Nancy Pfister Murder: Confession, Dropped Charges, and Suicide

The Nancy Pfister murder was the February 2014 killing of a 57-year-old Aspen, Colorado, socialite who was beaten to death with a hammer inside her own home by a tenant, retired anesthesiologist William “Trey” Styler III, during a dispute over unpaid rent. Styler confessed, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, and was sentenced to twenty years in prison. He hanged himself in his cell about fourteen months later. Charges against his wife and against a friend of Pfister’s were dropped, but investigators, prosecutors, and Pfister’s daughter continued to question whether Styler could have acted alone.

Who Nancy Pfister Was

Nancy Pfister came from one of Aspen’s founding families. Her father, Art Pfister, arrived in 1946, bought a 700-acre property called the Lazy Chair Ranch on Buttermilk Mountain, and in 1958 partnered with ski pioneer Friedl Pfeifer to open the Buttermilk Ski Area.¹ Her mother, Betty Pfister, was a Women Airforce Service Pilot during World War II.²

Nancy was treated as local royalty. Friends described her as a “tornado” and an “energy force field,” a fixture of the town’s social life who counted Jack Nicholson, Michael Douglas, and Hunter S. Thompson among her circle.² Despite the name, she reportedly had limited access to the family fortune. She had one daughter, Juliana.

The Rent Dispute That Preceded the Killing

In late 2013, Pfister planned an extended trip to Australia and arranged for Trey Styler and his wife Nancy Styler to rent her home at 1833 West Buttermilk Road. There was no signed lease. Rent was $4,000 a month plus utilities, with another $300 a month for use of Pfister’s car.³ The Stylers moved in on November 22, 2013.

The arrangement collapsed almost immediately. The Stylers stopped paying rent, citing problems with the home including a lack of hot water. According to Pfister’s friend Kathy Carpenter, who acted as an intermediary while Pfister was overseas, the Stylers were also using one of Pfister’s credit cards and driving her car without authorization.⁴ From Australia, Pfister emailed Pitkin County Sheriff Joe DiSalvo and former sheriff Bob Braudis asking for advice on evicting the couple.³ On January 24, 2014, she posted on Facebook that her tenants were “not doing what they said they would do.”⁵

Pfister cut her trip short by roughly three months and returned to Aspen around February 21 or 22, 2014. She told the Stylers they were being evicted and demanded between $13,000 and $14,000 before she would release their belongings.⁶ The Stylers moved into the Aspenalt Lodge, a motel in nearby Basalt. Trey Styler had recently been rejected for a bank loan meant to cover the back rent and fund a spa business at the Hotel Jerome.⁴

How Nancy Pfister Was Killed

On February 26, 2014, Kathy Carpenter went to check on Pfister, who had not been heard from in days. Inside the house she noticed a blood smear on a headboard and detected an odor from a locked closet. She found the key, opened the closet, and discovered Pfister’s body. She called 911.²

The autopsy identified three or four blows to Pfister’s right forehead and temple from a blunt instrument. Her body had been wrapped from the neck down in a heavy-duty trash bag, her neck bound with an electrical extension cord, and her head covered in kitchen trash bags. She had been placed inside the locked bedroom closet with a mattress propped over her.⁷ It was Aspen’s first homicide in roughly thirty years.⁸

The Arrests

Suspicion turned quickly to the Stylers because of the eviction and the timing. Police interrogated the couple but released them after roughly twelve hours for lack of probable cause.²

The break came from a trash bag a sanitation worker found near the Aspenalt Lodge. Inside were Pfister’s prescription drugs, her passport, her driver’s license, a vehicle registration for the Stylers’ Jaguar, and a hammer with Pfister’s blood on it. DNA on a plastic bag from the crime scene matched Trey Styler. A key to the locked closet where Pfister’s body had been hidden was also recovered outside the Stylers’ hotel room.⁶

On March 3, 2014, Trey and Nancy Styler were arrested at the Aspenalt Lodge and charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.⁹ Eleven days later, Kathy Carpenter was arrested on the same charges, based in part on what investigators believed she said during the 911 call. All three were held without bond and the court records were sealed.¹⁰

Trey Styler’s Confession and Guilty Plea

On June 16, 2014, roughly three months after his arrest, Trey Styler confessed to district attorney investigators. He said he had sneaked into Pfister’s home, struck her in the head with a hammer while she slept, then dragged her body into the closet using a cord. He reportedly told his wife he had looked at Pfister sleeping peacefully “while our life was being torn apart” and “lost it.”¹¹ He said he acted alone.

Four days later, Styler appeared before Pitkin County Chief District Judge James Boyd and pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, reduced from first-degree. “I am guilty, your honor,” he told the judge.¹² He was sentenced to twenty years in a Department of Corrections prison with medical facilities. District Attorney Sherry Caloia noted that given Styler’s deteriorating health, the sentence would likely amount to life in prison.¹³

Juliana Pfister objected to the reduced charge. “I don’t understand that. It upsets me,” she told the court. “There are such things as an eye for an eye.”¹² Styler was a retired anesthesiologist who had left medicine around 2005 due to a degenerative neurological condition that eventually required him to use a wheelchair or mobility scooter.¹⁴ His physical condition would become central to later doubts about his account.

Why Charges Against Nancy Styler and Kathy Carpenter Were Dropped

The plea deal came bundled with dismissals for the two other defendants. On June 17, 2014, Pitkin County Judge Gail Nichols ordered all charges against Nancy Styler dismissed with prejudice, meaning they could not be refiled. The District Attorney’s office cited “additional evidence” and concluded there was “insufficient evidence to prove the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”¹⁵¹⁶ DA Caloia added: “I’m not saying she’s innocent.”¹⁷

Three days later, charges against Kathy Carpenter were also dismissed, but without prejudice, leaving open the possibility of refiling if new evidence surfaced. DA Caloia and the Pitkin County Sheriff said she remained “under investigation.”¹⁸ By then, Carpenter had spent 96 days in jail without bond.¹⁹

Her defense attorney, Greg Greer, argued the case had been built partly on a botched 911 transcript. A Colorado Bureau of Investigation agent had transcribed Carpenter as saying she saw blood on Pfister’s “forehead,” which would have suggested guilty knowledge; Greer maintained she actually said “headboard,” referring to the smear she noticed before opening the closet. Prosecutors eventually acknowledged the transcription error.²⁰

Trey Styler’s Suicide in Prison

On August 6, 2015, roughly fourteen months into his sentence, Trey Styler was found hanging in his cell at the Arrowhead Correctional Center in Fremont County, Colorado. He was 67. The Fremont County Coroner’s Office said the death appeared self-inflicted and showed no indication of foul play.²¹²²

Why the Case Still Feels Unresolved

Styler’s confession did not settle the question of who was responsible. DA Caloia and lead investigator Lisa Miller both said they doubted Styler could have committed the killing and cleaned up afterward without help given his physical limitations.² The arrest affidavit noted that investigators believed it would have been difficult for Styler to move the body into the closet and flip the mattress on his own.²³ A later wrongful death filing alleged that an axe had been plunged into Pfister’s chest, a detail absent from Styler’s confession, which described only the hammer.⁷

Questions surrounded Kathy Carpenter too. Affidavits revealed she had failed polygraph questions related to the crime and that the Stylers had asked her about Pfister’s financial accounts before the murder. Witnesses reported that Nancy Styler had made “numerous comments” threatening to kill Pfister and told others she “really did hate” her.²⁴ With Styler’s confession in hand and the remaining evidence largely circumstantial, the plea deal stood.

The Wrongful Death Lawsuit Against Trey Styler’s Widow

In early 2016, Juliana Pfister filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Nancy Masson-Styler, who had by then divorced Trey Styler and reverted to her maiden name. The suit alleged that it was “neither credible nor possible” that Trey Styler acted alone and that his confession had been fabricated to shield his wife.²⁵ It pointed to Styler’s condition, arguing a man who was wheelchair-bound and unable to stand for long stretches could not have struck Pfister, moved her body, and flipped a queen-sized mattress by himself.²⁶

The lawsuit also targeted what Juliana’s attorneys called profiteering. After Trey Styler’s suicide, Nancy Masson-Styler collected a $1 million life insurance benefit.²³ She also co-authored a book with journalist Daleen Berry titled Guilt by Matrimony: A Memoir of Love, Madness, and the Murder of Nancy Pfister, published by BenBella Books in November 2015. The book described Pfister as a “mentally ill, volatile alcoholic” and argued that Nancy Styler had been falsely arrested. Sheriff DiSalvo called the book’s characterization of the victim “tacky” and reiterated his belief that Nancy Styler had been involved.²⁷

Originally pleaded at more than $25 million, the wrongful death claim was ultimately routed through U.S. Bankruptcy Court after Masson-Styler filed for bankruptcy. Under a settlement reached there, Juliana Pfister was expected to receive roughly $850,000, representing what remained of the life insurance proceeds after payment to other creditors. Her recovery was subordinated to four other debts.²⁶

The criminal case left behind no convictions other than a dead man’s guilty plea. Kathy Carpenter, cleared but not exonerated, lost her bank job and employee housing and left Aspen to live with her mother. Nancy Styler divorced Trey, left the state, and published her memoir asserting her innocence while law enforcement continued to say publicly it believed she was involved.²

1
Aspen Times. Buttermilk Visionary Art Pfister Dies at 96
2
CBS News. 48 Hours Probes Murder of Aspen Legend Nancy Pfister
3
Aspen Daily News. Pfister Told Sheriff About Tenant Issues
4
Summit Daily. Aspen Homicide Affidavit Portrays Simmering Feud Between Nancy Pfister, Stylers
5
CBS News. Was Aspen Colorado Socialite Killed by Tenants Over Rent Dispute
6
Oxygen. Nancy Pfister Killed by Trey Styler Over Rental Dispute
7
Aspen Times. Wrongful Death Suit Filed in Nancy Pfister Murder
8
DuJour. Nancy Pfister Aspen Murder
9
ABC News. Suspects in Slaying of Aspen Socialite in Court
10
CBS News. Third Suspect Arrested in Murder of Aspen Socialite
11
Good Morning America. Suspect in Aspen Philanthropist’s Murder Denies Helping Husband Kill
12
ABC News. Aspen Heiress Murder Case Ends With Guilty Plea
13
New York Daily News. Ex-Anesthesiologist Pleads Guilty to Killing Colorado Socialite
14
Denver Post. For Married Couple Suspected in Aspen Death, Things Were Going South
15
Aspen Public Radio. Charges Dropped Against One Defendant in Pfister Case
16
Aspen Times. William Styler Pleads Guilty to Aspenite Nancy Pfister’s Death, Gets 20 Year Sentence
17
Post Independent. DA Says Nancy Pfister Homicide Case Is Getting Stronger
18
Aspen Public Radio. Mistaken 911 Transcript Used to Charge Carpenter
19
Aspen Times. Katherine Carpenter Wants Arrest Records Sealed in Nancy Pfister Case
20
Aspen Public Radio. More Questions Than Answers After Sentencing in Pfister Case
21
CBS News. William Styler Aspen Murder
22
Westword. William Styler, Confessed Killer of Aspen Socialite, Takes Life in Jail Cell
23
Aspen Daily News. Lawsuit Targets Wife of Pfister’s Convicted Killer
24
Aspen Daily News. Affidavits Shed Light on Pfister Murder Arrests
25
Denver Post. Daughter Files Wrongful Death Lawsuit in Nancy Pfister Murder
26
Aspen Daily News. Pfister’s Daughter Settles $25 Million Wrongful Death Case
27
Aspen Daily News. Styler’s Book About Murder Angers Sheriff