deathbed. So maybe let's not, you know, at least something for somebody to discover, but tell us about how his health gets and why does his health get to such a credible dire state so quickly? Is there some again, I mean it made me sound like an obvious question, but.
Oh well, yeah, I mean, Trey is stuck in prison and he calls it an intellectual wasteland. When I interviewed him in April, I spent about nine hours that day in the prison. Eight of those hours we were talking and he was being videotaped during our interview. But you can tell from what little bit he was able to do inside the prison. First of all, his wife had no money because when she was arrested, you know, she
couldn't work. When she got out, she had a record she couldn't that record wasn't immediately expunged and the case field so anytime she would try to go work to get work, you know, any employers who did a background check would find that she was, you know, had a charge of murder against her. So she was living back home in Boston with her mother. Had no money to
speak of. And most inmates have family members. I don't know if most of them do, but some of them have family members who will pay for things like them to have a TV or to have a newspaper delivered, things like that. And he had no money because Nancy
had no much. And so he was this very very intellectually stimulated person who for the first time in his life, had nothing to stimulate him, and he was living inside a prison where the only job he had that they would give him was basically to wipe down his cell, which just took a few minutes a day. That was it.
That's the only worthwhile means of spending his time he had every day, and he was simply desperate to get out and to be with his wife, the woman that he loved more than anything else in the world.
And so what did he do in terms of that quest?
Ultimately, yes, well, he talked about He wrote letters to his attorney, Kina Fang, He talked to other attorneys, and nobody would talk to him. He wanted to try to appeal. He basically confessed to Nancy. I'm not sure how much to say that, but he eventually to his own life.
Of course, now maybe we should have left that as a spoiler, you know, not a spoiler. But sorry, that's okay, It's okay, because what I wanted to also say that the part of this, what we've kind of not talked about at all, is the media and how they treated this case and how they treated this couple and their involvement in this as well. In terms of maybe, uh yeah, tell us a little bit about this. I don't want to even try to forge a.
Question on that one secondary to the.
Shoddy police work that was done, because it's clear to me after looking through the police and the prosecutions own internal documents in this case, that they had tunnel visions from the from the from the moment they found sister's body. The police did. But secondary to that grave mistake and unsure professional behavior was the media's inability or unwillingness to try to track down people who would tell the real
story about the stylers. Now, there were some media outlets that did, probably the Denver newspapers did a better job, certainly than the ass The newspapers did, but they took at faith value everything the police said. And part of the problem was that the case had been sealed at the request of the defense, which didn't help the stylers any But really, the media didn't try very hard to point out that this woman had a problem, that there were a lot of people in town that didn't like her.
You know, it's not easy to speak ill of the dead.
But it is true.
In fact, one of the people that I interviewed said there was no love loss between Nancy Fister and the people in Athens. It's not easy to find anybody who by that time in her life considered her a friend. There were people that, yeah thought that she was great to have at a party, but those people didn't consider
her a friend. And so for the media not to dwell on any of that, but to point out that she was, you know, Asthen's child, you know, and to really they really laid it out as though this woman had been horribly wronged by these two people and Kathy Carpenter and how could anybody do this to our daughter whose parents started but Buttermilk Mountain And they just kind of they just didn't do a really good job of investigating her. They could have found out a lot of this themselves.
Now, you spoke about your interview with Trey Styler, how heartbreaking was that knowing everything that you knew about Nancy's predicament, the treatment of Nancy, the treatment of Trey, and this again person that you just mentioned that there was no love lost over this woman. She was a ptagonistic, belligerent, a woman, entitled woman. But tell us about how how because you talk about in the book, how heartbreaking was it to speak to him under all of those conditions.
Well, he was a pretty birken man, and yet he still had some hope that he would see his wife again. I think he was playing to a thread by that time. In fact, he broke down and cried several times during the interview. Part of his tears came when he was talking about his early days as a doctor who had to proclaim these babies. He had to basically announce them dead, these little tiny babies that were born and had heart
problems and really didn't have a chance of living. But he would have to bring in the parents and dress the babies up and then you know, issued the death certificates, and how difficult that was and just a horrible part.
Of his job.
But then he broke down because he realized that the date of the interview was the anniversary date of when he means he went on their first date. And he went home that night and called his mother and said, I met the woman I'm going to marry. And he said, I can't believe that I've basically trying to live my life with her, and my son won't talk to me and I'll never see him again, and you know, look
at what I've done in my family. And so I tried to tell him, you know that there was still hope, and you know that he would didn't see Nancy again. It wasn't that she didn't want to see him. She just didn't have any money to fly out to the prison, and in time she would have, and that she definitely still loved him and wanted to come out and see him. And he also felt because by then he wasn't getting any responses from his attorney and he couldn't get any
other attorneys to hear him. And he actually believed that he had reason to appeal because he felt like the police had and the prosecutions had gotten him to they'd enticed him into confessing because he in turn got Nancy free. That was the price of his confession, and so he actually believed that there was room for an appeal. And I think, I don't care. You know, any inmate should have legal legal counsel, and at that point in his life he didn't, and so he was really desperate. It
was just a heartbreaking day. It's really terrible, especially, you know, considering what happened later.
In the end of your book, you talk about the tunnel vision that impaired law enforcement officers who worked the case, and if they would have waited for the results of the Styler's phone analysis before rushing to their conclusion, that they would have known that Nancy was telling the truth, and the arrest would have never happened. Could you explain that for us?
Yes, the defense team had an analyst look at the phone records. I mean, the prosecution did the same thing, but in the prosecution records the case files, there was no evidence, and if it was there, they didn't share it with the defense. And that's possible because there were a lot of things that were done wrong with this
case from the police and prosecution side. But the defense found that there was a cell phone that put Nancy in her motel room the morning of February twenty fourth, that Monday morning when sister actually was being murdered, and the police the only thing they looked at was one of Nancy's cell phones, and she had two. One of her cell phones was being pinged. It was pinging from
the area of sister's home. But what they either didn't realize that they didn't share with the defense was that her second self time was making fun calls from the hotel room at the same time sister was being killed. And that's because Nancy Styler was there making his calls for different things that she was trying to talk down that morning.
Right yea incredible, incredible story. What are your what were your conclusions after this? After? I know this is every true crime book, every book that you write takes a little bit out of you. And I've talked to other authors that some books just send them over the edge and they don't want to write anymore true crime. What was your conclusion out of this and just what did you take away from this case after immersing yourself in it so heavily and writing this book.
Well, I took away a couple of things. Yeah, it was very draining, especially after I did the interview with Trey, and I may take a break from true crime. I mean, I've done two pretty horrific true crime books lately back to back, and it does take a lot out of you. But the takeaway, I think is that we may know the people that we love very very well, better even than they know themselves, but that doesn't mean that we can save them, and it also doesn't mean that they
can save themselves. And sometimes people simply crack and there's nothing we can do about it.
Well, yeah, this is incredible. I've got to say that this is one of those cases where you really do see a love story here. Very enduring love story and a story of success of nice people set to do some really great things, a nice family, nice intentions and circumstances, and their life goes in this particular case, from fairy tale to nightmarish in short order. And Nancy was released from prison. But I'm sure that everybody involved with this was touched and was led down from that again, that
fairy tale life to this nightmarish existence. And no good came of this really out of this story other than again to show the heights that people can go from from that again fairy tale life to this nightmare ending. So again, not a happy story at all, but is I don't know, maybe a cautionary tale for some of us, and certainly an incredible tale. And I want to thank you for coming on and talking about guilt by matrimony and true an incredible story.
Thank you so much, Dan, I really appreciate it.
Well. You have a great evening, and I hope to talk to you again soon, and again thank you for this interview and you have a great evening.
You too, Thank you, Dan.
Good night,