When first responders arrived at Katlyn Lyon Montgomery’s condo and found her unconscious, they suspected a drug overdose. Her roommate, Jacob Piercy, had known as 911 after Montgomery’s daughter, Milani, alerted him that there was one thing unsuitable along with her mom.
However as “48 Hours” correspondent Erin Moriarty studies, there was no overdose, and investigators quickly uncovered Katlyn had been murdered, in “The Sneak Assault on Katlyn Lyon” airing Saturday, Jan. 31, at 10/9c on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.
When Montgomery arrived on the hospital within the early morning hours of Jan. 7, 2022, medical workers seen accidents forming on her head and neck. Lead investigator Robbie Burnette with Virginia’s Bedford County Sheriff’s Workplace targeted on documenting these accidents. On the condo, investigator Michelle Alderson discovered what might have prompted these accidents on Montgomery’s neck: a a number of charging twine adapter wrapped up in Katlyn’s comforter.
Bedford County Sheriff’s Workplace 
Investigators turned to Piercy, as he was the one different grownup within the condo and there was no signal of a break-in.
“So, we have been taking a look at him … fairly heavy at first … he was our No. 1 suspect at that time,” Burnette instructed Moriarty.
Burnette stated Piercy was cooperative, handing over his telephone and agreeing to be interviewed a number of instances. Police quickly cleared Piercy after his story checked out, and investigators say he may very well be heard on the 911 name doing CPR and making an attempt to avoid wasting Montgomery.
Investigators realized Montgomery had not too long ago damaged up with a person named Trenton Frye. They spoke with Katlyn’s household and buddies to seek out out extra in regards to the relationship. Her brother, Jake Lyon, stated at first, Frye appeared like a formidable man.
“And did she get the impression that he was fairly profitable and ran a few companies …” Moriarty requested Lyon.
“Positively. Yeah, I feel everyone was sort of below that impression,” he replied.
Montgomery’s pal, Hannah McDowell, says Frye was match for Katlyn, who was in search of a person that she may reside with, marry and have kids with. “She needed somebody that was supportive … and be a father to Milani, as nicely,” stated McDowell.
Montgomery and Frye had plans to maneuver in collectively, and Frye supplied to seek out them an condo in his native North Carolina.
However in early September 2022, he confessed he could not discover an condo as a result of he lacked the credit score and supply of revenue to qualify. Montgomery’s aunt, Sherry Cox, stated, “Katlyn known as me from work and he or she was screaming … bawling … she was like, ‘He is a liar, he lied about every part, he would not have a job … that is not his automotive he is driving, he is driving his mother’s automotive … he is residing in his automotive, he would not have a spot.'”
Like Cox, Lyon remembered that his sister “realized that he was sort of a con artist” and asserted Frye “all the time talked a giant recreation about how profitable he was and all of his corporations that he ran or owned … he did not have something going for him.”
And like Cox and Lyon, Montgomery’s mom, Crystal Sale, knew that Katlyn was finished with Frye.
“So she lower him off?” requested Moriarty.
“She did. She blocked him,” Frye replied.
Now with a motive, and after gathering cellphone information putting him close to Montgomery’s condo on the night time of her assault, Frye was taken into custody. As he awaited trial, prosecutors needed to piece collectively how Frye may have sneaked into the second-story condo and carried out this assault with out leaving any bodily proof behind.
Commonwealth lawyer Wes Nance pointed to a bench that was discovered thrown into the weeds behind Montgomery’s condo. He theorized that Frye positioned that bench atop a 4-foot wall below Montgomery’s balcony to “give him that additional foot-and-a-half or so enhance so he may truly pull up onto the second-floor deck.”
This principle was nonetheless troublesome to show, although, stated Nance. “Simply since you might need a weak point in your case, does not imply you enable a killer to go free,” he instructed Moriarty.
Frye’s lawyer, Joseph Sanzone, emphasizes that there isn’t any proof putting Frye contained in the condo, and in addition urged it might have been not possible for Frye to scale that balcony and break into the condo with out waking anybody up — together with the three canine that Montgomery and Piercy shared.
“Solely Tom Cruise can do this so far as I do know,” stated Sanzone.
Nance factors to 1 key element throughout trial that factors to Frye’s “Tom Cruise”-like means, and it got here from a reputation Frye gave himself on the stand: “ninja.”
