Halloween Morning Horror: The Truth About Kristen Trickle's Death

It's Halloween morning, 2019, in Hays, Kansas, and it's still dark outside, and it's cold. Inside a house in town, a phone alarm keeps going off. It rings, then it stops, and then it starts ringing again. No one who lives there is reaching over to turn that alarm off. The house is full of people, but they're people that don't belong there. Police officers, first responders, and eventually a detective. And at some point, it's the detective who picks up that phone and silences the alarm. That phone belongs to a 26-year-old woman who lives in that house, and she set that alarm the night before so she could get up for work on time. But she never made it. Out in the kitchen, there's Halloween candy set out. It's waiting for that evening when kids in costumes are supposed to start knocking on the front door. But instead, it was a 911 call that brought every person standing in that home to that front door. Evil has a voice. Some confess. Some beg for mercy. Others take their secrets to the grave. But death doesn't always bring silence. And if you listen closely, you may still hear the whispers of the wicked. Not that I would. You never do. No, I never do. So buy your car today on Carvana. Delivery fees may apply. See our seven-day return policy at carvana.com. Tammy regularly hauls stuff to her kids at college. That's why she shops at BJ's Wholesale Club, saving up to 25% off grocery store prices. Beef jerky, microwave meals, laundry pods, even they can't screw up. Have you met my kids? And with BJ's gas, she gets there for less. They call me the road warrior. This is your home, road warrior mom. Home of the save. Join for just $20. Join for just $20 at bjs.com slash mesquite and save 10 cents per gallon for six months. Open soon. Limited time offer. New members only. BJ's, home of the save. Hi, everyone. Welcome back to my channel. And if you have never been here before, I am Kimberlea. It's nice to finally meet you. We just got back from spending almost two weeks in London. And I have to tell you, traveling internationally with your entire family, especially with a toddler, really makes you realize how many things can go wrong. When you're away from home, if you know, you know. And one thing I absolutely do not want to worry about when I'm traveling is staying connected or figuring out what to do if something unexpected does happen, which is why I want to tell you about our sponsor for today. And that is Olifly and specifically the Ultraplan by Olifly. Now, you might already know Olifly from their eSIMs, which give you unlimited data when you're traveling internationally. But the Ultraplan from Olifly takes that away from you. And it's a great way to get in touch with your family and a whole lot further. You get unlimited data and over 160 destinations. You can share your connection with your other devices. 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And if you're planning a trip, you can use my link and code Kimberlea in my description box to get 10% off all the fly plans for your first 12 months or 5% off their classic eSIMs because traveling should be about enjoying where you are and not worrying about everything that's going on. So thanks so much to all the fly for making today's video possible. Now let's get back into the case. I don't know if you just saw this year's Halloween intro and the name was picked by one of you, the winner of my annual Halloween series naming contest. So I'm going to tell you now that the winner is Louise J. Not only do you get to have an entire intro that you just saw made out of the name that you chose, but you will get a fall care package that I put together personally for you as well as my favorite and exclusive t-shirt design that will have my name and your name on it, including the name that you picked for this series and original artwork as well. So thank you for everyone that always participates every single year. And actually somebody asked if I would eventually make the t-shirts from the previous year for sale on dark lividi.com. If you've never been there, that's where all my merchandise is. I have not made a decision about that yet because I do want everyone that wins to have something that nobody else does because then I kind of want to be fair. But I am thinking about reworking those designs and making them original with the same name of each series with something new and special. So look out for it if we decide to go forward with that. And speaking of dark lividi, there is a winner on that channel as well. And they will be announced in our very first Halloween video. And that intro and name is picked by my husband. I don't even know what it is. So that is a surprise to me too. But let's get into this case. I want to take you back to the 911 call that brought all those officers to that home in Kansas that Halloween morning. The call came in at 5 37 a.m. On the line was a man named Colby Trickle. He was in absolute hysterics. He was crying. He could hardly get the gun. His wife shot herself. The dispatcher tried to get him to explain what happened and asked whether the two of them had been fighting. And Colby's answer was really hard to make out. But it sounded like he was saying, I didn't do anything. Officers from the Hays Police Department were sent to that house. And when they pulled up, Colby was already outside on the front porch. He told them there was blood all over inside. And when they asked about the gun, he told them he didn't know where it was. One of the first to arrive on scene was Sergeant Brandon Hull. He was the first to hop in. While Colby stayed outside, Sergeant Hopman went into the house. He made his way to the primary bedroom. And that is where he found Colby's wife, Kristen, lying on their bed. She was almost entirely undressed. She was wearing only her underwear and lying across her stomach was a silver revolver. Now, Sergeant Hopman looked at her for injuries. And the only one he could find at the time was a single gunshot wound underneath her chin. But then he noticed her jaw was moving. He realized that Kristen was still alive. So he carefully moves the firearm away. He picks Kristen up. He moves her to the living room floor to perform CPR. But unfortunately, there was nothing he could do to save Kristen's life. And he had to walk out of that door to the porch and tell Colby that his wife was dead. Now, that part was captured on body cam audio. So I'm going to play it for you. I want to tell you who Kristen was before we dive into this case. And it is going to be very intense very quickly. As soon as I set up the scene for you. So let's jump in. Kristen Marie Guy was born on August 20th of 1993. And she was born on August 20th of 1993. At the Naval Hospital on Camp Pendleton, the Marine Corps base in Southern California, to her parents, Darren and Christine Guy. Kristen's dad was in the military, which is why she was born in California and why they were stationed there. And that may have been where things began. But Darren's career brought them all over from California to Maryland, Colorado, where Darren even studied in culinary school. But eventually they landed in Hayes, Kansas. Kristen was a big blue eyes and bangs, sort of like a little Cabbage Patch doll. Maybe that is totally dating me, but in the 80s and 90s, we had these really adorable Cabbage Patch kids. She reminded me of one of them with her haircut and her big eyes and her cute little cheeks. However, when Kristen was two years old, her mother actually left. And from then on, she was raised mostly by her father. Kristen also had two sisters, Kaylee and Corey, and a brother, Steven, who unfortunately and sadly had passed away before she did. But she was still thriving. In kindergarten, she listed her favorite food as cake and her favorite person as her dad. Her early childhood was not an especially stable one. And when Kristen was 17, she moved in with her aunt and uncle. That's Deline and Brant Rice and their children. Now, Brant was a pastor and their house was a busy and loving one, full of children, full of routine, full of security. And for Kristen, that turned out to be exactly what she wanted. Brant said that Kristen loved being with their family. And what she loved the most about living there was actually the peace in their home. Kristen didn't just live with the Rices. She became part of their family. I mean, she already was family, but part of their immediate family, almost like a daughter. She slid into the everyday life of that household and she got especially close with the kids. Her younger cousin, Chloe, never really thought of Kristen as a cousin at all. To Chloe, Kristen was like her older sister. It was someone she looked up to. Chloe remembered that Kristen was always there to make her smile and to make her feel important. That was a big part of who Kristen was. Even with how her childhood had started, she smiled constantly. She knew how to find her own happiness. And her aunt Deline said it was hard to find a single picture of Kristen where she wasn't fully and completely smiling. Kristen finished school at Hayes High School and graduated from the University of New York. With a class of 2013, a classmate remembered the two of them were always joking and laughing in high school. And he also remembered that Kristen cared about people and not just people that she called her friends, but she cared about her enemies too, which could of course be looked at as kind of odd, but she was just a kind-hearted person and a lovable person. After graduation, Kristen spent about a year at North Central Kansas Technical College, where she earned a certificate in business administration. The things that Kristen loved were simple, and the people who knew her remember them clearly. She loved going for drives and just being out in the car, driving around, and also watching movies. She loved family gatherings, making people laugh, and sitting around and watching a good film. She was especially close with her grandma. She helped her whenever she could and spoiled her every chance that she got. And Kristen loved animals. Her dogs. Above all else. She had already sadly lost one of them, Little Joy, but she adored her two others, Cooper and Roxy. And she didn't treat them like pets. She treated them like her own babies. She didn't have any kids of her own. So these were her children. And the people who knew her described her the same way over and over again. Sweet, positive, affectionate, and someone who genuinely loved people. And then there were her eyes. I told you. She had blue eyes. Big blue eyes when she was little. Kristen had piercing blue eyes. Something that was really hard not to notice about her. And someone did. When Kristen was about 18, she met a young man named Colby Trickle, who was exactly the same age. Now Colby went to the church where Kristen's Uncle Brant was a pastor. Colby played the guitar on the worship team. It's the band that plays the worship music during church services. And he also wrote his very own songs. And that is what initially caught Kristen's attention. Brant said that Colby wowed Kristen with his guitar playing and the songs that he had written. She thought that he was really talented, had a beautiful voice, and they were immediately drawn to one another. And as the two of them got more serious, Brant and D'Lynn weren't sure that she was ready for a relationship that was moving so quickly. Kristen didn't care. She knew what she wanted, and she wanted to stay. With Colby. And about two years later, on April 25th of 2014, when Kristen was only 20 years old, the two of them got married. So they were really serious about each other. Now soon afterward, Colby enlisted in the Army Reserve. And at some point after the wedding, he and Kristen actually moved almost 300 miles east, out of Hays, and into the Kansas City area. Colby then worked a service, and Kristen found work at a vet clinic where she would spend her days around what she loved the most, animals. Her co-workers there absolutely adored her, and they said they loved working with Kristen. But the truth is, it is hard being independent so young, for anyone actually. And life in Kansas City was a struggle for the two of them. They tried. But in early 2019, Kristen and Colby packed up their life in Kansas City, and moved back to the Hays area, where they had more connections, family nearby, and a place that was cheaper than living in the city. For Kristen, coming back meant coming home to the people that she loved the most. She started going to church again, at the same church where her uncle Brant was a pastor. She was back around her aunt Delynn, who was like a mother to her, and back with her cousins, and the big, noisy family gatherings that she had always loved so much. Brant and Delynn were thrilled to have her back. Brant said that being around Kristen again felt like it had when she was living in their home, and they missed that. Soon, Kristen did find a job at a Walmart supercenter in town. She was actually working at the garden center. Now, this was temporary until she could do what she really wanted to do, what she loved. And as I told you, animals were a huge part of Kristen's life for as long as anyone could remember. And by the fall of 2019, she had started that into a real plan. She had spent years around animals at the veterinary clinic in Kansas City, and she knew how much that work and care it took. And now, she wanted to do something on her own. She was going to open a pet boarding business and grooming, a place where people could leave their dogs and know that they would be cared for and loved while they were away. Kristen wasn't just talking about this. She had already picked the place out. There was a little house just south of town with a small barn sitting behind it, and her plan was to open a pet boarding business. Kristen was to turn that barn into the boarding area for the animals that she would be taking care of. Dylan remembered Kristen telling family all about it. To the people closest to her, Kristen seemed to know exactly what she wanted for her future, and she was happy that fall. She was working hard trying to save money, and she was home, back in Hays with family. She had her dogs, she had the house she was currently living in, and she had a plan for a business that she was going to make all hers. She had a plan for a business that she was going to make all hers. Her family remembers her in those months as someone who was genuinely excited for what was coming next. That's why what happened on Halloween was such a shock to everyone who loved Kristen. So let's go back there. The year is 2019. Halloween fell on a Thursday. Kristen was scheduled to work that morning, and at some point the night before, she set an alarm on her phone so she would be up in time to get ready. At five, she was ready to go to work. She was ready to go to work. At 5:37 on that morning of October 31st, 2019, a call came in to 911 in Hays. It was Colby. And from the very first second that call, he is hysterical. He tells the dispatcher, my wife shot herself. The dispatcher tried to have Colby explain what was going on, and at one point, she asked him whether he and his wife had been fighting. Colby's answer was hard to make out through all of his crying, but it sounded like he was saying, I didn't do anything. The dispatcher told him to check his wife for a pulse. Now, I told you this, but now I'm going to go into more details. Officers from the Hays Police Department were sent to that home. It was dark, and it was cold. And when the first officer pulled up, Colby was outside waiting. He told them he had been asleep, and that he woke up to his ears ringing. He told them there was blood all over inside of their bedroom. When they asked him where the gun was, he said he didn't know. And Sergeant Brandon Hopman was one of the first officers who responded that morning. He went inside, made his way to the bedroom, and that's where he found Kristen lying on the bed. She was almost completely undressed. She was only wearing underwear, and lying across her stomach was a large caliber revolver. This is a heavy gun. And at that moment, Sergeant Hopman looked her over for injuries, and the only one he could see at that point was a single gunshot wound underneath her chin. That's when I told you he saw her jaw move, and he realized that Kristen was still alive. So Sergeant Hopman picked her up after moving the revolver away from her. He carries her into the living room, puts her on the floor, and starts CPR. More first responders came in, and they took over. They worked on Kristen in that room, trying to keep her alive. Colby was still outside, while the first responders were working on his wife. He was out in the living room, and they took over. They worked on Kristen in that the porch with the other officers. Inside that house, there was a sound that kept going off over and over. A phone alarm. It was Kristen's. Her phone was sitting there on her bedside table, and the alarm just kept ringing while the first responders were in that house. Now, by that point, Detective J.V. Burkholder had been called to the scene, and at some point, he picked up that phone, and he silenced the alarm himself. The first responders, sadly, could not save Kristen. She died right there in her own living room. She was 26 years old. Sergeant Hauptman went back out on the porch, and he was tasked with the heartbreaking job of having to break the news to Colby. Now, his body camera wasn't recording video that day, only audio. But we have that conversation, but it only exists as sound. Sergeant Hauptman said hello. He introduced himself. He told Colby his name, and that he was a sergeant working that day on the case. And then he told him that Kristen had died, and that he was so sorry. And Colby started to cry. He was asking, are you sure? Are you sure? And Sergeant Hauptman hugged him. I'm going to play that for you now. Hey, it's Kelly Rowland. You may not know this, but I have eczema. So I get how it can steal your time. But why let eczema take over when you can talk to your doctor about Eblis? 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He enters his vehicle information on Carvana. An offer appears in minutes. Remarkable. He squints, reads it again, smiles and says, dang, that's a good offer. The highest form of approval. No haggling. No hassle. No one called him boss. He's still on the couch. Astonishing. Sell your car today on Carvana.com. Pickup fees may apply. My name is Brandon Hopman. I'm the sergeant working today. She died. And I'm so sorry. Are you sure? Are you sure? Sergeant Hopman then asked Colby if he would be willing to come down to the police station and tell investigators everything he remembered from the night before and that morning. And Colby agreed right away. He was cooperative from the start. Now, before they left, officers went back in the house. They got him a pair of shoes and a jacket so that he would not be barefoot. And it was cold. And he was only wearing what he wore to bed, which was a tank top and pajama style pants. Now, at the station, Colby talked to investigators for more than 11 hours. They went over everything from who he was to how he met Kristen to their marriage, their jobs, where they lived before, where they were now, why they moved back. And of course, what led up to the night before. And then they went over the morning again and again with him. When he was asked what happened to Kristen, Colby didn't start with that morning. He went back to the night before and he started with coming home and taking out the trash. Just something mundane, something he does all the time. Then he told them about Kristen, how she had gotten home hours earlier from her shift in the garden center at Walmart. And the two of them had a normal night. They just played video games together. Colby said he went to bed before Kristen did. And the next thing he knew, he was waking up with his ears ringing. He looked over beside him in bed and he saw Kristen bleeding with a gun next to her. He told the investigators he got out of bed, ran to her side, and she was just looking at him. Now, he's crying while telling the investigator all of this. He said he ran to his phone. He called 911. And the dispatcher told him to check for a pulse. And he said he did. But he said he couldn't feel anything. The investigators asked him exactly where he checked. And Colby pointed to Kristen's neck, close to where she was actually bleeding from. They asked him where the gun had been when he found her. And Colby said it was lying by her on the bed, sort of beside her neck and head. And in a moment of despair, he explains picking up, pointing it to his own head, and he said he thought about using it on himself until the dispatcher said help was on the way. And he said that he thought that maybe they could save his wife. So what did he do? He lowered the gun, he put it back down, and he ran outside to wait for the police. I ran up to her and she was just looking at me. What did you do? I ran over to my phone, and I called 911. Where was the gun at? It was laying by her neck, I pulled it back. What did you do with the gun? I started to put it in my head. And when I was on the phone, they said they were sending people help. So I thought maybe they could help her. I mean, this seems pretty straightforward, yet heartbreakingly tragic, that Kristen had, for whatever reason, decided to leave this world and took matters into her own hands. That's what the scene was telling them, too. Back at the house, the Ellis County Coroner Lyle Nordhug had examined Kristen, and a self-inflicted gunshot wound was the most likely scenario. But Coroner Nordhug also looked for anything that would suggest somebody else had been involved. That's his job. He looked for things like defensive wounds, signs that Kristen had fought someone off right before she died, and he didn't find any. He also checked her body for older injuries, and he explained why. When someone has been in a relationship that includes physical violence, especially over a long period of time, there are often injuries at different stages of healing, a pattern that is written on someone's body. And he didn't see any of that either. There were no signs that she had been injured besides just the one entry wound that he could see underneath her chin. Coroner Nordhug looked at the wound itself, and he looked at the angle, and he believed the gun had been very close to Kristen's chin. In his experience, that wasn't unusual for someone using a firearm on themselves. With no signs of a struggle, and no signs of older injuries, Coroner Nordhug was leaning towards what seemed to be the most obvious case in the cause of Kristen's death. And I'm sure you know the options. Natural causes, accident, didn't seem like either of those, undetermined, not in this case. Homicide, didn't have the tickable signs, and suicide, yes. Now, all of this was happening while Colby was still at the police station, and the news had reached Kristen's family. Her aunt, Delynn, got the phone call from her own mother, and she described it as the worst phone call that anyone could ever get. Her mother told her that Kristen was dead, and that she had been shot. And Delynn's first reaction was, "What's going on?" And Delynn's first reaction was, "That can't be right." She told her mother, "It didn't even make sense. How would Kristen be in a situation where she would be shot by someone?" Because self-inflicted didn't even come to mind. When she heard that, she was like, "No, no, no. The investigators are leaning towards that?" She was stunned. To Brant and Delynn, that made even less sense to them than the rest of this. Brant and Delynn told investigators right away they did not believe it. Brant said that of every person he knew in the entire world, Kristen would be the very last one he would ever expect to take her own life. Because of the joy that she had for life, there was just no way. And these are the people who knew her the best. Delynn said it was completely out of character for Kristen, especially because she didn't run away from her problems. If she had any. And they did not know of anything she had issues about. Running or escaping wasn't how Kristen dealt with things. And the more they learned, the less any of it fit with the Kristen they always knew. The fact that it was a firearm was something that Delynn could not get over because she knew that Kristen was terrified of guns. Another thing that struck her as very odd was the way Kristen was found. The lack of clothing. Because if she had done this to herself, that meant she She would have known how she would have been found. And she was exposed. Dillon knew Kristen as someone who was very private about her body. And she said Kristen was very modest. Hearing that she was found with just her underwear on made no sense. Again, just too out of character. And if it sounds like I'm repeating myself, it's because I am. It's because her family kept saying the same thing. And then there were the things that Kristen loved. Brant and Dillon could not imagine Kristen leaving her family and her dogs behind without first making sure there was a plan where everything was taken care of. Brant said Kristen would never have taken her own life without tying up loose ends with her family and making sure her dogs had somewhere to go. There was just no way. Those dogs were her children. And then Brant and Dillon told the authorities something else. Something that had bothered them for years. It was about Colby. And the reason they brought it up was because investigators informed them that Colby had already told them Kristen had done this to herself. They started by telling investigators how they felt way back when Kristen first started dating Colby. There was their opinion that she was too young for such a serious relationship. But then once they started dating, they noticed he became possessive. For example, if she didn't answer her phone or one of his text messages right away because, come on, she was busy, she was at work, or she was just spending time with her family and she couldn't pick up her phone, he would get very frustrated with her to the point of anger. And Brant even said it seemed like Colby wanted Kristen had his every beck and call. They told investigators the two of them cared about Kristen like a daughter so they couldn't just sit there and not say something. So they sat her down and they told her they had very serious concerns about Colby. Now, Kristen had not taken that very well. She was really unhappy with them. And over time, she pulled away. Now, Brant actually believed Colby had convinced her that her own family was against her. And she separated herself from them because of that. And that distance was still there between them until Kristen and Colby moved back to Hays that year. And now they were close again. But now Kristen was dead. It just did not sit well with them. But three days after Kristen died, Coroner Nordhook made his official determination. Kristen Trickle's manner of death was not the same as her mother's. She was listed as self-inflicted. That was the official record. But a coroner's ruling doesn't close a police case, just so you know. It's a finding on the death certificate about how someone died. It isn't a legal judgment and it doesn't bind the police or the prosecutor. The police can keep investigating. Plus, before the ruling went on paper, investigators were already doing their due diligence, meaning they collected both Colby and Kristen's cell phones and they were scouring the scene for any clues to why this would happen. So they didn't know what would have happened and exactly how and when. All the things they normally do in any death investigation. This was all happening before the autopsy was even underway. Also, good investigators, and there were a couple of really good investigators on this case, they have instincts and they are observant and they don't take things on face value. Medical rulings and investigative rulings can look very different. Actually, a medical examiner usually relies on the investigative reports for their conclusions, but they don't take things on face value. It's because it matters, so they work together. And then there's something that's not always clear. And I learned this when I started researching death investigation and studying it for myself. Some states, and stay with me, have coroners and some have medical examiners or pathologists and some even have both. And I know this can be very confusing. I'm not going to go into an entire lesson, but I do think it's important for this case. A coroner and a medical examiner do basically the same job. They do the same job. They decide the cause and the manner of death when someone dies suddenly, violently, or unexpectedly. The difference is who holds the job and how they got it. In many states, the coroner is a locally elected official. And in a lot of places, the job requires no medical training at all, which might be surprising to you. Coroners have been funeral directors, sheriffs, nurses, or actually anyone who wins an election. So just think about that. When a coroner is not a doctor, which again might strike you as kind of odd, they hire a pathologist to do the autopsy. And then they make the legal determination about the death themselves. A medical examiner is appointed rather than elected. That's the difference. And they are usually and most likely going to be a board-certified forensic pathologist. They do the autopsy. They make the determination themselves. And so the medical expertise and the legal determination kind of sit with the same person. The federal government doesn't run death investigations. So each state is going to decide for itself how they want to run it. Some states have a single statewide medical examiner's office. Others leave it to counties. And some are a mixture of two with medical examiners in big cities and coroners in rural areas. I hope all that made sense because we are talking about that in this case. Rural states tend to keep coroners because forensic pathologists are scarce and they cost. A small county can't support one full-time medical examiner. So it uses a local doctor or an elected official. And then it has a contract for autopsies. And then it makes a contract with outside pathologists to do the autopsies. Kansas is one of those states. It is a coroner state. But I will have you know a much stricter version than most. Every judicial district has a district coroner. And the law requires that person to be a Kansas resident licensed to practice medicine and surgery. So the Kansas coroner I just told you about was a physician. But they're not necessarily forensic pathologists, just so you know. But here, Coroner Nordic was a physician and also a pathologist. And he made his ruling within three days. But that was before seeing any evidence other than Kristen's body. He didn't talk to her family. And that is a weakness on how. an investigation like this is coordinated. Not because of his medical credentials, just to be clear. The legal determination of cause of death doesn't bind the police, like I said. It doesn't mean that they cannot keep investigating. And the coroner can amend it at any point. So try to remember all of that. Detective J.B. Burkholder kept working this case anyway because he had those instincts and his own suspicions. Detective Burkholder had doubts from the beginning. The moment he walked into that house. And I really appreciate his observations. And I wonder if any of you noticed anything that stuck out to you. For me, it was the candy. And for Burkholder, it was the phone at first. The phone alarm that kept going off. The Hays Police Department handled several self-inflicted cases every single year. And he had worked plenty of them. In his experience, a woman, number one, using a firearm? No. That just was not. The typical method, especially in the face or head. And when asked why, he made it very clear. Women tend to care more about the way they look, even after death. So they prefer a different way, like pills, for example. And recall how Kristen's aunt and uncle said the lack of clothing stood out? That kind of goes to the same theory. Women care about what they look like. So that was a red flag. But the alarm going off stuck out to Burkholder. Kristen's alarm kept ringing that morning. Because it was set up so she could go to work. People usually don't care about the next of anything if their plan is to die. But I could also see the argument that it was a reoccurring alarm. I have one set every single day at the same time. And she did not have to set it the night before. Sometimes these choices happen quickly without much thought. So it actually didn't strike me as that odd. But it was just another thing on the list. But I don't know. I said the candy. And Burkholder mentioned the candy as well. And I have a picture. If you're watching, take a look. Kristen had taken the time to separate the Halloween candy into four separate bowls and kind of categorize them in a way. She had the chocolate bars, the Almond Joy, the Reese's in one, and some Fun Dip and gummies in another, and some Jawbreakers and Nerds in a third bowl, and then a mixture that came in a variety pack in the fourth bowl. And they were filled. They were filled to the top and ready for trick-or-treaters when she got home from work that evening. To Detective Burkholder, those things were things that a person would not do if they were planning to end their life. They were the things a person does when they expect to wake up the next morning and go to work and then come home. Makes sense, right? And there was the gun itself. This was a full-size.357 Magnum revolver. This is a 12-inch gun. It's heavy. When I saw it, I was like, oh, wow. I mean, that is a heavy-duty firearm. Detective Burkholder said it wasn't easy to handle at all, and Kristen was a very small woman. And Colby had described the bedroom as dark when he said he woke up and found her. So Detective Burkholder had a really hard time picturing Kristen specifically being able to get that weapon positioned underneath her chin, holding it steady in that position and pulling the trigger. Now, I would never want to demonstrate what he meant by this, but just imagine it's 12 inches long, so picture that. and it's two and a half pounds. It is a very awkward position, and you need to be precise, and you need to be steady. I looked it up. It said that you can compare the weight of it to a two-liter bottle of soda. So that's pretty heavy, and you're using one hand. And then there's the kickback that would occur. Now, usually a gun would fall out of your hand and next to you, but the issue is that Colby said he moved it. So now we have an altered scene to begin with, and then Kristen was moved into the living room to get medical attention. Colby's own account also bothered Detective Burkholder, who honestly became my favorite person on this case. Colby said that after he found Kristen, he picked up that gun. Remember that? He thought about turning it on himself, but then he put it back down, and he ran, outside. When Burkholder was informed that Colby put it down on top of his wife's stomach, that was unbelievable to him. He could not understand why he would lay that gun back down on top of her body. Now, off to the side, yes. On a dresser, sure. On the bed, even. But on her, no. That didn't seem right to him. Now, Sergeant Hopman, he was the first one there. He had his own questions about what he saw that morning. Disresponders were in that living room working on Kristen, doing CPR. Colby never pushed to be at her side, which he thought was extremely odd. These officers had been in plenty of these situations like this before, and loved ones usually have to be held back. They have to be told to step away so that they can perform medical care on the patient. But there was Colby out on that porch. And when he went out there, he noticed that Colby was just, talking casually about video games. Now, one of their body cameras was recording the audio, and it picked up an officer's conversation with Colby. The officer asked what kind of video games he and Kristen liked to play, and Colby was going into an entire conversation telling him all kinds, everything from Call of Duty to Minecraft. But why let eczema take over? take over when you can talk to your doctor about Eblis. Eblis, labrakizumab LBKZ, a 250 milligram per two milliliter injection, is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older who weigh at least 88 pounds or 40 kilograms with moderate to severe eczema. Also called atopic dermatitis that is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin or topicals or who cannot use topical therapies, Eblis can be used with or without topical corticosteroids. Respect your time. Introducing Pandora's Holiday Collection. This season, celebrate the ones you know by heart with a gift that says it all. From engravable pieces to festive charms to lab-grown diamonds, Pandora's jewelry is made for the ones who inspire you, who've been there through it all. Give a piece that says exactly what words can't. Pandora. More than a gift. Shop new styles in-store or online at pandora.net. To be discussing in a moment like that seemed kind of weird. But could he have been in shock? I mean, not everyone knows the right thing to say. But again, these were just things taken into consideration. But then there was Kristen's pulse. Colby said he had checked Kristen's neck right where she was bleeding. But the officers who saw Colby that morning right when they arrived didn't see any blood on him anywhere. And he called 9-1-1 while she was in the hospital. She was still alive. Without trying to perform CPR on her to see if there was a chance she could be helped. Again, not typical of a loved one. Now, none of it on its own proved anything. But the investigators had a warrant for Colby's phone. And as they started going through it on Halloween night, just hours after Kristen had been found, they felt like the phone began telling a different story than the one that Colby had told them. The first thing they found was another woman. Colby had been talking to this other girl online for months since July. Now, mostly hiding it by talking over Xbox and Snapchat. Pretty sneaky between disappearing messages and using a gaming console instead of his phone. The two of them had met in a group chat while playing video games. And the messages that were friendly turned flirtatious. And then they started sexting. And this was still going on when Kristen died. And what I mean by that is afterward. And as a matter of fact, Colby was sitting in that police station on October 31st. And he was messaging this other woman. You know what he told her? He was busy. And he couldn't talk right then. But he also told her he wished he could. What? That's a huge red flag. His wife has just been found dead. He's being interviewed. And he's texting this other woman. Who, by the way, happened to look so much like Kristen as well. Why? Is it not surprising? There is definitely a pattern there when it comes to cheating a lot of times. And then another detective, Detective Ridgeway, found something on the phone that stuck out. It was a Google search that he made on October 21st, just 10 days before Kristen died. Now, it read, what is a spouse S-G-L-I amount? Now, I couldn't place the acronyms, but it stands for service members group life insurance. It's the life insurance program that the VA runs for people in the military, including reservists like Colby. And there's a version that covers their spouses. The day before that search on October 20th, one of Colby's supervisors in the military had texted him information about S-G-L-I. And now the investigator can see that the next day he's looking up how much it would pay on a spouse. That seems very telling, doesn't it? Seems to be suspicious. Now, during that initial interview with Colby, they asked, generally, whether he and Kristen had life insurance. And his answer was that there was a policy on himself from the military, but he added, that's it. Meaning he didn't know of any others. I have some on me from military, but that's it. So that was enough to bring Colby back into the station and specifically ask him why he would conduct a life insurance program. And he said, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't a Google search like that. Okay, but why is he almost stuttering through that and crying? I guess maybe if anyone was being falsely accused, they had every right to be upset, but he denies it. And then he was like, if I died? And Burt Colder was like, no, if your spouse died. And I was like, could Kristen have looked it up on his phone? I mean, maybe. Actually, that was the explanation that Colby offered. He told the detectives they gave each other access to each other's phones all the time. Hmm. I mean, with how secretive he was with talking to another woman, does that seem plausible that you would just give unlimited access to your spouse on the phone that you were doing things like this that she wouldn't have been happy about? They thought that would be a good time to confront him about the other woman that he had been speaking with. And he did admit it. He said that he doesn't even know if Kristen was aware of it, but are you ready for his justification? It was a virtual, real relationship. Um, no, because she's real. She's not a chat bot or chat GPT or those robot girlfriends or boyfriends, but he tried to minimize it by saying that they only ever talked. They never met in person. But what do you say? That's how most cheating starts by just talking, by having conversations, by having exchanges with somebody until it moves to the next level. I mean, now his wife is dead. So now he's free to have any relationship. He wants at some point, Colby also told investigators something about Kristen. He claimed that she had been exchanging explicit photos with another man. So this was almost like he was saying, well, I was only talking to this other girl because she was talking to some other guy first between the worship leader, the other woman, the salacious text messages. This is starting to look like Caleb Flynn. And if you know, you know, but let me tell you what Kristen's family was actually going through. Four days later on November 8th, they gathered at Celebration Community Church in Hayes for Kristen's funeral. Her uncle, Grant, a family member, it. And in her obituary, her family asked that memorial donations go to the Humane Society of High Plains so that even her goodbye would take care of animals. And they had been left in the in-between. Knowing that something didn't add up without having any evidence to prove it and having to lay her to rest with the self-inflicted category on her death certificate, that's tough. And to be fair, even if there isn't any suspicion and someone does end their own life, it's very hard for family members to accept. And I feel for this entire family and this entire situation. But going back to this investigation, because it was still going on, after that second interview, Detective Burkholder started checking Colby's explanations one at a time. The first was that Google search. This is one of my favorite parts because I don't know if you've seen it, but I don't know if you've seen it, but I don't know if you've seen it. But I love a digital evidence trail. And he figured, okay, if Kristen had Googled the life insurance question herself on Colby's phone, then let's take a look at exactly when it took place. And maybe, just maybe, he could find out what Kristen had been doing at that time to prove whether it was plausible. For Colby's explanation to make sense, it meant that Kristen would have had to have Colby's phone in her hands making that search at that time on October 21st. Now, it is a really good thing that Kristen was working as much as she was to try to save money for her animal boarding business because she was at Walmart on October 21st. And at the exact time of that search, they were able to pull up surveillance of her working. She was nowhere near Colby's phone. So Burkholder dug deeper because he just proved that one of Colby's theories, his explanations, was in fact not true. So now he was working on the gun. In that first interview, Colby had been asked about the gun. Now, he made it appear as though this was more like Kristen's firearm than his own. He even told the detectives that Kristen kept it on her side of the bed in that bedside table drawer. And the door was open on that side. But then look what's on his side. He's got cases of bullets on his side table, an actual gun case with a shotgun on the wall, and a rifle on top of a suitcase on the ground by the side of his bed. I mean, it's true. It was the smallest firearm in that home, in that exact bedroom. So she could have stored it on her side for protection. But her family said she was afraid of firearms. He was the one with all the accessories and the weapons. So Detective Burkholder truly felt like this revolver belonged to him. Belonged to Colby. And that Kristen would not have been comfortable handling it. But he just had to prove that. Another one of my favorite parts, because he got really creative, he started going through the couple's phones and all of their photos and trying to find out if he could find a picture of that bedroom and hopefully find a photo of that revolver or prove it was Kristen's. And after scouring through, he found a casual photo that Colby took of Kristen about a month prior. It was her lying on the bed with one of the dogs. But if you look carefully to what's behind her in the background, that's Colby's side of the bed and his side table. And look closely. Now it's hard to make out at first, and I'll highlight it, but there is the.357 revolver in the back of that flashlight. The handle right there. Where it would be easily accessible. Not even put away in a drawer or a case. And it would be easily accessible. Within arm's reach of where Colby slept. Now this was the only.357 revolver they found anywhere in that house. And Colby had admitted that he was the one who had bought it. Kristen didn't own any guns in her name. Now what I told you, that the investigation could go forward even though the coroner had ruled it the way that he did, that it was not a homicide investigation. Well that's not entirely true, unfortunately. Because that ruling didn't limit the ability for them to get search warrants. Because in order to get a search warrant, you have to have probable cause connected with a crime. And since there was no official document that a crime occurred in that bedroom to Kristen, there was nothing that officers could bring to a judge to get access to dig even deeper. And that must have been so frustrating, especially for Kristen's family. Aaron Cunningham was the assistant Ellis County attorney. And unless there was enough evidence from investigators to show something other than self-defense, he would not have been able to get a search warrant. And if that was the case, then, self-inflicted, there was no way to move forward. So the case stalled. To search more of Colby's life, investigators needed warrants, and they just couldn't get them. It was also 2020, and the pandemic was in full effect, so that made things even harder as well. I'm sure many of you remember how slow things were, especially in legal system. In January of 2020, the life insurance policy Kristen had through Walmart, because she had to go through her job, was actually paid out to Colby for about $23,000. And in February of 2020, the military insurance policy on Kristen paid him as well. It paid him exactly $100,140.75. Yeah, that's a lot of money. Now, it happens to be around the same number that his own Google search had brought up when he asked, how much he was going to pay. And that's a lot of money. And that's a lot much he would get with that type of insurance policy. It said it would pay out around $100,000. Now, Colby stayed in Hays, and he went on with his life. He even started becoming a little bit of a local rock star. And I mean, not quite, but in their small town, he was showing up everywhere, playing music, all kinds of gigs, all around town, including a local restaurant that was very popular called the Paisley Pear. Many of the local detectives and officers on Chris' case actually went there all the time. The literal assistant county attorney, the one who would prosecute a homicide if it came down to that, was at that restaurant, watching Colby perform. And because the attorney knew everything the investigators had already gathered, and all the suspicion around this guy, he said it made his skin crawl. And not only that, after Kristen died, it was like Colby was feeding off the other guy. And you know the grieving widower on social media, posting things like motivational videos, all about how he was personally dealing with the loss of the love of his life, and how to get through a really hard time. But he also talked about how happy he was, and how he was enjoying his life. And I'm sure that rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, especially those with suspicions around him and the people who love Kristen. And they felt that Colby needed to be investigated further, but what really stood out is how he made this brand new Facebook page called Colby Trickle Music. And the very first post was on February 6th of 2020, after he's gotten his life insurance, and he's moving on. And it read, quote, I decided to start sharing my music more. I know K, referring to Kristen, always wanted me to. I just wish I would have sooner. End quote. To me, personally, when I read that, it didn't seem to honor her. It seemed like, in spite of her, that maybe he couldn't have the music career that he always dreamed about. That maybe she had been holding him back on his music career, because maybe he was married and, you know, he couldn't go out there and be single and do gigs and focus on himself. And I'm not just pulling this out of thin air, by the way. I actually read one of his posts, and it said this, quote, My generation has become so obsessed with starting the rest of their lives that they're willing to give up the one they are currently living. We have romanticized the idea of romance, and it's cancerous. People are more in love with the idea of love than with the person they are with. Over 50% of marriages nowadays end in divorce. There's something bigger going on than just simply being unhappy. There is a toxicity that is seeping into our cores, we are taught to want anything that makes us feel good, and cast aside the acknowledgement of consequences. We will rip someone apart mentally because we have been taught how, by those who have done it to us in the past. We preach love and kindness, yet we drive people to hatred and cynicism. We make mistakes and believe it's not us. And so we make them again. And once we can't handle it anymore, we give up. Our generation and those after us will be shaped by these years. End quote. So is he saying that his marriage was a mistake? I don't know, but that's how it can come off. Some people also thought it was a little too soon for him to be so positive. It had only been like three months since Kristen died, and he was already advertising services for live music at weddings, family get-togethers, parties, etc. I mean, to his credit, he does have a nice voice. That's the one thing that attracted Kristen to him. To begin with. And some may argue that music could have been his way of grieving. You know, he is a self-proclaimed Christian, and most of the music that he would sing was Christian. music. He did sing some mainstream as well. So sometimes people who are religious believe their loved one is in heaven and they can move on faster than others. On October 3rd of 2020, he posted about how it had almost been a full year since Kristen died. And he wanted to post this now instead of the end of the month on the true anniversary of her death, because he said he wouldn't be around his phone. And the post is very long. I'm not going to read the whole thing. But the gist of it was that he looked for ways to somehow make someone else happy. And he wakes up every morning believing that he'll be able to roll over and hug Kristen. But then he looks over and he sees her urn next to his bed. And he breaks down in tears. And he realizes that she's really gone. And he went into some very personal things about trying to have children with her. And how they sat and cried together when they thought that she had gotten pregnant. Only to find out she wasn't. And he was so worried that it was his fault. And how she so badly wanted to be a mom. And she would hold other people's children. And he said he wished he could have given her that. He ends it with he has become so numb. And he lives every day trying to move forward like he knows she would want him to. But he knows he'll be able to hug her again. And misses her so much. But only months later he created a very morbid audio recording with a picture of him. Or maybe it was a stock photo of a man crying into his hands. And he warns everyone this is going to be a little deep. So you have been warned. And this is How Are You by Colby Trickle. Warning. It does deal with the topic of self-inflicted harm. So be careful. Did I make it enough for you? That was all his words by the way. Those were his words. His post. I'm putting it on the screen. I'm going to now play this. Because it deals with being left behind after someone decides to end their life. How are you? Hey it's Kelly Rowland. You may not know this. But I have eczema. Eblis. Lubricizumab LBKZ. A 250 milligram per two milliliter. Injection. Is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older. Who weigh at least 88 pounds. Or 40 kilograms. With moderate to severe eczema. Also called atopic dermatitis. That is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin. Or topicals. Or who cannot use topical therapies. Before starting Eblis tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. Respect your time. Ask your doctor about Eblis and visit Eblis.com. Or call 1-800-LILLY-RX or 1-800-545-5979. What a loaded question. Something that on the surface is so easy to answer. Just put on your Sunday smile as you try to hide your cancer. You ever hear the saying what they don't know won't hurt them? Well if they don't know your struggles how could they ever help you through them? So what you think it's okay to wallow in this suffering until you allow yourself to shatter? As someone who was left in pieces you may not know but when you're free their hurt comes after. Seems very angry if you ask me. Now could this be seen as a message to talk to someone? To other people that are hurting? To speak up if you're sad? To give me your thoughts? But by the end of 2020, more than a year after Kristen died, no one had been charged with anything. Her death certificate still said it was a result of her own hands. But there was something investigators could pull that they didn't need a warrant for. And that was Colby's military record. So they felt like well if that's all we have. Now remember he had told them in his initial interview that he worked in human intelligence and had been sent to the Middle East and Central America. Well he was in the reserves and his records did not ever list him being deployed overseas at all. They found no evidence that he had ever done anything like that. No informant work like he described. And why was that important? It showed that Colby had lied. So he was capable of making things up and we already know that from the Google search as well. So by now the list was getting longer. Colby had told the police there was no life insurance on Kristen. But there was. And he searched for spouse payout on his phone. He had blamed the search on Kristen. But then it showed she was at work. He had also said that the gun was Kristen's kept on her side of the bed. But it was his gun. And it usually sat on his side. He had described an overseas career that he never had. And he had a hidden relationship that he was still keeping up from inside that police station during his interview. Now it still wasn't enough to charge him with anything. Of course not. Lying is not a crime. Cheating is not a crime. Creating a podcast is not a crime. Yeah he started a podcast called The Deep Diver. And I listen to every episode so that you don't have to. It was mainly about what is in his mind. And I have to say it is like he is a celebrity in his own mind. And there are ways to describe someone like Colby. Some people might use the word narcissistic or having an inflated degree of self-importance or illusory superiority. Now that is a cognitive bias where a person overestimates their own qualities and abilities or importance compared to other people. Like even the fact that he's making a show. I don't care about that. Anyone can do that. But it's the pattern that he has been going through ever since Kristen was gone. Remember the pattern. It was there. And it was the content of that podcast that's really important. It's all about what he thinks people want to hear from him. When in reality I think it's him who just likes to hear himself talk. It was his perspective and his definition on things like love and moving on. I mean he talked about the five love languages for about an hour and all kinds of things like the concept of time. It was all over the place. Delusions of grandeur comes to mind. That's actually a clinical or psychological term used when the belief is extreme or completely detached from reality. Like when someone genuinely believes that they come from royalty. Now I wouldn't go that far with Colby but just the way he was behaving during this time definitely seemed to those on the outside that he believed he was more important than he really was. But all of this, all of this stuff he's doing, the music, the motivational speeches, the podcast, it stemmed from his experience. With losing Kristen. So if that hadn't happened he would not really have the authority to speak on any of these things like moving forward and being better after a loss or deep diving into love or diving into the loss and how it changes you. Fears in life, losing control. And then it goes a little off the deep end into whether we have things like superpowers and what it's like to not be okay. And as time went on the podcast definitely changed. I mean he added music and his voice got way more intense. It wasn't as casual as it was when he first started. And you know what? To be fair that's fine. People get better at creating. But while he was posting all this, Detective Burkholder hadn't stopped watching and listening and investigating. And in January of 2021, so almost a year and a half after Kristen died, Ellis County, got a new county attorney. And his name was Robert Anderson. And he walked into an office with dozens and dozens of cases sitting in a backlog. Kristen's was one of them. And two people weren't going to wait. Assistant County Attorney Aaron Cunningham and Detective Burkholder. Almost as soon as that new attorney went into office, the two of them cornered him. They told him, listen, as far as we're concerned, Kristen's death was clearly a homicide. And they needed his help to finally close the case against who? Colby Trickle. Wow. So they didn't hesitate whatsoever. Anderson decided to go through the files himself. The insurance policy mattered to him. But what struck him the most were the ordinary things inside that house, just like I told you. Just like Burkholder said, Kristen's alarm to get up for work and the candy waiting for trick-or-treaters. Also, all the planning for her near future, a house with a barn picked out for a new business, working as many hours as she could at Walmart. To Anderson, all that pointed to a woman who expected her life to keep going. Where is all the evidence that she wanted to die? That's what they were looking for. And the more County Attorney Anderson looked at the case, the less the ruling made sense to him. And he came out of that review believing that Kristen's death had been classified incorrectly. That this was a homicide. Now, I went and checked. And Colby's very last podcast episode was on June 26th of 2021. And it was entitled Diving Deep into Learning Life. His last Facebook post on his music page was July 10th and his last post on his main page was July 15th. His last podcast episode talked about a song called Someday May Never Come by Credence Clearwater Revival about someday understanding something but someday never coming. If you've heard the song, you would know. You can look up the lyrics. But in Colby's words, that day of learning, that day of wisdom never comes. Well, good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I am your host, Colby Trickle, and we are about to dive deep into learning life's lessons. I have had this continuous thought run through my head, and it resembles quite a bit one of my favorite songs. It's a song by CCR, and it's called Someday Never Comes. And all the while throughout, the chorus is telling out Someday Never Comes. That day of learning, that day of wisdom never comes. And I'm sure that all of us at some point in time in our life had somebody tell us that, that someday you're going to understand. They will do whatever it takes to find that answer. Yeah, he wasn't wrong about that. He may have thought someday would never come when it came to Kristen's death. But on Wednesday, July 14th of 2021, the Ellis County Attorney's Office filed charges. 27-year-old Colby Trickle was charged with first-degree premeditated murder. He was also charged with two counts of interference with law enforcement. One for the false information prosecutors said he gave police on the day that Kristen died, and one for what he told them when he came back on November 4th, the day of his last Facebook post, police arrested him. An officer pulled him over in his car, and he got out of the vehicle. He stepped to the back, and Colby did exactly the same thing. He did exactly the same thing. He did exactly what he was told. He didn't ask questions. He didn't resist. He was calm the entire time. He was cooperative while they put him in handcuffs, the same way he'd been cooperative on the morning that Kristen was killed. He said he didn't do it. Colby acknowledged that a lot of people didn't believe him, but he told them he was innocent. Hey, uh, you should step out of the car and come to the back of the car with me. So, uh, detectives, I have some questions for you. Sure. Place you under arrest. You turn around, put your hands behind your back. Sure. I did do it, and I know you. I know many people don't believe that, and I respect that. His bond was set at $1.5 million. Now, Colby's defense team included a woman named Attorney Cassie Ziegler. Now, she does believe him, and I mean, that is her job, but she described Colby as religious, a devoted Christian, and she said she could not see him being capable of carefully planning his wife's death, then covering it up. Her exact words were, I don't see it in him to connive. Huh. Have you heard of J.P. Miller or Caleb Flynn? They both were apparent devoted Christians as well. The defense position was that the coroner had gotten it right, that Kristen had done this to herself. To make that case, the defense went to Kristen's childhood. Her mother had walked out when she was only two years old, and the defense argued that Kristen had carried that pain for the rest of her life. They said that she struggled with depression, and that the people who loved her might not have understood how much was going on inside of her. Even her aunt and uncle, who were so close to her, may not have been able to tell, because they thought that Kristen was so good at putting on a happy face. Now, I can't say that there's no truth to that. I think that every one of us has unfortunately and sadly known someone who took their life, or about someone who did, and the were not there, or they masked it so well. Now, Colby's defense attorney made quite the statement. She said, quote, I don't think there's any worse rejection in life than to be rejected by your own biological mother at an early age, and that's exactly what happened, end quote. And she had something very powerful on her side. She had the death certificate. Even after Colby was charged, Bill Nordic still had Kristen's manner of death listed as self-inflicted. He had the authority to change it before the case even went to trial, but he chose not to. Now, he said he was not going to change his ruling to homicide just because of an accusation. Remember, they had not gone to court. This wasn't a legal proceeding yet. I mean, one was coming up, but it was an accusation, and that put the prosecution in a very strange position. They were about to stand in front of a jury and tell them that Kristen had been murdered, while the official record of her death said she did this to herself. Now, whatever else they proved, they would have to answer one question head-on. What was actually going on in Kristen's mind before she died? Now, they couldn't get the answer from her body, so attorney Anderson decided to get it from her life. Now, this was the reason that I had to look into this case because of the method they used. They hired a lawyer, and they hired a forensic psychologist, Dr. Ashley Christensen, to do something called a psychological autopsy. Now, this is not new. The idea actually goes back to right here in Los Angeles in the 1950s and 60s, when the county coroner's office started to bring in researchers to help with deaths where no one could tell whether someone had taken their own life or something else had happened. And since then, it has been used in research and in civil trials, like insurance fights over whether death was self-inflicted or not. The idea actually goes back to right here in Los Angeles in the 1950s and 60s, when the county coroner's office started to bring in researchers to help with death. And since then, it has been used in research and in civil trials, like insurance fights over whether someone had taken their own life or not. But assistant county attorney Cunningham said it had never been used in a criminal case in Kansas. This was the first time. Since Dr. Christensen obviously couldn't sit down with Kristen, she sat down with everyone that knew her, her family, people that were close to her, friends, anyone who saw her regularly, and she gathered whatever records might show what Kristen had been thinking and planning, things like her messages, emails, texts, social media, anything that she had written down. The point wasn't to find out whether Kristen had ever been sad. I mean, obviously, we all have. We've all gone through something hard. The question was narrower than that. In the period leading up to October 31st of 2019, were there warning signs that Kristen was on the brink of making this decision to leave it all behind? Or did the way she was living, and the people she was close to, and the plans she was making, all point the other way? Dr. Christensen weighed the known risk factors for self-exit against what Kristen was actually doing in the weeks and months before she died. Her interviews took place almost two years later, two years after Kristen's death. And one of the people Dr. Christensen interviewed was Colby himself. And remember back to that second interview on November 4th of 2019, when investigators had asked Colby whether Kristen had known about the other woman that he'd been talking to? And he told them, not that he knew of. When Dr. Christensen asked him about it, his story was different. This time, Colby told her that he and Kristen actually talked about that relationship during the week that she died. Hmm. Now, was that true? Could that have been one of the main reasons she chose this way out? Even though her own family said that she never ran from her problems? Well, everyone had to wait until the trial to find out all the conclusions of Dr. Christensen's research. It would be another two years before a jury heard it. Colby Trickle's trial began on Monday, September 18th of 2023 in Ellis County District Court, with Chief Judge Glenn Braun presiding. Kristen had been gone for almost four years. Before the jury even heard from Dr. Christensen, Colby's attorney tried to rein her in. And what that meant is that they didn't challenge psychological autopsies as a method. They didn't object to the information she'd gathered. What they objected to was her final conclusion, her opinion about how likely it was that Kristen had died by her own means, her own method, that she pulled the trigger. That question, the defense argued, belonged to the jury and the jury alone and nobody else. You may not know this, but I have eczema, so I get how it can steal your time. Eblis, Leberkizumab LBKZ, a 250 milligram per two milliliter injection, is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older who weigh at least 88 pounds or 40 kilograms with moderate to severe eczema. Also called atopic dermatitis that is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin or topicals or who cannot use topical therapies, Eblis can be used. Respect your time. But the judge disagreed and he allowed Dr. Christensen to testify. lie. And we're going to get there in just a moment. But Assistant County Attorney Cunningham opened for the state and he laid out the case for the jury in three letters. It was easy as A, B, and C. A, an affair. B, a breakdown of control. And C, cold, hard cash. According to the state, all three of those things were coming together in Colby's life in the months before Kristen died. It was the oldest motive in the book. Now the defense told a different story. The relationship with the woman online was simply a flirtation, nothing more. And there was no evidence that Colby was planning to leave his marriage, let alone kill his wife. And as for the life insurance search, Colby didn't even remember making it. His attorneys pointed out that he was dealing with military insurance paperwork around that same time. And the defense told jurors that Kristen, had died by her own hands and that the official ruling on her death certificate said exactly that. But now it was time for the state's case to be presented with their witnesses. The breakdown of control was where Kristen's family really came in. Her uncle, Brant, took the stand and he told the jury that in the last months of Kristen's life, he had seen a change in her. She started standing up for herself, holding her ground in her marriage. And Brant, also told the jury that back through the years, the family had been kept at a distance. When Colby left for basic training, Brant and Delynn had offered to let Kristen move back in with them while he was gone. And Kristen explicitly told them that Colby wouldn't let her. Later, when Kristen was living in Kansas City, her aunt and uncle would travel there and they were hoping to see her. And sometimes Kristen couldn't because Colby didn't want her to. Prosecutors showed the jury the change that Brant was describing in Kristen's own words. On April 8th of 2019, Colby texted Kristen complaining that she seemed a little different lately and that she had been, in his words, "pushy about some things." And Kristen wrote back that she had decided to stick up for herself for once, just like he did. She wrote, "She was taking control of the situation." And to this date, those text messages showed a husband who had been in charge for years watching that control slip away. The jury heard about the affair with the other woman and they heard it from the woman herself. She got on the stand and she testified that she and Colby had met online through gaming and that their messages started out friendly, but then she was asked to describe all of their messages. And she called them "mostly sexting and flirting." When the defense tried to cross-examine her about other relationships she had, the prosecutor said, "She was sexually harassed. She was sexually harassed. The prosecution objected." And the judge cut this conversation right there. He's like, "Don't start. Let's not argue. We know the rules." And what he was trying to say is that the defense was going beyond the scope of direct, so that information couldn't come in. The Kansas Bureau of Investigation had worked the case alongside the Hays Police, and the KBI senior special agent, David Unger, testified about what investigators found on Colby's phone, asked whether the relationship was more in vogue than Colby had let on in the beginning. He said, "Absolutely." And then came the cash. The jury learned that after Kristen died, Colby received those payouts I told you about through Walmart and through the military spouse policy. It was over a hundred thousand dollars. And then they talked about how he spent it. He spent it all in under one year. Prosecutors walked the jury through where that money went and how fast it went. He spent it on video games, music equipment, paying off his debts. But wait, wait until you hear about one purchase that really stood out. Just two days after one of those insurance payouts, Colby spent nearly $2,000. It was 1942, I think, so $1,942. I don't even know if that was before tax, at a company called True Time. Colby's mother, Tina, testified that after Kristen died, Colby's mother, Tina, testified that after Kristen died, Colby's mother, Tina, testified that after Kristen died, Colby's mother, Tina, testified that after Kristen died, Colby's mother, Tina, testified that after Kristen died, Colby's mother, Tina, testified that after Kristen died, Colby's mother, Tina, testified that after Kristen died, Colby's mother, Tina, testified that after Kristen died, Colby's mother, Tina, testified that after Kristen died, Colby's mother, Tina, testified that after Kristen died, Colby's mother, Tina, testified Colby was having nightmares and he couldn't sleep and she said the doll was used for warmth and comfort and that she didn't believe it was about sex are you kidding me I had to laugh this is not a funny situation at all but that sounds like a very naive mother I mean a teddy bear okay a big large teddy bear maybe you can get that from a toy store I mean that could do the same thing if all you were looking for was I don't know warmth and comfort this doll had areas I think you know what I mean when I say areas north and south and behind you don't spend almost two grand on a doll to merely sleep with it next to you go search it just put in true touch dolls I'm not gonna link it I'll probably get banned but yeah go go see for yourself apparently in his mother's mind the fact Colby had told her about this purchase means that he wasn't hiding it it meant it wasn't sexual or in my mind I was thinking maybe Colby was just used to lying and maybe his mom was used to believing those lies then the jury heard from Dr. Christensen which is the part that I was really looking forward to in this case and learning more about she explained how she had reconstructed Kristen's state of mind after her death through the people that knew her and the records that she left behind her own words she had also looked at the known risk factors and weighed them against what Kristen was actually doing in the time before she died and what she found again and again was a woman thinking about her future planning her future going to work keeping up with all her relationships with the people she loved she was talking about pet care the business that she wanted to run and she was making plans that went well past October 31st Dr. Christian's told the jury that based on everything she gathered it was relatively less likely that Kristen's death was inflicted by her own actions she testified that at the time of her death Kristen was at a low risk for that and then she went a step further she said that any other professional reviewing the same exact data would not conclude that Kristen's death was at her own hands she also told the jury about her interview with Colby and how his account of what Kristen knew was different it changed now I thought it was more in his favor if there was evidence that the relationship was more than just flirtatious but what it actually came down to was whether Kristen knew right because he's saying in the beginning oh it was just flirting like it wasn't nothing major but now he's trying to swing it like no but I told her about it so it was major so which one is it he's all over the place and that's the point the defense came at the psychological autopsy from every single direction Dr Christensen had never met Kristen most of what she knew came from interviews done almost two years after Kristen died and the defense argued that memories shift over that kind of time frame above all they argued that the people who loved Kristen could never really know everything that was going on inside of her mind and that is true I mean I am going to give them that we don't know the defense to drive that point home with a witness of their own a woman named Irene Smith her stepson Randall had taken his life and he was supposed to start a job the very next day before he died she said that he seemed completely normal he was excited about things ahead of him and the defense wanted the jury to hear from a person that knew about their loved one making plans and looking forward to things and still being in danger but the judge said no he ruled that another person's death and the method of such death was not relevant to what had been going on in Kristen's mind and I can see that being true as well but the defense still had the strongest piece of evidence the coroner especially because a jury would not necessarily understand what I told you about the difference between a coroner a medical examiner pathologist someone examining her body and coroner Norduk took the stand and he stood by his own ruling as far as the official record was concerned Kristen had done this to herself that hadn't changed so the jury was hearing two completely different answers about the same death the state's psychologist said Kristen had been killed by Colby the coroner who examined her said no she did this to herself a gunshot residue was another thing that became a big argument the defense wanted the jury to see the lab reports from residue testing done on both Kristen and Colby I'm sure you know what this residue is if you fire off a firearm it will land on you the gunpowder and such would be your hands let's say and possibly on other parts of your body but the state objected and the judge kept those reports out because the defense had not laid the proper legal foundation to get them in so this was a technicality but detective burkholder did testify about gunshot residue in general he told the jury that a person can fire a gun and leave little to no detectable residue behind and he also said that in the space as tight as that bed residue from one shot could actually end up on everyone in that room so it was not going to be strong evidence either way right if you're wondering colby trickle did not testify are you surprised i wasn't but his mother did as you heard and she gave the jury a completely different picture of kristin than her aunt and uncle had you this is the first time kristin has ever been accused of gunshot residue in the history of the state of the state of the state tina described kristin as reserved and hard to read and someone who didn't show what she was really feeling and the defense leaned on that if kristin was the kind of person to keep things to herself they argued then no one not even her own family and not a psychologist could say what she had been carrying on the inside it's hard because both sides have a pretty compelling argument his mom also testified about the day that kristin left her aunt and uncle's house a year later years earlier. She said Colby had called her and told her to go pick Kristen up because she had been kicked out. So Tina went and got her. She told the jury that the way Kristen told it, she'd actually been given an ultimatum. Her aunt and uncle said, choose Colby or choose us. And she chose Colby. But as a mother, I was thinking, you know, sometimes parents just know things. And I know that her aunt and uncle are not her biological parents. It was her aunt and uncle, but they were parental figures. And I don't think it's uncommon to say, look, we're paying all the bills. You're staying here and we don't approve of who you're dating. So either you slow down your relationship or you find somewhere else to live. Kristen's grandmother, Deanne Guy, heard about that same falling out. And on the stand, she described it as a three-way argument, which I was like, what? But she wanted to be careful. About it. She said she doesn't have any idea exactly what happened because she wasn't there, but it didn't just have to do with Kristen and her aunt and uncle, which would have been three people on its own. But what she meant is aunt and uncle, Kristen and Colby, that they were all involved in that argument. Now, in closing, Colby's attorneys argued that Colby had called 911 right away while Kristen was still alive. Someone who intended to murder his wife wouldn't have done that. And that's why she said, well, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't that was her argument but then again maybe he didn't know remember he had no blood on his fingers or on his clothing from checking her pulse like he said he did but his defense told the jury the state simply couldn't rule out what happened to her beyond a reasonable doubt Kristen had lived through real hardship no one could fully reconstruct what she felt inside after she was gone and the coroner who examined her still believed she had done this to herself then attorney Cunningham went through Colby's story from that morning piece by piece he reminded the jury that when Colby was first asked what happened he went all the way back to coming home and taking out the trash and he told them there was evidence that showed that wasn't true he described the porch and the moment sergeant Hopman told Colby that Kristen was gone this is the first time he's ever been told that he was gone and he's been told that he was gone this is the first time he's ever been told that he was gone the way he put it he said here the defendant gives the performance of a lifetime perhaps his or perhaps Kristen's he cries and wails and asks are you sure are you sure after receiving a hug he knows he's in the clear end quote and then he turned to the gun itself under Kristen's chin there was a small mark and I'm not talking about the wound there was an imprint beside the wound that the coroner believed had been left there by the revolver's sight this is a raised piece on the barrel used for aiming and when the gun was fired against her skin it would have been left there Kristen was right-handed so the prosecutor showed the jury if Kristen had brought that gun right underneath her own chin with her right hand the sight mark should have landed somewhere between what he called nine o'clock and six o'clock but instead it was at three o'clock on the opposite side so I'm a visual person hard for me to understand what he was doing and I'm not going to he meant I have to see it for myself so first off this is what a revolver looks like this is what a sight looks like this is the same make and model the sight is just above the barrel of a gun and Kristen had a mark right here in this vicinity to the side of her left chin next to the wound but do you see the problem and I think that was the biggest piece of evidence in this case that it pointed to someone else holding that gun in their right hand so up to her chin and firing it the state told the jury what it believed that mark meant that Colby had been lying in bed next to Kristen he turns to his side table he grabs a revolver he rolls over toward her and put the gun underneath her chin and pulled the trigger on September 22nd of 2023 the case went to the jury they deliberated for about two hours and 15 minutes after hearing everything that you've just heard well hey it's Kelly Rowland you may not know this but I have eczema so I get how it can steal your time but why let eczema take over when you can talk to your doctor about ebglis ebglis labrakizumab lbkz a 250 milligram per two milliliter injection is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older who weigh at least 88 pounds or 40 kilograms with moderate to severe eczema also called atopic dermatitis that is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin or topicals or who cannot use topical therapies ebglis can be used with or without topical corticosteroids don't use if you are allergic to ebglis allergic reactions can occur that can be severe eye problems can occur tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems you should not receive a live vaccine when treated with ebglis before starting ebglis tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection paid partnership with lily respect your time ask your doctor about ebglis and visit ebglis.com or call 1-800-LILI rx or 1-800-545-5979 they found colby trickle guilty of first degree premeditated murder and guilty of interference with law enforcement of course i'm going to want your thoughts that's why i do cases like this i want to hear from you for kristin's loved ones it was some closure they felt like this dangerous man was off the streets and he could not hurt anyone else and after the verdict guess what happened the coroner who had been holding strong to his ruling he said he planned to amend kristin's death certificate so that it would read homicide and he admitted how his original ruling had been made and he had done that without speaking to her family without knowing what the evidence shown he also said that nobody had told him about the life insurance and the search on colby's phone or about the woman that colby had been talking to online behind her back he said the police should have informed him of all of that and they normally do but in this case for some reason he said it wasn't shared with him don't know if that's accurate or not but that is what he said he asked whether if he had known all that he would have ruled kristin's death the way he did and he said no so he would have ruled it a homicide had he been privy to all that information i think it's kind of a weird back and forth because there can't really be an official investigation unless there's a homicide but there can't be a homicide unless there's an investigation it's like it kind of goes in a circle so i can understand why things were maybe missed or not given to him because an official investigation hadn't really been going on when he came to the scene he just gave his ruling on november 20th of 2023 colby came back to the ellis county courtroom for his sentencing there was not an empty seat in that room people were actually standing along the wall so they could be there for it colby was given the chance to speak and he did he apologized for ways he felt he had failed as a husband and as a son but he told the court he would not apologize for kristin's death because he did not shoot her but he did take partial blame he wondered out loud whether kristin might still be alive if he would have been a better husband he described himself as someone who was being wrongfully persecuted his words now two members of kristin's family spoke as well and afterward judge braun noted that a lot of what people had said in that courtroom was about family and how much family mattered and then he pointed out that one person would never get to be with their family again and that was kristin attorney cunningham apologized to kristin's family for how long it took to get this case to trial and he summed up what the state believed colby had done he said he murdered his wife for insurance money and then he wasted it the judge agreed that the motive was money he said the evidence clearly showed that financial gain had played a role in kristin's death and he told colby he had refused to take an iota of responsibility colby was sentenced to life and prison with no possibility of parole for at least 50 years. The judge also added six months for interference with law enforcement. And because of how Kansas law is written, Colby had to serve those six months first and then his life sentence. The sentencing actually took place three days before Colby's 30th birthday. Even then, there was one thing left to fight over and it was actually Kristen herself, which was so heartbreaking to even think this was going on. But after she had been killed, Kristen was cremated and her ashes somehow ended up in the possession of Colby's mother, Tina. I don't know how. Prosecutors had filed a motion asking the court to return Kristen's remains to her own family. And Colby's attorneys argued about this, that ashes were a civil matter and didn't belong in a criminal court. Attorney Anderson, at the very least, if the Hayes Police Department be allowed to keep Kristen's remains safe while they had to play a civil trial out in a courtroom. And believe it or not, Colby objected to that. Judge Braun eventually ordered Colby's mother to turn Kristen, I mean, it was her ashes, but I mean, it is Kristen, over to the police whenever they asked for those ashes so they could be secured until that civil trial was decided. And then Colby was sent to jail for taking into custody and he started to serve his sentence. I cannot understand why you wouldn't just hand over remains. Why would you keep that from her family? That to me did not make any sense. It seemed cold. It seemed callous. It just was further harm to this family for the sake of causing them more grief, in my opinion. I don't always give my opinion, but that's how I felt. And I thought I would also show you some Facebook posts that definitely did not age well. One said, one day you'll just be a memory to people, so try your hardest to be a good one. Yeah. I guess one way to show you what kind of memory he left behind was a comment that somebody actually made on a photo of his that said, live, laugh, love on it. They took it upon themselves to put that photo into a little graphic that says, charismatic doll collector and murderer Colby lived with his wife in Hayes, Kansas, where they attended the Celebration Community Church. Both of them were in the same church. They were both in the same church. But Colby had big plans. He wanted to be a Christian music star, but he couldn't afford the gear. So he staged his wife's suicide in 2019 and bought gear and a sex doll with the insurance money. Arrested in 2021, Colby got life in 2023. And on his original post, people who saw the live, laugh, love wrote afterward, live, laugh, kill. And live, laugh, murder your wife. So that is what the public thought of him. But you know what I thought was really interesting? Is back on March 6th of 2021, he made an entire post about how there was a song that was really powerful, but it had foul language in it. So he was kind of concerned about doing a cover on it because he didn't want to cuss. And he was wondering what people were going to think, what people's opinions were about cuss words in a song. And all I have to say is here's a man worrying about cuss words and worrying about saying the Lord's name in vain in a song and how he's going to be portrayed if he did that. And he ends up convicted of killing his wife. Blows my mind. And I know it's no laughing matter, but it couldn't help to find a little weird and morbid and dark humor in it, if you even want to call it that. But he posted a song and one of his friends commented, killer song, dude. And this was back in 2020. Just add the emphasis on killer. And that's pretty much on point, isn't it? Colby wasn't done yet, though, because in a conviction like this, it goes straight to the Kansas Supreme Court for an appeal. So it skips the appeals court. And of course, his defense attorney raised a bunch of different issues about Dr. Christensen, about the doll, things they thought should not have been heard by the jury. And they said taken together, these things cost him a fair trial. The court heard both sides. And on September 11th of 2006, it issued its decision. The opinion opened with the question at the center of the entire case. Was Kristen Trickle murdered in her sleep by her husband, Colby? Or did she commit a self-inflicted wound on herself while her husband was lying right next to her, unaware? It was worded a little bit differently, but I have to censor for certain platforms. The court's answer was unanimous. She was murdered. So Colby lost. Colby Trickle's conviction and sentence still stand. He is being held at the Ellsworth Correctional Facility in Ellsworth, Kansas. Kristen's family said there are more than one victim in Kristen's murder case. Her cousin, Chloe, is an example. This was a little girl who grew up thinking of Kristen as her big sister. So she wrote a song about losing her, about never getting the chance to say goodbye. Brant and Dylan say they think about Kristen every single day. Dylan remembers that when you were with Kristen, you felt loved and she had a gentle spirit. And Brant said she had a future. She had found her faith again. And just south of Hayes, there's a little house with a small barn behind it. The one that Kristen had picked out for her business that she wanted to build for her animals and for other people's animals. And she was going to do it. Even years later, her aunt and uncle, still call it Kristen's house every time they drive by it. And I want to say that I am so deeply sorry to Kristen's family and loved ones for what happened to her. I'm sorry it took so long to truly get justice. And of course, I thank all of you who are here for her story. I will see you in my very next video. Get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying no judgments, but that's weird. Okay, one judgment. 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