That house has this story to tell. Are we going to be able to figure out what that story is? A beautiful mom, a mountain hideaway, a murder in the bedroom, an act of terrible violence that occurred. So I was going in shock, hyperventilating, so this appeared to come out of the blue. Yes, a crime that occurred while she was sleeping.

Where would investigators start and who could they trust and believe in freedom? There's no way she saw what she said. She saw it looked like a setup. It really did look like a setup. The real killer would stun them all, took my world and just flipped it upside down. I started praying that the truth would be revealed. We were all wrong. Everybody was wrong in this case.

Oh, my. Oh, my. Oh, my God. Like a cold night in February 2014.

So far, 911 callers can often be hysterical. This one was all but incomprehensible.

I was in the closet, but then this sort of thing just doesn't happen to people like the one now lying dead in the closet is true and certainly not in the caller's zip code.

We don't see very many homicides in Pecan County, but there are moments when no place is safe, no person, not the storied victim, not her secure and pampered Shangrila in the snow.

There are no words for it. You know, when a childhood friend dies.

Yes. And Nancy Fister, life of the party confidante, the bellhops and billionaires who would want to harm her and why. Aspen, Colorado, the tiny municipal airport here tells a story in the long line of private jets parked and waiting for their well-heeled owners to come down from their mountainside chalets, their beginner castles, as the late Nancy Fister used to call them half playfully. Of course, these were her friends, as were the passing tourists and ski bums and busboys and just about everybody.

Mary Conover met Nancy when they were both teenagers.

You cannot come to this town without meeting, Nancy. I mean, come on. Everybody met Nancy at one point or another.

I'll be showing you all the rich and famous people that I know, including a French TV crew. Nancy gave them a tour of Aspen glitz. And this is where all the rich and famous people come in their private jet. I've never known another person like her as joyful and outsize personality and all of that, that she was she had a very deep and soulful connection to the world.

Some special sauce in Nancy Fister, and when she smiled, it was just pure radiance. You know, it was just beaming. Billy Clayton was perhaps closer to Nancy than anybody, almost like a brother. It was like she had a secret and she wanted to share it with you. And that secret was, let's all lighten up and have fun and enjoy life and be grateful.

Nancy had reason to be grateful. She was born into a legendary Aspen family, a bit like local royalty.

Her father, artist who made a fortune when he turned his ranch into the buttermilk ski resort. And her mother, Betty, was a World War Two pilot who in later years flew a helicopter, parked it in her driveway.

And Nancy, stories about Nancy would fill a book like the one about how she met Jack Nicholson.

A convertible pulled up and asked them directions. And Nancy said, well, I'll take you there, but I want to ride in that nice careers. And the next thing you know, she's she and Jack are best friends.

This is the house of Jack Nicholson so that she couldn't live any way. She wanted out loud many, many times when I just thought we were going to have a normal day, she would say, let's go to St. Bart's or let's go to Hawaii or let's go somewhere.

And I go, OK, but a relationship with the impulsive and gregarious Nancy Billy had to admit came with a price. Your business was her business. Your stuff was her stuff. Sometimes she just expected her friends to give her the stuff she wanted. It was it was quite a job to love, Nancy.

Quite a job to love Nancy. Yeah. She would do things she felt were OK at any time.

So after what happened to her flies on a carcass, the tabloids feasted on the gossip and half truths that flew around town. She was a spoiled wild child.

They have Jack Nicholson's party girl, Hunter S. Thompson drinking buddy, an incurable flirt, once engaged to Michael Douglas. All very reckless. The stories about the, quote, Aspen socialite and insulting said her friends didn't paint Nancy's character accurately at all. Some people collect famous people as friends. It's important to them to be able to talk about. Definitely, sure. No. She had a lot of famous friends. She had a lot of friends who were not famous.

She treated everyone the same way. She had a very genuine connection with people.

She didn't have the entitlement that made us snooty little rich kid or something. She had an entitlement to every day of life was precious and and should be lived to the fullest.

Nancy was a traveling philanthropist, a devoted environmentalist. She had a daughter to Juliana, born when Nancy was twenty nine. And sometimes she took Juliana with her when she traveled, but sometimes she didn't.

Nancy had a lot of very close friends and people who loved Juliana. And, you know, we all raised our children together.

Unusual? Oh, certainly. But she just truly, deeply loved Juliana and did feel that this was her greatest role of her life was was to be a mother.

Thing is, Nancy Fister trusted people, even with the care of her own daughter, with her house, with her money, like to tell her she happened to meet in her local bank.

She loved people, you know, all kinds. It didn't matter who you were.

Kathy Carpenter was that teller. And one day seven years ago, out of the blue, Nancy asked her to lunch. Kathy accepted and learned firsthand another of Nancy's hallmark traits. She is sometimes brutally honest.

No edit button. No edit button. I like that. Yes, no button. She actually, when I first met her, told me that I was very fat.

That's what I think to say to somebody when you first meet them. Hi, be my friend. You're fat. Yeah, well, you're you're fat.

You're beautiful, you're fat. Though she was blunt, undiplomatic, but irresistible. By the time lunch was over, Nancy and Kathy were fast friends just now.

Nancy was like when she made plans to leave town for the winter, she decided to rent her house to a retired doctor at his horticulturalist wife. Total strangers, whom she befriended in a heartbeat, actually invited them to move in a month early.

And so she and Dr. Tracy Styler and his wife also happened to be named Nancy. They all lived together like roommates.

She kind of said, I'm going to take you under my wing and have you meet all my friends. And I know a lot of people around here. But now, in February 2014, at just 57, Nancy Fister was gone, murdered, apparently in her own bed. Well, the grief was still very fresh. Much of Aspen crowded into the storied Hotel Jerome for a memorial that was more like a goodbye party. However, she died, we need to celebrate her life.

That's what she would have wanted because her life was a celebration. Except one person notably absent from the overflow crowd in the Jarome wasn't celebrating, but certainly could hear the music and laughter that burst out of hotel windows that night and drifted down the street and into a particular cell in the county jail.

All right, so what happened to Nancy Fister, the awful discovery that launched this Aspen mystery? How to get that image out of your mind?

It is that House has this story to tell. And are we going to be able to figure out what that story is?

Aspen, Colorado, February 2014, Any February is the center of the universe for a certain crowd, that is, that year is always an avalanche of skiers crowded onto lifts and filled the restaurants and bars and shops that line aspens carefully tended avenues, a lovely of pricey skiing heaven.

Except that is for Nancy Fister.

That used to be really different in the old days, but now it has gotten more towards the champagne.

Did you ever think of leaving here permanently? I know she was away a lot, but she thought of it all the time. She thought because asthma's changed so much, it's not that sleepy little town. There's traffic.

I got stuck in traffic today with her daughter Juliana, grown and out of the house. By then, Nancy, at the peak of the ski season, had no reason to winter in Aspen, which is why she rented her house to that retired doctor and his wife from Denver while she sipped her champagne in warmer climes that year, Australia. So it was a surprise when that February she notified her friend. She was coming home early. She arrived in Aspen Saturday, the 22nd of February.

Cathy Carpenter picked her up at the airport and got weather that evening, helped her unpack and get organized. How was it to have her back? It was wonderful. It was fun. She shared a lot of her video clips that she took on her trip.

Did you stay over the weekend? I did. She asked me if I would stay with her. So I did.

On Monday morning, February 24th, Kathy got up early and left for work, leaving Nancy and her dog Gabe at the house, knowing Nancy would need peace and quiet to get over her jetlag.

She put a note on the front door asking would be visitors to leave Nancy alone.

She did not want to be disturbed. Nancy Foster dad never wanted to be disturbed when she slept, right.

You do not call her. You do not wake her.

She always slept with her earplugs and your eyes. Everything shut.

Close the door and do not disturb. Billy Clayton also left Nancy alone, but felt much better just knowing she was home.

I worried about her constantly when she was away from Aspen, but when she returned to Aspen, I didn't worry about her. I would relax. I sent her an email. There was a photo of my four year old son to out. Nancy, we're so glad you're home, because when you're home, we don't worry about you and everything's good. But Billy didn't hear back. Not a word. And then on Wednesday, the people who had been renting Nancy's house called Kathy.

They'd moved out quickly on Nancy's return, have been going back and forth to the house all week, clearing out the last of their stuff. And they found it odd that they hadn't seen Nancy, not once. So this is Monday, Tuesday and then Wednesday. And you still hadn't seen her?

Still hadn't seen her, but they did see Nancy's dog, Gabe. And then I went and called Kathy and said the dog has been alone for two days. It's clear that she hasn't been back.

I was concerned because normally that's not Nancy's behavior. She would call me and ask me to pick the dog up.

So after work, Kathy drove up to Nancy's place and Buttermilk Mountain to check on her friend.

What was it like when you went inside the house? I called her name out and Gabe was there.

He was happy to see me, but Nancy wasn't there. Kathy checked her bedroom, you know, stuff that was there that I unpacked.

You know, it was clear, cleaned up. And when I turned went to the closet, it was locked. Was it usually locked? No. Not I mean, not with Nancy Foster home, Kathy knew that when Nancy rented her house, she kept her personal belongings locked in a closet in the master bedroom. But she and Kathy had unlocked it when she got home.

At that point, I just I was not feeling something was right. Kathy, who often how sad for Nancy, had a spare key, but it was back at her house. So she went home, got the keys, returned open the closet door.

When I open that door, that odor is so overwhelming, it hit me in the face.

And I looked down and I could see the shape. A shape hidden under a pile of blankets and coverings, but with one glimpse, Kathy just knew, she said it was Nancy Fister. Hard to get that image out of your mind. It is kind of stuck there. It is Kathy fled the house, got in her car, called nine one one oh oh oh. It's pretty desolate up there. I jumped in the car and I thought, I'll just drive down the hill and get to the police department.

I told her hysterics, made it very hard for the dispatcher to comprehend exactly what was going on.

When you get near your. No, no.

You hear that finally understanding. The dispatcher told Cathy, pull over and wait for the first responders. I want you to pull over and put your flashers on.

When the police arrived, they stepped out of the vehicle. I was going in shock.

Hyperventilating dash cam video shows a distraught Cathy as she was taken to the hospital and sheriff's deputies arrived on Buttermilk Mountain to look in that room and confront a mystery.

That house in that room in particular has this story to tell. And are we going to be able to figure out what that story is? They knew they were looking for a body. The discovery in the closet. Who was behind it? Hard to do that alone.

It is awkward and difficult to move a body, more than one suspect and maybe more than one killer. Lisa Miller, the DA's investigator for the county that includes Aspen, is a tall, rangy woman with an impish grin that looks like it might be a secret investigator. Miller was in an unfamiliar situation up here. A Buttermilk Mountain murder in Aspen just doesn't happen or hadn't, at least in more than a decade.

I was a little surprised that we had a murder in Aspen and we called to a home like Nancy Fister, I think especially so. Correct.

And yet here she was in Nancy's living room, looking at the big picture window, the juxtaposition of arriving at that house and taking a look at this beautiful scenery and then knowing an act of terrible violence had occurred.

Just down the hallway, though, in the bedroom, she saw surprisingly little evidence of it. There was a small blood smear on the headboard. There was a couple small droplets of blood on the carpet in a little bit of spatter on the wall. And the body in the closet? Well, when first responders opened the door, they knew they were looking for a body and they opened the door and they look inside and they didn't immediately recognize the body.

You just looked down and you saw white coverings.

And underneath those coverings, Miss Fister had been found with extension cord. She had multiple plastic bags over her head that had been bound and secured tightly. And then another large one of the resistant, darker colored bags over her body.

Also with blankets wrapped all around that investigator, Miller could clearly see that the killer, whoever it was, had gone to a lot of trouble to hide what he or she had done.

But there was no hiding.

Now, when the crime scene personnel started taking a look, they flip the mattress and found blood on the bottom part of the mattress.

So it was clear that she was killed on the bed, dragged to the closet, stashed there, wrapped up like a mummy. Then whoever did it took the extra trouble to flip the mattress in an effort to hide the soaked in a pool of blood. Deputy District Attorney Andrea Bryant started working on the case on the night Nancy's body was found.

We learned that she had died from blunt force trauma to the head, and it appears she had had several blows to the head and defensive wounds.

No. So this appeared to come out of the blue for her.

It did appear to be a premeditated crime that occurred while she was sleeping.

It looked as if it happened early Monday morning. And then the body lay in the closet, undiscovered until Wednesday evening.

The investigators began compiling a list of possible suspects. The long list. None of us really live like Nancy. So open. I mean, she was totally open to strangers.

That openness made Nancy friends everywhere she went, said Billy.

But when Nancy opened herself up, people didn't always like what came out of all this land and say whatever she thought, see what she thought when she realized she was going to maybe make a negative impression.

Sometimes when she did that, well, she definitely piss people off. There's no doubt about that. She many times I could just see people's steam coming out of their ears and they're thinking no one's ever talked to me like that before.

Yeah, that's her thinking was someone should have a long time ago, you know, no question Nancy rubbed some people the wrong way, spoke her mind a bit too often, maybe treated friends a little like her personal servants sometimes like Cathy, for example.

Did she treat you more like a friend or like she was your boss?

You know, friends. And just depending on the day and some days, you know, she would boss me around and I would express how I felt.

And she always apologized and her friends forgave because they loved Nancy for who she was.

But investigators now had to figure out if someone in Nancy's life had stopped loving her or if she had simply opened herself up to the wrong person or working diligently at that point to follow up on other leads that were coming in, like leads of other people in the community that may have had some resentment towards Nancy Fister, like perhaps a jilted lover, like one of them have harbored some hidden rage.

Her friends knew that the irrepressible Nancy was also a woman who fell in and out of love.

Often usually Nancy's affairs or romances didn't last a long time.

Yeah, because there were some stories about there was a jilted lover somewhere, somebody I didn't know. So when I heard that, I thought, you know, there's crazy people out there. And I said, let's let's follow it up, because you never know. Could be known.

But no, no actual jilted lovers in Nancy's past, just rumor and unfounded innuendo. And besides, after taking in the bedroom, crime scene investigators decided they were not looking for a killer.

Hard to do that alone.

Carry a body around like that, a flip, a queen sized mattress. The mattress is doable, but it would be awkward for a single person to flip the mattress on their own. And they use the term dead weight for a reason.

I mean, it is awkward and difficult to move a body, but it seemed like a pretty clear indication of more than one person. Yes, that was our conclusion. Something else.

Since there was no sign of forced entry, her killer or killers, as they're now believed, must have had a house key. Now, who might that be? The new renters, the doctor and his wife, it just seemed perfect. She really like these people. She felt that they had really great karma. What did they see? The investigation was literally closer to home now.

That is to say, the detectives investigating the murder of Nancy Fister began looking at anybody who had access without permission to Nancy's house.

That is people with the key.

For example, the couple who had been renting the place while Nancy was in Australia, Dr. William Trece Tyler and his wife, also named Nancy, were hardly likely suspects, but they had to start somewhere.

Mr. An anesthesiologist was a stihler, from all accounts, was an intelligent woman herself.

Trainer Nancy met in the anesthesiology department at a Denver hospital. He a resident and she an instructor.

I heard him go up to a woman on a gurney and say, Hello, I'm Dr. Stihler. I'll take care of you as though I were taking care of my mother and I love my mother.

The gentle doctor chaired his anesthesiology department. By the time he retired, they lived in an upscale area of Denver. Their shared hobby was growing the gasp inducing giant Victoria water lily, their unusual level of success at that. Her skill brought them world renowned within the rarefied world of specialized botany.

In fact, the two of you lived kind of a charmed existence.

We did had twenty five years of a life that I used to say I would never trade with anyone.

But right around the year 2000, it all began to fall apart. Trey got sick and had to quit practicing medicine. His attempt to start a medical support business failed. He sued his medical group and lost. He sued the lawyer who took his life savings and got nothing. He had to sell his house. He moved with Nancy into a rental where they were poisoned, said Nancy, and very nearly fatally by carbon monoxide. Again, they tried to sue, but were too broke to hire an attorney, and he was beside himself suicidal.

Just you know, I can't believe what I did to the family losing all this income, and I said, you know, we can do this. And so I thought of Aspen that we loved Aspen, Aspen, fresh air, a fresh start.

They could open a spa, they decided. And that's when Nancy Stihler picked up the phone to answer another Nancy's real estate ad in the local newspaper, Nancy Fiston, and she said, Oh, excuse me, I was just watering my greenhouse.

I said, you know, I would love to have a greenhouse. And so we went up there and it just seemed perfect, seemed perfect.

Nancy Fister to her share of the family fortune was doled out in regular but limited allowances. And by renting her multi-million dollar house with the billion dollar views, she would have extra cash for her upcoming trip to Australia. So no formal lease, just a handshake. The rent was 4000 dollars a month.

It was a lot of money, but not for Aspen. Nancy asked her good friend Cathy to help the renters take care of her dog while she was away, collect the rent and be her general Go-Between. She really like these people.

She said that she felt that they had really great karma, and that's part of the reason why she invited them to move in a full month before she left. But it wasn't long before the stylist discovered that living with Nancy Fister was not quite like they thought it might be.

After the first couple of days, she treated me like a slave, might get my cigarettes, get this, get my drink. And I was not used to being so disrespected, treated like a slave. I mean, a slave, it was not pretty, you know, I tell her.

That is how Nancy is. Don't take it personal. She comes off this way.

And that, you know, she she really has a good heart anyway, that she left soon enough for Australia. But then the stylist discovered the house wasn't so perfect after all.

So when I went to clean out the master bedroom and bathroom, I realized the hot water was rusty. The dishwasher didn't work. The stove didn't work. Once again, the stylish, soft red dress, they decided to withhold rent until those things were fixed.

Nancy Fister, half a world away, was not happy when she said that she felt that these people were Conn's squatters and she wanted them out.

Kathy was caught in the middle.

She arranged the repairs. The stylist paid the money they owed, gave Kathy six thousand dollars in cash that she put in a safe deposit box for Nancy.

But the relationship between landlords and tenants had soured to the point that no amount of karma could preserve it.

And at that point, Nancy Stihler said, I don't want to stay. We will be out February 22nd. How did Nancy Fister feel about that? She was fine with it. She wanted them out, unable to find new tenants. Now, Nancy Foster was faced with doing exactly what she hoped to avoid when she went to Australia spending peak ski season in Aspen. She got home February 22nd, the very day the Staler said they'd be done moving their stuff out.

The problem was they weren't she was not happy, you know. Yeah, she had a few choice words, but she accepted it. She was tired. Jet lag. You know, she wanted to come home, see her dog.

The stylist ended up in a motel and basalt about 25 minutes away. They stopped by the house again a few times during the week to get their things. So all the dog, but not Nancy, and made that first alarming call to Kathy that something seemed wrong. And when Kathy found the body knowing better than anyone about the tension between the STYLEZ and Nancy Fister, she made sure to clue in investigators people there.

She really did several us and she made threats to them with our own money.

So time for investigators to visit that motel and meet the Steelers.

They said, I haven't done anything wrong. From a motel room to interrogation room. Investigators were fishing. You did this and you did what? What they can. Basalt, Colorado, just down the highway from Aspen, you could see the same mountains breathe the same air, but when Trey and Nancy Stihler checked into their motel, they were entering a world far beneath the rarefied heights of Nancy Forresters mountainside retreat.

No billionaire starter castles here. This is where many of the people who work in Aspen live and hear the Steelers thought they were done with Nancy Fister moving on. And then there was a knock at the door, five thirty. And it was sheriff's deputies. They had questions, they said about a dead body.

And I said, what dead body? And he wouldn't tell me. Who died wouldn't say a word, the deputies escorted them to the back seats of separate cars, but said not a word as they drove down to the station. Nancy listened to the chatter on the radio.

I heard her sister's names being mentioned on the police radio. Nancy's sister's names. And I thought, well, it must be something to do with Nancy at the Pitkin County Sheriff's Office Deputies, but Nancy and Trey in different interview rooms and he had read me my Miranda rights beforehand and I said, I don't need an attorney. I said I haven't done anything wrong.

I said, I'll be happy to answer questions, which were at least to begin with. Pretty basic. But where do you come from? We're from Denver. We met at the University of Colorado Medical School.

They asked me if I knew any of the men that she, you know, had dated, if I knew anyone that would want her dead.

She didn't think it was that sort of thing at all, said Nancy. She told the detective she was pretty sure she knew exactly what happened to Nancy Fister.

I said, you're going to find the tax report. You're going to find out that she committed suicide.

I was absolutely sure that that's what happened.

But of course, investigators knew Nancy Fister did not kill herself. They knew someone beat her to death, attacked her as she slept, and they knew all about the rental arrangement that started well and went to hell and about the Stivers rapid fall from success to ruination.

Their financial situation was dire and he was trying upon a very nice ring. There's a desperate man who was very desperate.

They also knew from Kathy Carpenter how angry Nancy Stihler was. Nancy Fister, what kinds of things did she say?

Just that I hate that woman. You know, he stihler was upset I could kill her. She did say that, oh, I could just kill that woman.

Did Nancy Stihler admit that she had threatened Nancy Fister, that she had said, you know, I'd like to kill her?

She was, I think, pretty open about her feelings for Nancy Fister. And she made some statements that were certainly consistent with that.

I said, you know, I would like to wring her neck because she is such a drunk and making me so crazy.

Nancy, stylez personal opinion, Nancy Fister Hazard to such a degree, she did not hesitate to speak ill of the dead.

Whether true or not, there is not one person who said a nice thing about her, not one person.

Investigators. What? Dr. Stihler in a separate room, they dressed him in an orange jumpsuit, even though he wasn't under arrest. They asked a few softball questions.

And John Williams, was that trade or frankly, answering anything but. But it wasn't long before the tone changed and the accusations began. I mean, why did you go in there with her? And she you don't even know. But I know it's true. I know it's true.

The sheriff, himself a close friend of the late Nancy Fister, tried to get freestyler to admit that in a desperate rage, he killed Nancy. You did this man. You did it. And you start saying that the better this is going to be.

But Trey insisted they were going after the wrong guy. He was innocent.

How can you know it's true? What? It's not true. Over and over, Trey stressed and demonstrated how his 65 year old body, ravaged by disease, was far too frail to have done what was done to Nancy Grace.

She is formidable adversary, but it had already done, the detectives laboratory claimed to be physically incapable. My condition is such that I don't think I could be a king. The worse it looked for his wife.

We definitely had to look at the fact that he had assistance.

Potentially my wife does everything. I'm disabled. But it's true. He still insisted took a polygraph. Maybe he shouldn't have. And he failed his polygraph. Yes, he did.

Failed polygraph. You're smiling. Failed it badly or what? My understanding from the calligrapher that I ran the test, he did fail it badly, not admissible in court, but an investigative tool, they say didn't look good for the retailers. But desperation and anger do not buy themselves a murder case, make and to make things a little extra difficult. Investigators knew they couldn't count on DNA at the scene to link the Steelers to the crime.

It could easily be explained because of where they were living. They were staying in that bedroom.

The investigators drove the Salvos back to their motel and went on with the hard work of a murder investigation. They'd have to find a piece of good, solid evidence to tie someone, maybe the Steelers to the crime. Didn't look so far as if such a thing existed and then occasionally something fortuitous happens to law enforcement. How is that old saying go? One man's trash is another man's treasure. This broke the case. It seemed like magic, a grab bag of evidence suddenly at their feet.

What was this stuff and where could it have come from?

Something was wrong with the equation, didn't add up here in Aspen, in the house on Buttermilk Mountain, the crime scene around Nancy Fiesta's body spoke in a way it told a story.

And what it said was that at least two able bodied people committed the murder.

How else would a heavy mattress get flipped? And Nancy's body got dragged across the room and into the closet and get packaged in bags and wrapped up in blankets. And yet their suspect, Nancy's former tenants, were not able bodied, spring chickens, anything but athletic. And besides, there was zero physical evidence that would tie either one of them to the crime.

I think we we were faced with the reality that this this was always going to be a circumstantial case.

So that bedroom was keeping its secrets and might be keeping them still, except for one total fluke couple of days later, one of those little gifts, that chance or fate or something just drops that have frustrated investigators feel all tied up with a neat little bow.

What do you got here?

I mean, this is not just a standard trash thing. No, this. Broke the case, how weirdly flukey was this, the town of Basalt, who knew how to rule that you can't put personal garbage in public trash can and a city worker a little extra diligent happened to be poking around in the trash, just randomly checking for illegal garbage disposal.

Tell me what this guy did and how he came across this stuff. He pulls the trash and then he goes to another location. He was going to actually check it to see if there was any. Is something stood out about this actually? Does this stuff crack open the bag?

And he did. And thank goodness he did, because when he opened the bag, he looks inside and he sees a prescription pill bottle. And what was special about this prescription pill bottle is it had Nancy Officer's name on it.

Of course, the city worker recognized the name Aspirin, and the towns around it were buzzing with news about Nancy Foster's murder in addition to that pill bottle after which she phoned the police.

What did you guys find in that bag?

Well, this is the profile of the big one was a hammer, a bloody hammer, a bloody hammer found in the same trash is medication belonging to Nancy Fister.

That simply couldn't be a coincidence. Police were 99 percent sure they'd stumbled on the murder weapon. They sent it off to the crime lab to be tested ASAP. But the trash bag wasn't done divulging its investigative gifts.

Another thing that we found that was concerning to us was the vehicle registration for William and Nancy, stylish Jaguar.

What's more, the trash bin was located just behind the motel where the stylists were staying, and that was miles and miles away from Nancy Fisher's house.

Again, as we say, a little gift, actually, a big, fat, juicy gift dropped right into investigators laps. And it no question linked the stylist to the crime.

I cannot think of any other time, any other case I've ever heard about where such obvious evidence is just kind of there, thrown, thrown out carelessly, so close to where suspects are saying, yeah.

Deputies hovered around the motel to keep an eye on the stylus to make sure they didn't do a disappearing act. Well, they and the D.A. waited for the lab to test the hammer. And then three days later, another insanely improbable discovery. The key was found on the ground.

It was right before the trash can right there, just a few feet from the door of the Stivers motel room was the owner's key to the closet in which Nancy Foster's body was found lying around as if the state is intended to throw it in the trash, but dropped it by mistake.

Just lying on the ground, on the ground, on the lighter portion of the concrete is where it was found.

And then that very same day as if to punctuate the whole strange affair, the DNA results came back. And Nancy, FISAs DNA was on the on the hammer.

So we were able to pretty clearly say that that was was the murder weapon, the murder weapon, the key and the motive, pretty much everything they needed to pin the crime on the Skylar's.

It was March 3rd, 2014, not even a week since Nancy Foster's body was found.

They knocked on the door, I stepped out of the door and they said, we're arresting you for murder one and slap the cuffs on me and took me away, they let my husband out in my bathrobe.

What is it like for a woman who led a very successful wife who who traveled around doing lectures on Victoria Lillie's to societies of like minded horticulturalists to be in jail, be in jail?

For murder. It was a shock. It was a shock for some of Nancy flusters friends to like Mary Conover, the Steelers, really it was just a big surprise.

And not knowing anything about these people, it just seemed outrageous why you would do something like that.

But Kathy Carpenter, who pointed her suspicious finger at the stylus right after the murder, practically jump for joy.

When I heard that I was joyful that they found the person who murdered Nancy. And, you know, I just felt that there was justice and swift justice at that.

What a relief to all those souls Nancy collected who loved her like family.

I was relieved that, you know, this is done.

But could one of the biggest crimes in Aspen history really be solved that fast with so little drama? Of course not.

Look, like I said up to you, it look like a setup. It really did look like a setup.

Rethinking the case. Something doesn't add up. Oh, so bizarre is the only way I can characterize that 911 call. A call now becomes a clue.

There's no way she saw what she said she saw.

It was a quick business here in Aspen, Colorado, not even a week after Nancy, his body was found in her own closet, renters were led away in handcuffs. But was it too quick, too easy? It looked fishy to me. Fishy, fishy.

Nancy Statler's attorney, Beth Cruel, which she had in terms of you've got a very well respected physician who's now being accused of murder. And it didn't it was inconceivable to me that he would have killed somebody.

Plus the elderly man they led away, wrapped in his wife's blue bathrobe, looked far too frail and weak to bludgeon a woman to death, carry her body, wrap it up, flip a mattress, and then been stupid enough to take the murder weapon, some pill bottles with the victim's name on them.

His vehicle registration and insurance packaged it all up in one bag and then put it in a dumpster that was close to the motel he was staying.

It made zero sense to me.

It also makes zero sense that Trey's accomplice was his diminutive sixty two year old wife, Nancy, even though she did actually say she could just kill that Nancy Fister. But then lots of people around town said similar things about the outspoken Miss Fister at some point or another, not meaning it literally.

I could see where she could be sitting around with Kathy Carpenter and they could be commiserating about, you know, what Nancy Forster did or didn't do or what she had said or the way they had been treated. And she could have said something like, you know, I'd like to kill her. But, you know, listen. That's that's not evidence of first degree murder. Besides, Nancy, Stihler was more than open about it.

We've all said that about someone that some other, you know, I'd like to kill him or something like that, but not not ever thinking, you know, taking it that far. Yes, I did say that. But no, I didn't kill her.

And if it wasn't, Nancy couldn't have a tree either because he was frail. Yes, said Nancy, but also because he was never alone to do it. You were never without him. You're always together.

I said we were always together. What did make sense? Said Attorney Crewel. Which is it? Someone else killed Nancy Fister and planted the evidence against the Steelers in an attempt to frame them for the final piece of it was that the owner's closet key kind of magically appears on the sidewalk near the Steelers motel room the day they get arrested.

It was a thought that crossed investigators minds as well.

We would have been a mess had we not looked at the possibility that someone was setting these people up.

And so even with the Steelers in jail charged with murder, investigators were still quietly looking for other suspects, for someone with motive and means to kill Nancy and the foresight to frame the Steelers, someone close to Nancy, someone that she trusted, even loved, like the person who pointed the finger of blame right in the middle of that nine one one call Kathy Carpenter, a utility there.

She really pissed off Kathy Carpenter.

She said she was Nancy Fiesta's dear friend. But investigators, we're hearing a different story.

Their relationship had been a roller coaster. So we knew that there had been this cycle of the ladies having a good relationship and that things would go south and they would have a bad relationship for a period of time.

And so with all that in mind, Deputy D.A. Andrea Brian went back to that hysterical phone call from Kathy Denine one one. What did you make of it?

You know, I think bizarre is the only way I can characterize that 911 call immediately identifying suspects. It was not getting help for Nancy Fister. It was, oh, you should be looking at these two people immediately. So that was interesting.

So it was and just as interesting what Kathy told nine one one about seeing Nancy Foster's body, the fact that immediately the deceased is identified as Nancy Fister would have been impossible to do impossible, said investigator Lisa Miller, because Nancy's body was completely covered head to toe when Kathy saw it in the closet.

What we're looking at photos of the crime scene and we know there's no way she saw what she said.

She saw there was more. Kathy, of course, had keys to Nancy's house, including a key to the closet. Was the last person to admit seeing Nancy alive. And when she left pinned up that do not disturb sign on Nancy's door, supposedly because her friend needed to get over her jetlag.

She ended up making a statement to another individual that Nancy would be sleeping and resting for the next three days.

And three days later, the body was found.

And the day that closet key magically appeared so close to the stylez motel room, Kathy Carpenter was known to be in the very same neighborhood right around that time, meeting with her therapist. So next question, was Kathy Carpenter truly Nancy's friend and helper or her murderer trying to pin the blame on someone else?

What did you see, the interrogation, probing questions, puzzling actions?

Oh, yes, yes, there was no tears during the time that she was trying to portray herself as crying.

Ski season in Aspen is a time to see and be seen in crowded watering holes beneath carefully groomed World-Class Slopes. But in late winter 2014, attention was diverted from the fashionable pursuits.

Nancy Fister once described that French TV show we call as an adult Disneyland.

Now, the subject was her, her murder, of course, but also her freewheeling life and in death.

Her reputation, to the consternation of her closest friends, was gleefully amplified by some media outlets. Not in a good way.

Why do we need to throw rocks at her? You know, just because she had too much fun, really.

Billy and the others defended their remarkable departed friend and devoted their energy to plans for a special memorial event, which they decided would be a party sort of thing Nancy would have loved.

What did she mean to you personally? She meant duration and consistency. She was the godmother of my children. I was the godfather of Juleanna. Sorry.

I'm trying, but, well, Billy and the others worked through their grief, Nancy's buddy Kathy Carpenter was at the Pitkin County Sheriff's Office answering questions.

What did you see? I just remember opening the door and I saw she she wasn't she was covered.

We were still giving her the benefit of the doubt. She thought something was up. She had been worried about her friend.

So was there an innocent explanation for why Kathy seemed to see things she could not have seen, why she knew it was Nancy's bloody body that was in the closet, even though the first responders saw what looked like just a pile of blankets when they arrived?

Could she have lifted up those blankets? She could have and seen? She could have.

And during the interviews, I specifically asked her, did you step out of the closet? Did you lift any of the blankets? Did you touch did you manipulate in any way in her answers repeatedly were no, she had not touched. She did not move she and manipulated to not quite so fast.

And yet, at the same time, Kathy gave specific details about the body.

This is still a reasonable position, but I knew the blood hair.

And she tells me she immediately recognized her friend because of the blond hair and the length of that hair. How much hair did you see? I would ask. Miss Carpenter.

Seems like these. Can I just see I like. So how many strands would you say that you saw somebody like was a man? It was blood or just a little blonde hair.

If you've seen the crime scene photographs of how that body was found and that that body was in the closet and she did not see that, the more Cathy talked, how much how much blood did you see?

Well, how much more would you say to yourself if you saw her hair on the head to make it in the more suspicious the investigators became?

She's describing in the interviews how were the injuries were to the forehead. I went and I reviewed the autopsy photos and she was exactly spot on to where she indicated the injury to the forehead.

It wasn't just Kathy's words. An investigator, Miller looked to her like Cathy's grief was more act than real.

You know, for years, the bad act at that.

There was no tears during the time that she was trying to portray herself as crying.

Some people cry without tears, Shirley. I'm sure some people do.

What can you tell from a thing like that?

It's just always interesting when you know, someone is going to such lengths to act like they're emotionally distraught and the body doesn't respond.

Then she discovered what Cathy did the day after she said she found Nancy's body. She went to the bank where Nancy had trusted Cathy with access to her safety deposit box. And Cathy took from that box the Stivers last rent payment, six thousand dollars in cash and an heirloom ring Nancy had inherited from her mother within 24 hours.

Or actually, it was a little less than twenty four hours of her friend being found by her. She's going into that safety deposit box, taking six thousand dollars in jewelry from it.

So investigators now had an idea fast gathering strength. But Cathy Carpenter was far more involved than she claimed to have been.

She just made some very detailed descriptions of that body that she couldn't have made unless she had seen her before she was put in that closet, meaning right after she was actually murdered.

Did she provide a rational explanation for the reason for being able to do that?

Now, they brought Cathy back again and again for questioning, five days, almost 20 hours of questioning during one interrogation. Detectives read back the transcript of the 911 call that you talked about.

My friend in is dead. There is impossible that she knew that she was dead, if possible, through her own words at her.

The blood she reported seeing in the dispatcher said blood on your head and how she so quickly accused the Steelers of the utility there.

And they told her they just knew she was lying. I believe that, you know, what happened and Nelson and I are going to be able to prove that because that's my job. And Kathy Carpenter, like Trey Stihler, submitted to a polygraph test. But if he failed his, Kathy Carpenter felt hers worse.

You absolutely bombed the polygraph that was asked on the nine one one on the nine one one right here. Here's all the documentation of deceit and guilt.

So for detectives, the only question left was, did Kathy Carpenter kill Nancy and try to frame the Steelers or were they all in together, you and a liar?

I don't think anyone wanted that to be found.

Another look at the evidence and another turn in the case. This has been one of the more frightening experiences of my career.

In the dispatcher said on 48 hour after hour, Kathy Carpenter talk to the detectives investigating the murder of her friend Nancy Fister.

What did you see? I just remember opening the door to she covered.

She was alone with them. She could have asked for an attorney. She did not. She told the detectives she didn't need a lawyer because she was innocent. But as Kathy went on and on, those detectives became more and more sure she killed her friend Nancy or helped at least.

So right now, I'm telling you, everything is crashing down on you. Every how could you not? It's absolutely coming down. The question now, was Kathy trying to frame the Steelers? At first blush, it certainly looked that way. And yet the more they thought about it, the more unlikely it seemed. Why? Well, the trash bag containing so much incriminating evidence, for example, the one the diligent city worker just happened to stumble on.

I really think that this was actually pure luck.

I don't think anyone wanted that to be found. I think really the simple explanation here is, is really the right explanation, which is that we had a great break in the case and thank goodness for that.

The only conspiracy theory Assistant D.A. Andrea O'Brien was buying was one that involved the Steelers and Kathy Carpenter, all of them together committing the murder, the two women perhaps bonding over their shared frustration with Nancy Fiesta's behaviors.

It appears that they almost felt at times a bit of a friendship around that mutual anger toward Nancy Foster and Trey Pushtu.

His financial and emotional limits was most likely the one to wield the hammer reasons. The assistant D.A., well, the women helped hide the body and clean up the bedroom. But that theory was right. Something went wrong after the murder. The conspiracy did not hold back.

When Cathy Carpenter realized the gravity of what she had gotten herself into, she got worried and worried that she would be fingered.

So Kathy struck. First, the DA's theory went called nine one one and fingered the stylus to deflect attention from herself in the interrogation room.

Investigators had tried to get Trey to turn on his wife or Kathy and ask your wife, do you want her to be involved in this? She's wrapped up in this mess we've had as long as you have. She's telling us a lot of good stuff. And they also tried to get Kathy to flip on the Stifler's.

Somebody is going to come clean to say I did it, but this is what she knew. And she didn't tell us that. Now you are responsible for it, just like you. But you're going to be the one that didn't tell the truth, but it didn't work. I did have one issue with, you know, a number of people here.

On March 14th, three weeks after Nancy Fister was murdered, Kathy Carpenter, like the Stivers before her, was charged with first degree murder and put in the county jail.

The newest suspect arrested was Katherine Carpenter.

Billy Clayton had been on the phone with Kathy just the day before discussing Nancy's memorial service.

And I think I was supposed to get something for her to wear to the memorial.

And now she was behind bars, seemed crazy. But in a town that could barely believe one of its own had been murdered, anything seemed possible. Now, they should have been surprised or shocked or something.

But at that moment, I just I was like, you know.

Who knows, anything could happen, I just I it didn't make any sense at all why anyone would kill her.

And so as Billy and the others went on finalizing memorial plans, Cathy bit late, got a lawyer, Greg Greer.

This has been one of the more frightening experiences of my career, to represent a person who is so totally and completely innocent.

As Greer in the lawyers representing the stylus waded through the evidence, trying to sort out who did what. It became pretty clear to them, at least, that the truth about what happened in that bedroom on Buttermilk Mountain was still very much hidden. We were all wrong about what happened. I mean, everybody was wrong in this case. Wrong about what? Or about who? I started praying that the truth would be revealed. That's what I wanted the truth to be revealed.

It was just where she would have wanted her last party, Aspen's historic Hotel Jerome, and by there hundreds of locals crowded in and out of the frigid March night, two and a half weeks after the murder to tell crazy stories and remember the amazing life of Nancy Fister.

There were so many people that they couldn't all fit in the Jerome Hotel ballroom. They went out the door into the hallways.

What do you say to a crowd like that? I just basically. Wanted to celebrate her life and her spirit of adventure, Billy Clayton got up to said what was in his heart.

I said that if you've known me over the last 40 years or so, you know me because, Nancy, when you see me, you think of Nancy. She was a connector. That was her real main role, I think, in everyone's life.

And when you look down there in that crowd, how were they reacted?

A lot of tears. A lot of laughter, certain stories, and they were all just solidly there in that space at that moment, but at that very same moment in a far different space, just down the street from the final hotel, Jerome.

Kathy Carpenter wept in her cell at the Pitkin County jail and listened.

I could hear the music, the band, and I cried. I cried a lot. I wanted to be there. I should have been there. And it hurt, how could they think she had anything to do with it? There was some suggestion that you had a motive to harm Nancy.

Absolutely not. What was my motive?

There is no motive, a shared frustration with Nancy Stihler about how difficult it was. No, no, not at all.

Nancy was her best friend. She said I loved her. Yeah, she was. I love Nancy Foster.

That's why she sat through all those hours of interrogation without a lawyer. She said she wanted to help them understand the truth.

Like, for example, how it wasn't at all suspicious that she knew right away it was Nancy in that closet.

You know, the odor just knocked me over. And to me, it was very apparent that that wasn't just a pile of clothes in the closet. Who else? But Nancy would be in that closet.

If you wanted a complete idiot, you understood that was had to be Nancy. Right.

Who else would it be when she so quickly fingered the Stihler? She said it was just common sense. They were in the house.

You knew that they were pretty mad and they were mad that they were upset with her.

But what about those suspicious little details, like saying she saw blood on Nancy's forehead when Nancy's forehead was completely covered up in the dispatcher said blood on.

That's easy to explain, said Kathy. She never actually said that. They said that I saw her forehead. I did not see her forehead. I saw blood on the headboard, headboard.

In fact, crime scene techs did find blood on Nancy Fisher's headboard.

But headboard is not the word that appears in the tape. Transcript of the 911 call.

And on page three of that transcript, it says, I saw blood on her forehead.

Cathy's attorney, Greg Greer. I go home and listen to the tape and I hear headboard, but I listen to it, I bet, 10 times by myself before I told anybody else.

I don't know for sure enough.

Kathy in that 911 call did actually say headboard, not forehead for Mother Night, because it was like a transcription error.

And the investigator said that made no real difference to them. Kathy's attorney is sure the little error planted suspicion of Kathy from the very beginning and started investigators off in an inaccurate and inappropriate direction. They used every technique in the book on her. And honestly, as I watched those interrogations, I started thinking I might have confessed to doing something just to make it stop.

Here's all this documentation of deceit and guilt. And they told you you did it.

Yes. Repeatedly, yes, and each time, what would you say? I did not do it, and even though it appears from the interrogation tapes that Kathy did say some improbable things, this is still a minimal issue.

But I knew the blonde haired she was on doctor prescribed anxiety medication the whole time. She said so in her confused fog and prompted by the investigator, said Cathy, her descriptions were unclear. She may even have imagined things she could not have seen.

Is it possible that you were led into saying something like that? Absolutely.

Absolutely. You know, she was in a plastic bag and I saw this, what through the transparency of the bag, I saw a little bit of her hair.

So why did you fail the polygraph? I was very upset. I was very emotional.

And they did tell me that in order for me to.

Take this test properly. I could not feel any emotions and just hearing the words, just hearing her name. It's very emotional, but it was true, she said, no denying it, she did take six thousand dollars in cash and an heirloom ring from Nancy Fister safe deposit box the day after she found the body. But it wasn't for her, she said, rather, it was to fulfill a promise to Nancy.

And she often would say, you know, if anything happens to me in my travels, you know, make sure you do this. Can you do that?

Make sure that my little to do list and on the to do list that ring. She inherited a family ring from her mother and her sisters wanted it. And she had asked me to make sure that, Julianna, if anything would happen to me, that she would get this ring.

That was my intention, was to fulfill her wish, to give it to you and give it to Julianna, just as she had every intention of giving the money directly to Julianna, too, so it wouldn't disappear into some disputed family trust. But then she said the investigators used everything she said and did against her.

I just thought, no, this is not happening. How can they be so wrong? I have no have had I had nothing to do with this. She was my dear friend who loved her.

Kathie's attorney told her, don't worry, the case won't hold up in court. But even if he was right, the trial might be years away. And so she did all that was left her and I started praying, praying that the truth would be revealed. That's what I wanted the truth to be revealed. And then suddenly it appeared that it was drouth, that is, but would anyone believe it? A stunner from Mr. Stihler, I'm going to send you right here, sir.

The good doctor has something to say. It went the way it often does in criminal cases, a period of frenetic activity followed by a sort of calm status.

So it was with the murder case of Nancy Fister, the flurry of action loosed from the moment her body was found in February 2014 to the arrest of the third and final suspect, Cathy Carpenter, in mid-March dissipated with the spring thaw.

The case now sloped towards summer. Nancy's friendly, missing her more than ever.

The last time I spoke with her. Oh, we talked about her plans, everything we were going to do this summer and all the different ideas she had.

But the only thing on the calendar now was a preliminary hearing scheduled for late June. All three defendants had pleaded not guilty and their respective attorneys, Beth Kollege for Nancy Stihler, Greg Greer for Cathy Carpenter, were deciding their strategies, analyzing the evidence.

The evidence, as I was seeing it, suggested to me very strongly that Cathy Carpenter may have done this and that she was setting up the stylus.

Cathy Carpenter is innocent, innocent, innocent.

I can't say that enough, but Deputy D.A. Andrea Bryant and her investigator, Lisa Millar were preparing to argue it was a conspiracy involving all three in less than two weeks before that hearing.

In the process of getting all of your material together for the preliminary hearing, what happened?

I got a phone call from my assistant district attorney one afternoon saying saying that he had spoken with a defense attorney, specifically William Schuyler's defense attorney, and that, well, Stila wanted to make a statement. Now, that could be interesting.

The good doctor was wheeled into the interview room where Lisa Miller was waiting for to to you right here, Sir Paul. But it was far more than just a statement. Terri Schiavo dropped a bombshell and blew the DA's meticulously assembled case wide open.

I was reminded of this very much aggression. It was a confession.

After months of strenuous denials, Freestyler told them the on detail by detail trade took them through the killing, how he slipped out of his motel room while his unknowing wife was sleeping and drove to Nancy Fisher's house intending to confront her, said get in the door hard enough to ascertain that she was in fact in bed.

And I told her again and she miscarried.

Then he said, as he stood over the still sleeping Nancy Fister, all the rage that built up inside him during his dreadful physical and financial decline suddenly focused on the singular idea.

She was so helpless. So we went down the stairs, got a hammer, climbed back up to the bedroom, and hammer came back and shattering everything and then strengthened by a rush of adrenaline.

He said he single handedly wrapped Nancy Fister up, dragged her into the closet and covered her up.

Was the story, as it used to be, that I was able to do that.

And then he grabbed and took away some of Nancy's belongings to make it look like she was gone.

He was very clear about what he did, how he did it, when he did it in in very specific detail.

And so you do what I and where in the world where they came in, what was what was in that position, the top of her head, which would you were questioning that case as for his wife or Cathy Carpenter or involved in any way.

And until this moment, he insisted he hadn't told either one of them a single thing about what he did.

He not only limited his wife's participation in that statement, he said she wasn't involved at all and that Cathy Carpenter wasn't involved at all, that he did the whole thing himself, that he had a burst of energy and he was able to do all of those things on his own.

You have a skeptical look on your face. That's what he told me. Yes. What did you think, having heard that investigator Miller told Dr. Stihler exactly what she thought.

Would you walk out of here thinking that I had believed you hook, line and sinker? Because I will be very frank. Remember I told you I'm told like I said, I don't buy everything that you're selling me today. At this time, Investigator Miller was convinced all three were in it together. She looked straight at Treaster and confronted him. He was a frail old man.

Surely he didn't expect she'd believe he did it all along, and you tell me you can't stand up. However you're giving me I can't give you the story. Where you were saying you were up against there multiple times moving. Wait for you to work in dire circumstances. Then I did the story of a woman who was in charge of their children. I will do a lot of things in the interview room, but I'm not going to compare mothers saving a child with you murdering Nancy.

So let's don't go there. But they remain resolute.

He was the lone killer. The essential heroes are that credit card holders really and truly have nothing to do with this. Just really, truly have nothing to do with this. I don't best to hide it from so much less, and they all hold the same. How concerned are you that he decided?

That he was going down any way, he might as well get them off the hook. And that's really what was going on here. That's a concern.

In any case like this, though, now it was decision time. Take today's dollars confession at face value and release both Nancy Stihler and Kathy Carpenter or send him back to his cell and proceed with the prosecution of all three who took my world and just flipped it upside down.

What was the truth and whose story would prosecutors believe? I just hope that she would find forgiveness in your heart. What does she have to forgive you for? So they can get a full confession, the best possible solution for a murder case, if they could believe it, that is, I lost my mind, at least that was aggression. But are you comfortable with that explanation of this crime?

Are you comfortable that that is the whole thing?

I don't know if we'll ever know the whole thing around. The Pitkin County DA's office was a nagging worry, Dr. Trey demanded, and the D.A. approved a quid pro quo, his full confession in exchange for his wife's unconditional release. Also part of the bargain. But what if he was lying? How would they ever prove it?

We had no facts to refute his his statement to me. We weren't in that room that night that Nancy Fister was murdered. So we had no facts to refute what William Stihler was saying.

So you're saying to me that Kathy Carpenter and Justin are both innocent.

Neither one participated in this crime while Stihler said that. I'm not saying that.

But despite Investigator Miller's doubts, on June 17th, 2014, after three and a half months in jail, Nancy Stihler was released.

And my attorney, Beth, was there and she said, good news, you're getting out. And I said, great, you know, they figured it out. And then she said, but there's a catch. She gave Nancy a letter. It was a private note from Trey.

And then this letter he tells me about the plea bargain that he took. And one of the sentences that I've read a million times over said, I know you're innocent. And you should believe I am too great wrote that he was only pleading guilty to save her. He didn't actually kill Nancy Fister.

He wrote he was falling on his sword for love.

I cried that whole day, even though I was getting out.

It should have been a great time. I can't believe he's having to do this.

The system is set. It's, you know, messed up.

Three days later, June 20th, Dr. Terry Stihler formally pleaded guilty to second degree murder and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

That same day, the D.A. dropped charges against Kathy Carpenter and she walked out of jail a free woman.

I was very grateful, very thankful. And I felt God answered my prayers and but at the same time, it was still scary. I'm leaving, Jill. After being locked up, what will people think, how will I be judged? She is grateful, scared, also sad.

But there was sorrow for still thinking of the loss of Nancy and that he did something like this, that he did it, you know, that was still hurtful. But Nancy Stihler ended a bitter anger to her whirlwind of grief and relief. If Trey was innocent, as he told his wife he was, then the real killer just walked free. I had Kathy Carpenter packed in my own little courtroom and every little piece of evidence that was given to me corroborated that.

And then it was just over two weeks later, Nancy took a call, Trey had something to tell her. His letter wasn't quite true. He said, in fact, he and he alone murdered Nancy Fister. Kathy Carpenter had nothing to do with it. It was took my world and just flipped it upside down. Felt like my whole life had been a lie. You know, my whole life with him had been alive, Nancy divorced and moved on with her life writing a memoir about her experience of being charged with murder.

In August 2015, Trece Tyler hanged himself in his prison cell. He was 67 years old. He had a million dollar life insurance policy that Nancy collected. The year after that, she settled a wrongful death lawsuit brought by Nancy Foster's daughter, Juliana. As for Kathy Carpenter, in the aftermath of the murder, she lost her job, her home. And she lost her very best friend, she said, and she told us she felt guilty. That's why I say I wish that I could have helped her and have been there, what could I have done differently, talked her into staying there, not coming home.

Nobody can know the future, right? But I do blame myself.

You know, that's something that I left to work through, but one person with whom Cathy has not spoken since all this happened is Nancy Fiesta's daughter, Juliana. What would you want to say to Juliana? But I just hope that she knows the truth. I had nothing to do with the murder of her mother. It was never would still. And I just you know, I was looking out for her and her mother's wishes and that. I just hope that she would find forgiveness in her heart and know that I love her and her mother very much.

What does she have to forgive you for? I don't know. Nothing really, but there's just, you know, what she's had to go through and I don't know why I would even say forgive me, but it's curious. Yeah. Just I've been portrayed as a thief, this bad person, Untrusting, and I don't know why I trust something Nancy Pfister was known for, not so much of it.

These days, Aspen will never be the same. My life will never be the same.

So what is Aspen lost? A lot of history, you know, Nancy, was part of Aspen's history, it's a huge loss for the community.

Some members of which will be telling stories about Nancy Fister for a very long time.

Nancy lived a fantastic life. And I think we all need a little more dreaming, like, you know, a little a little more and more Nancy and more Nancy and Michelle.