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Welcome to Postmortem. I'm your host, Ann Marie Green, and today we are discussing the case of 28-year-old
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Caitlyn Lion Montgomery, [music] who was found unresponsive by her roommate in October of 2022.
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when she later died of her injuries to her head and her neck at the hospital. The case evolved into a homicide
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investigation and it sparked a social media fight for justice from her family. So joining me today is 48 hours
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correspondent Aaron Morardi to uh talk about this case. Thank you Aaron. It's another tough one because um Caitlyn's
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mother uh described her as glitter. She was such a loss. So it's a tough case to
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discuss. All right, so let's get into this case. In the early morning hours of October
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7th, 2022, Caitlyn McGomery was rushed to the hospital after her roommate, Jacob Piery, called 911. Now, and this
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is a heartbreaking part of this. It was her four-year-old daughter who first alerted Jacob that her mom would not
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wake up. But Caitlyn's home wasn't initially treated as a crime scene. And that's because first responders thought
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that Caitlyn probably overdosed on drugs. At the hospital, doctors discovered the bruises around her neck.
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So my question to you is, how did first responders miss this? How did they miss that there was a a possible
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strangulation here? Amory, this was a new one for me because as it turns out, she had been so recently attacked that
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those bruises didn't come out and they didn't see anything. And because she was unresponsive
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and because she was young, they assumed she must have taken something. It must have been an overdose. And this case
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really serves as a reminder, and I hear this all the time, of why every uh scene, death scene has to be treated
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like a homicide. But the other side of this is, of course, that the first responders, you know, she was still
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alive. Their priority was not that scene. They wanted to save her life. Yeah. And now that I'm talking it out
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with you, I can count the number of times that I've maybe hit my thigh on a a table and said to myself, "Boy, that's
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gonna bruise." And I know the bruise isn't going to pop up probably for another hour or so. And so when I think
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about that, it makes sense that the bruises would not have been visible by the time um the first responders were
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there. You're absolutely right. In fact, in many strangulation cases, I mean, there may be no bruises at all or they
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may be internal and not show up on the outside. Um, and this was an attack that was very quick. Uh, she was probably
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asleep, so there were no uh defensive uh wounds, but those bruises did become visible um at the hospital. And I
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thought it was really interesting that actually those bruises helped a lot in terms of creating like a timestamp for
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the attack. The fact that the bruises didn't immediately appear actually in a weird way helped the investigation
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because it helped the lead investigator to determine approximately what time the
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attack happened. And what they believe is that it happened about an hour before Jacob Piery called 911, which would make
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it somewhere between 4 and 5 a.m. And that becomes very important during the trial.
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>> Mhm. Do investigators know where Caitlyn's daughter, Melanie, was when the attack happened?
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>> Oh, this is so sad. Yeah, she was in bed with her mother. Um hopefully she won't
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have any memories if she saw any of it. She was just 4 years of age when this happened. Um but because she was there,
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she was either awakened by it or awoke on her own right afterwards. And thank God that she ran to get Jacob because to
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be honest, if she had not gotten Jacob right away, um those certainly the bruises would have appeared, but they
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might not have been able to figure out exactly when she had been murdered. So after Caitlyn dies of her injuries,
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investigators almost immediately zero in on Jacob Piery, her roommate. At one point, they actually tell Caitlyn's
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family that they're 99% sure that it's Jacob. So, what made them sort of pivot from being 99% sure that it's the
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roommate to looking at, well, what could that 1% be? >> Well, I mean, there's a a reason why
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investigators first looked at Jacob Piery for one reason. He was the only other adult in the apartment. It was
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Caitlyn, her daughter, and Jacob Piery. There is no sign of force entry. This was actually Jacob Piery's first night
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living in the apartment. um he had just moved in the evening before she was attacked and they learned
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that he had tried to ask Caitlyn out. Um and so they're thinking, you know, maybe
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she spurned him. But on the other side of that, you know, he was so cooperative and handed over his phone right away and
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wanted to do whatever he could to help out the investigation. And that just didn't fit with someone who was trying
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to hide what he had done. And I should point out, they're also hearing from the family that there was somebody else that
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the family suspected. But I have to tell you, they were looking hard at Jacob Piery and he knew it. He was scared. He
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was >> Yeah. You know, I felt I felt for him, but he look he looks a little suspicious. the uh investigator, which I
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thought really helped him. He before they really moved off of Jacob, he uh went back and listened to the 911 call
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and you could hear that uh Jacob was trying to do what he could to save her life.
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>> Right. >> So, it did make investigators finally look at somebody else. >> Right. And you mentioned that her family
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was mentioning, "Hey, there is someone else you should look at." that investigators start looking at Caitlyn's
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ex-boyfriend. His name is Trenton Fry. And he's got a motive because 10 days before the attack, she dumped him. She
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had discovered that he was really kind of overplaying this idea that he was a successful businessman and he spun this
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whole story about who he was and what he did for a living. And so she wastes no time. She breaks up with him. She blocks
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him. Um, you know, Erin, the investigators and the prosecutor, they're really kind of characterizing
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this as a case of domestic violence. I know you've covered many domestic violence cases. When women leave their
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partners, they are particularly vulnerable. You know, I've covered too many of these
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stories, Amarie. And if there's anything that uh viewers and listeners take away
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from this story, I want it to be that. And that certainly seems to be the case in Caitlyn's case. Uh so Trenton Fry on
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paper looked like the perfect guy. He had done a lot to promote this image of himself as the owner of a security
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business and construction business. And he apparently according to the prosecution
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um was very upset when Caitlyn held him accountable for the lies. you know, when
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it turned out that he may have had those businesses, but he wasn't making any real money, he didn't have good credit,
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>> and she was upending that image that he had created. >> Mhm. >> And there's one other, I think,
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important point. We find out later that that Caitlyn wasn't the only woman in his life. He had other girlfriends.
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>> You're kidding me. >> Yeah. No, it's true. And apparently um this fact that Caitlyn could walk away
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so easily according to the prosecutor was enough to make him angry. >> See to me that's you know those one of
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those red flags that this is not about love. This is about ownership. >> That's certainly what the prosecution
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believes was the motive. So, you know, Fry, of course, tells investigators he wasn't anywhere close uh to Caitlyn when
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this attack happened, that he was hours away. He was working in North Carolina. Um except they find some pretty solid
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evidence that he wasn't. For one thing, they noticed that there were cell phone tower pings that occurred in Virginia
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when he had told investigators he was in North Carolina. And those pings started
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3 days before the attack. And then another interesting thing is that two of Caitlyn's neighbors saw an unfamiliar
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man sitting outside the apartments. And one neighbor was so scared of this guy that she actually went home to her
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parents. So he must have been sending off really creepy vibes. and the other person actually took a picture and it's
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timestamped on October 6th, which is a day before she was attacked. Then we get to what investigators uncover with the
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the browser history. They figure out that he's been actually looking at the layout of her apartment. And that is
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very helpful because this is a case um where you have to wonder how did he get into the apartment? her apartment was on
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the second floor. Um there wasn't like a fire escape or anything. So you're wondering that and how was someone able
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to find her room so quickly, kill her, get out, and get away um in a very short period of time. So that layout really
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mattered because it showed that he was trying to figure out where everybody was in the apartment and he had, as you
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point out, Emory, those three days sitting out there. So, I think the prosecution's theory was that he was
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outside looking where the lights were and could figure out where was her bedroom as opposed to Jacob Pierce's. I
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do find kind of that part of the case challenging that he was able to slip in and slip out without anyone noticing,
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without making noise, and there are dogs in the apartment. Amory, that was I had
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the biggest problem with that because dogs bark at everything. Now, I understand why Caitlyn's dog might not
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have barked because Caitlyn's dog knew Trent and Fry, but what troubled me was that there are also two dogs in the in
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Jacob Piery's room. But the prosecutor says those dogs were in a closed room with Jacob. Jacob wasn't being
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threatened and so there wasn't a reason for the dogs to bark. And the other thing is, you know, often it's very
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difficult to disturb a scene without leaving something behind. And investigators found nothing that really
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placed Fry inside Caitlyn's apartment. That is true. And that was the strongest argument that the defense leaned on at
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trial. Um, but that scene was so contaminated by dogs and people and first responders and made it more
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difficult for investigators later on. Now, the only real evidence that pointed to uh Trenton Fry being in the apartment
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is this time when Trenton Fry's phone connects to Caitlyn's iPad, which is very damaging. And the prosecution uses
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that to say he had to be in the apartment to make that connection. But what the defense argued was, how do you
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know that iPad was actually in the apartment at that time? Because when Caitlyn's aunt came to the scene when
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they first thought it was an overdose, uh, Aunt Sherry took the iPad home with her, and that's where investigators got
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it. When investigators sort of confront Fry with the evidence that they have about allegedly being in Caitlyn's
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apartment, he claims he has no memory of it. And he starts to talk about, you know, he has periods of of blacking out.
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We've heard this before, Aaron and Amry, if we've heard it a lot. Think how often
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the investigators have heard that. October 20th, 2022, Trenton Fry is charged with Caitlyn's murder and he
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pleads not guilty. Now, before Trenton uh Fry's trial even began, um Caitlyn's mother, Crystal, her two aunts, Sherry
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and Tina, they took to social media. They started posting videos on Tik Tok to talk about the case. And it's
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definitely something that we've been seeing whether it's the families of victims wanting more attention on a case
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um that hasn't been solved or wanting more attention on a suspect who has been charged.
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I just did a a case involving Molly Bish and her sister used Tik Tok to try to get new tips and new evidence. So yes,
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it's happening all the time. In this case though, as reporters, you really get a sense of what this family went
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through in a way you couldn't any other way. Caitlyn's mother, Crystal, happens to have two sisters. And these women all
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are very supportive of each other. And so when Crystal was having difficulty grappling with her pain and her loss,
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her sisters come through and the way they support her is on TikTok and telling people what's happening and how
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we have to have justice for uh Caitlyn. You know, they really were pushing for that. A lot of these videos really
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brought Caitlyn to life. Like she pops off the screen. >> Oh, she does. Um, I often feel this, but
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I felt this in particular in this case that I wish I had known Caitlyn Montgomery. Um, as I mentioned, her mom
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called her glitter, and she does remind you of glitter. Uh, she was very adept at a dance called shuffling. I was not
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familiar with that before I [clears throat] start on this story. It's this very very quick step dance um
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that Caitlyn had learned from her brother. And remember, Caitlyn Montgomery was this tiny little thing.
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And so really what you see when you see videos of her are just her little feet moving, moving, moving. And uh so she
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does pop. >> Yeah. Um Trenton Fry also had support from his family. Trenton Fry, he has a
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sister who clearly loves him and I think she felt she had to defend him if there
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were all these Tik Toks pointing the finger at him. And so when the trial started, there were a lot of Tik Tok
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videos that she produced to say, "Wait a minute, you know, maybe he didn't do it.
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Here's why he didn't do it. Why are we looking at him?" He actually takes the stand in his own defense, which is, as
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we've said, every time it happens, it's unusual. Despite the fact that it seems to happen more often than not on 48
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hours, it's not it's not normal. >> It is not. You know, the general view of defense attorneys is you do not put your
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client who's standing trial for murder on the stand. But what I've heard in this case is that this particular
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attorney um often puts clients on the stand and he said to me that he felt in this case Trenton had to take the stand
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that the jury needed to hear from him and Trenton Fry had to make that decision as well that he was the one who
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would take the stand and he wanted to. The defense tried to raise doubt during the trial by suggesting that Jacob Piery
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had had been the one who strangled Caitlyn because of some sort of consensual sex act that that went too
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far. I understand the role of the defense. Um but I just kind of personally it felt a little icky to kind
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of throw this out there. I have to agree with you Amory. um the defense often and certainly has the
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right to raise reasonable doubt where the defense attorney feels it's best. What's wrong with that is the defense
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knew that there was evidence that contradicted it. Um the medical examiner actually testified that there was no
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evidence that she had had recent sexual activity. So, I was troubled that that would be raised because it probably
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wasn't going to be enough to sway the jurors when there was no evidence of it and they heard that. But it did hurt the
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family. >> Um, particularly Caitlyn's mother was so upset. And so, that one, oh, I struggle
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with the defense has the right to do it, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's the right thing to do. Mhm. So, it
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doesn't take the jury long to come to a conclusion here. They only uh deliberated for about an hour before
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delivering the verdict. Trenton Fry was found guilty of firstdegree murder and and Caitlyn's death. Four months later,
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they returned to court for Trenton Fry's sentencing. Aaron, you were there for the sentencing. What was it like in the
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courtroom? Well, of course, I really wanted to go because the defendant might say something um uh accepting
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responsibility or at least apologizing or something that might give some peace to family members. But in this case, he
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accepted no responsibility for it. So, it upset I think people belonging to Caitlyn's family, but it really upset
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the judge. And I think you need to hear it for yourself because um it really shows and explains
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why the judge ended up sentencing him the way he did. >> This murder was as cold bloodooded,
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premeditated, and calculated as any I've seen. The manner of death was strangulation.
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Death was not instantaneous. The amount of terror, the amount of horror inflicted upon this young
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innocent woman is unimaginable. Unimaginable to anyone, to everybody except you.
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Because you were there. You saw it. you caused it. I hereby sentence you to imprisonment
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for life because in my opinion a sentence for anything less would be less than what you justly deserve.
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>> You could hear people responding in the courtroom. Um I think it was from both
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sides. Um because I know that Caitlyn's family there were like tears, but there were tears on the part of Trenton Fry's
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family too who um from all appearances and certainly they testified on his behalf support him. But this was a judge
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who had been both a prosecutor and then a judge for 47 years and you would think
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had seen everything. And this case really set him off as you can tell. >> I that gave me chills hearing it again.
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>> Mhm. Um Milani, she is with Caitlyn's aunt now, but she's not Why is she not living with her grandmother? Caitlyn's
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mom. Aunt Sherry has always been the mother hen of the family. She's the oldest of the three sisters. And uh she
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had a very close relationship with uh Caitlyn and Milani. And so at this point she is raising uh Milani, but Crystal is
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all good with that because she can see her granddaughter anytime she wants. And um and I think from the family's
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perspective, they all have said this is definitely the right way to do it. And um and you could just see she is
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blossoming as a child. And I think we have a little bit more sound about how she's doing.
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>> There were moments in the beginning that, you know, it was heartbreaking, but we do everything we can to keep her
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busy. And she's just a happy little girl. >> What does she call you? >> She calls me mama now. Mommy.
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>> Was that hard for you at first? >> Yes, because I didn't want my sister to be upset because I didn't want her think
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I was taking Milani from Caitlyn and erasing Caitlyn. And I'm not trying to do that, but how can I tell Milani not
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to call me mama when I'm doing everything? You know, she's used to being with me. I was the first one to be
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at the apartment to get her. And from that day on, it was like I've been her person. Um I res It's like I rescued her
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and she has clung to me. She she feels safe with me. Um and the way we have it works for us.
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This is a story of a wonderful, wonderful, warm family that lost a very important member and they are trying
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[music] to get through it and make it the best they can for her daughter. It's it's inspiring and heartbreaking at the
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same time. Um, Erin, it's always great talking to you. Thank you so much. Thanks, Amory.