CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · General Reference

Murder of Nancy Pfister

2014 murder in Buttermilk, Colorado, United States

Cross-disciplinary reference desk with index cards, atlas, dictionary and catalogue
General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 24, 2026
Entity authorityQ18615764 ↗
Source-derived summary

Nancy Merle Pfister was an American woman who was found murdered on February 26, 2014, in a walk-in closet of her secluded home in the Rocky Mountains. She had been beaten in the head and chest with a hammer, ax, and lamp. Pfister has been described as having been a "small-town socialite" and was well known in her small community. In October 2014, Trey and Nancy Styler, Pfister's former roommates, were charged with the crime. Shortly thereafter, Trey confessed to her murder, and received life imprisonment in exchange for the charges against his wife to be dropped.

Styler claimed he killed Pfister as "punishment" for adding an interest rate to the couple's rent after they refused to pay for over three months. The Stylers had stopped paying rent after living with Pfister for 2 months, due to minor broken utilities in the home that she refused to fix. The case gained national notoriety and sparked many debates on renter's rights.

Early life

Nancy Pfister was born on July 4, 1956 in Orofino, Idaho. She was raised in Basalt, Colorado, and attended Basalt High School.

Editorial summary

“Murder of Nancy Pfister” enters the record as 2014 murder in Buttermilk, Colorado, United States. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Murder, Nancy and Pfister can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2014, 1956—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Murder, Nancy and Pfister.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Murder of Nancy Pfister” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Murder, Nancy and Pfister provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q18615764. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2014 and 1956.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Murder of Nancy Pfister”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Murder of Nancy Pfister primary sources, Murder of Nancy Pfister archive and Murder research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Murder of Nancy Pfister”?
  2. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
  3. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Murder of Nancy Pfister” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.