Colby Trickle, resident of Hays in the US state of Kansas, in 2019 called 911 to inform authorities that his wife had shot herself. Even though police officer Sergeant Brandon Hauptman from the Hays Police Department was suspicious after reaching the crime scene, Colby Trickle was let go because the coroner, Dr. Lyle Noordhoek, ruled Kristen Trickle’s death a suicide.
Police kept wondering if Colby Trickle had something to do with his wife’s death and kept working the case.
Months later, Colby Trickle, cashed in on two life insurance policies for his wife totaling more than $120,000, spending nearly $2,000 on a life-size sex doll two days after he received the payout. His sudden purchase raised eyebrows.
Detectives flagged that Colby Trickle did not seem like he was going through a mourning process following the death of his wife. “There’s a mourning process that I think everyone needs to go through — should go through when a loved one dies — and to have him ordering this type of doll just months after his wife’s death was concerning,” Detective Joshua “JB” Burkholder was quoted as saying by CBS News.
The death and the investigation that led to the 2023 arrest of Colby Trickle was also discussed on docuseries Kristen Trickle: Autopsy of the Mind.
Detectives did not rely on their suspicions to arrest Colby Trickle. They found that Colby, a member of the US Army Reserve, lied about his tours to Central America and West Asia. When they contacted the US Army, they said that Colby was never deployed overseas.
The law enforcement officials who kept building the case against Colby for two years also had suspicions about the size of the gun and the clothes his wife Kristen was wearing at the time of her so-called suicide.
“I was just appalled that he would use Kristen’s life insurance money for a sex doll. It just was like he bought her replacement with her money,” Kristen Trickle’s aunt, Delynn Rice, was quoted as saying by CBS News.
Assistant Ellis County Attorney Aaron Cunningham told the outlet that the $120,000 of the insurance money was spent away in about eight months. Colby paid off debts, spent thousands of dollars on video games and bought music equipment as he had plans of becoming a performer.
Police also noted Kristen Trickle’s phone alarm that kept going off at the scene that morning. Detective Joshua “JB” Burkholder said that in most cases when individuals commit suicide they do not have any plans for the day.
“She had set an alarm to get up, to get ready for work, and had plans for that day. A lot of times, individuals who are thinking about suicide and do commit suicide — they don’t have any plans for the day. They’re not setting alarms. It doesn’t matter when they get up,” he said.
Colby Trickle was charged in July 2021, 21 months after Kristen Trickle’s death, with murder in the first degree and interfering with law enforcement. Dr. Ashley Christiansen, a psychologist hired by the prosecution to conduct a psychological autopsy of Kristen Trickle told jurors that after conducting the autopsy they found that Kristen Trickle was unlikely to have taken her own life.
The jury also found Colby Trickle guilty and he was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole for 50 years last November.
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