When first responders arrived at Katlyn Lyon Montgomery’s apartment and discovered her unconscious, they suspected a drug overdose. Her roommate, Jacob Piercy, had called 911 after Katlyn’s daughter, Milani, alerted him that there was something wrong with her mother.
But as “48 Hours” correspondent Erin Moriarty reports, there was no overdose, and investigators soon uncovered Katlyn had been murdered, in “The Sneak Attack on Katlyn Lyon” airing Saturday, Jan. 31, at 10/9c on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.
When Katlyn arrived at the hospital in the early morning hours of Oct. 7, 2022, medical staff noticed injuries forming on her head and neck. Lead investigator Robbie Burnette with Virginia’s Bedford County Sheriff’s Office focused on documenting those injuries. At the apartment, investigator Michelle Alderson found what may have caused those injuries on Katlyn’s neck: a multiple charging cord adapter wrapped up in Katlyn’s comforter.
Bedford County Sheriff’s Office
Investigators turned to Piercy, as he was the only other adult in the apartment and there was no sign of a break-in.
“So, we were looking at him … pretty heavy at first … he was our No. 1 suspect at that point,” Burnette told Moriarty.
Burnette said Piercy was cooperative, handing over his phone and agreeing to be interviewed several times. Police soon cleared Piercy after his story checked out, and investigators say he could be heard on the 911 call doing CPR and trying to save Katlyn.
Investigators learned Katlyn had recently broken up with a man named Trenton Frye. They spoke with Katlyn’s family and friends to find out more about the relationship. Her brother, Jake Lyon, said at first, Frye seemed like an impressive guy.
“And did she get the impression that he was pretty successful and ran a couple of businesses …” Moriarty asked Lyon.
“Definitely. Yeah, I think everybody was kind of under that impression,” he replied.
Katlyn’s friend, Hannah McDowell, said Frye was a good match for Katlyn, who was looking for a man that she could live with, marry and have children with.
“She wanted someone that was supportive … and be a father to Milani, as well,” said McDowell.
Katlyn and Frye had plans to move in together, and Frye offered to find them an apartment in his native North Carolina.
But in early September 2022, he confessed he couldn’t find an apartment because he lacked the credit and source of income to qualify. Katlyn’s aunt, Sherry Cox, said, “Katlyn called me from work and she was screaming … bawling … she was like, ‘He’s a liar, he lied about everything, he doesn’t have a job … that’s not his car he’s driving, he’s driving his mom’s car … he’s living in his car, he doesn’t have a place.'”
Like Cox, Lyon remembered that his sister “realized that he was kind of a con artist” and asserted Frye “always talked a big game about how successful he was and all of his companies that he ran or owned … he didn’t have anything going for him.”
And like Cox and Lyon, Katlyn’s mother, Crystal Sale, knew that Katlyn was done with Frye.
“So she cut him off?” asked Moriarty.
“She did. She blocked him,” Frye replied.
Now with a motive, and after gathering cellphone data placing him near Katlyn’s apartment on the night of her attack, Frye was taken into custody. As he awaited trial, prosecutors had to piece together how Frye could have sneaked into the second-story apartment and carried out this attack without leaving any physical evidence behind.
Commonwealth attorney Wes Nance pointed to a bench that was found thrown into the weeds behind Katlyn’s apartment. He theorized that Frye placed that bench atop a 4-foot wall under Katlyn’s balcony to “give him that extra foot-and-a-half or so boost so he could actually pull up onto the second-floor deck.”
This theory was still difficult to prove, though, said Nance. “Just because you might have a weakness in your case, doesn’t mean you allow a killer to go free,” he told Moriarty.
Frye’s attorney, Joseph Sanzone, emphasizes that there is no evidence placing Frye inside the apartment, and also urged it would have been impossible for Frye to scale that balcony and break into the apartment without waking anyone up — including the three dogs that Katlyn and Piercy shared.
“Only Tom Cruise can do that as far as I know,” said Sanzone.
Nance points to one key detail during trial that points to Frye’s “Tom Cruise”-like ability, and it came from a name Frye gave himself on the stand: “ninja.”
