The Kansas Supreme Court did not believe a husband’s claim that his wife committed suicide while lying next to him in bed.

Colby Trickle called 911 on the morning of Halloween 2019 and reported, “My wife shot herself.”

Trickle told police that when he woke up, there was “blood all over,” but the officers did not find blood on him.

The gun was resting on the abdomen of his wife, Kristen. Trickle said he had picked up the gun and considered killing himself before changing his mind.

The coroner ruled her death to be a suicide, but Trickle was eventually arrested after his story unraveled.

He falsely stated that his wife didn’t have life insurance and that he had been deployed by the military to Iraq and Central America.

Trickle also said that Kristen had exchanged sexual photos with someone else. She wasn’t doing that, but he was.

Ten days before Kristen’s death, Trickle did a Google search for “What is a spouse SGLI amount,” with SGLI standing for Servicemember Group Life Insurance.

He later claimed that Kristen searched Google for that term, but she was working at Walmart at the time.

Trickle received $100,000 in an SGLI payment, as well as Kristen’s life insurance benefits from her job at Walmart. However, he was eventually convicted of first-degree murder.

He appealed to the Kansas Supreme Court, which upheld the conviction in an opinion written by Justice Caleb Stegall.

At trial, suicide expert Dr. Ashley Christiansen had testified that Kristen was at a “low risk for suicide.” Stegall ruled that Trickle was not prejudiced by this testimony.

“Here, Dr. Christiansen testified based on her report, grounded in her expertise in suicidology,” Stegall wrote. “Expert testimony framed in terms of risk factors that leaves the ultimate question of guilt or innocence to the jury is not impermissible because it embraces an ultimate issue.”

He also agreed with the exclusion of Trickle’s witness, Irene Smith. Her stepson, Randall, had committed suicide before starting a new job, for which he had expressed excitement.

“Randall’s tragic death is not a material fact in this case,” Stegall wrote. “There is no logical connection between Randall’s death and Kristen’s.”

He did note some errors in the trial court, like allowing testimony that Trickle had used insurance proceeds to buy a life-sized sex doll.

Stegall also thought the prosecution’s closing argument went too far by stating that Trickle had given “the performance of a lifetime” after learning of his wife’s death and that he “goes back and spins a yarn about coming home and taking out the trash.”

According to Stegall, “These comments were flippant statements about the truthfulness of the defendant and strayed outside what we permit prosecutors to argue.”

Despite these mistakes, Stegall said the conviction should stand based on evidence that was “significant, if not overwhelming.”

“Kristen did not own any firearms, and the revolver used to kill Kristen was Trickle’s. Trickle’s statements about rendering aid to his dying wife were contradicted by the lack of blood anywhere on his person,” he wrote.

“Trickle repeatedly lied to law enforcement, including about his military service and whether his wife had life insurance,” Stegall added. “Trickle’s suggestion that his wife had used his phone to search for SGLI payout information was directly contradicted by time-stamped video evidence.”