In 2019, Kansas man Colby Trickle murdered his wife in Hays and reported it to 911 as a suicide. Kristen Trickle, whose repetitively ringing alarms indicated plans scheduled all day long, had apparently killed herself with a gun too large for her to use it to shoot herself in the face. T

hough the circumstances around her death had been suspicious then, the police declared the case a suicide by Dr. Lyle Noordhoek, the coroner. However, sergeant Brandon Hauptman of the Hays Police Department had not been satisfied with this conclusion, prompting him to look further into it. 

Upon further investigation, he found that a couple of things in Trickle’s story were not lining up. Trickle had talked about his military work, following his wife’s death, claiming he had been sent overseas for intel work. This claim was found to be false when investigators had inquired the military for the same.

Alongside this was another unexpected purchase of a $2000 (around ₹1.66 Lakh) life-sized sex doll, which seemed like a concerning purchase following a period of grief that a widower should have followed. 

Detective Joshua “JB” Burkholder told CBS News’ 48 hours, “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.” 

Trickle had reportedly collected insurance policies amounting to $120,000 (₹1,00,08,354) for his wife, fulfilling his debts and buying the sex doll, among other things, through this payout. Alongside these egregious payments and his lies about having served in the military, investigators began looking at Kristen’s death more closely. 

Tina Kreutzer, Trickle’s mother, excused his sex doll purchase considering it something that she’d hoped would comfort her grieving son. She claimed that Trickle hadn’t used the doll for sexual purposes. Trickle’s aunt, Delynn Rice said, “I was just appalled that he would use Kristen's life insurance money for a sex doll. It just was like he bought a replacement of her with her money.”

According to Aaron Cunnigham, the assistant Ellis County Attorney, Trickle had exhausted all $120,000 of the insurance money in eight months. 

Psychologists, unconvinced with the narrative of Kristen having committed suicide, suggested she might have been coerced. A forensic psychologist, Ashley Christians, in a first of it’s kind psychological autopsy, ruled that Kristen Trickle was unlikely to have committed suicide. Trickle was eventually charged with first-degree murder and interfering with law enforcement.

Colby Trickle was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment with no parole for 50 years in November 2023.