Inset left: Trenton Frye (Bedford County Sheriff”s Office). Inset right: Katlyn Montgomery (Obituary). Background: The apartment complex where Montgomery was strangled to death by Frye in Forest, Va. (Google Maps).
A North Carolina man will spend the rest of his life behind bars for the “cold-blooded and calculated” murder of his ex-girlfriend in Virginia.
In April, Trenton Frye, 31, was found guilty of murder in the first degree by a jury in Bedford County for the death of Katlyn Lyon Montgomery, 28, who was found strangled at her own home in October 2022.
On Tuesday, 24th Judicial Circuit Judge James Updike Jr. sentenced Frye to life in prison — in excess of Old Dominion sentencing guidelines.
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On Oct. 7, 2022, Montgomery was found unconscious in her residence at the Jefferson Forest Manor Apartments in Forest – a census-designated place named after the summer home of Founding Father Thomas Jefferson. First responders rushed the victim to a hospital in nearby Lynchburg, but she succumbed to her injuries the next day.
In Montgomery’s apartment, investigators found telltale evidence in the form of phone charging cords wrapped together in a blanket on her bed. Search warrants obtained by Law&Crime in the immediate aftermath of the slaying offered insight into the investigation.
“[P]hysicians noted linear markings consistent with being strangled on her neck and throat,” one warrant reads. “Law enforcement assessed the cords appeared to be the same size as the linear markings found on the victim’s neck.”
Frye was quickly “identified as a recent ex-boyfriend” by the Bedford County Sheriff’s Office. In a statement, the since-condemned man just as quickly dissembled – saying he had not been in Virginia recently but, rather, had been working in the Tar Heel State.
Law enforcement quickly put the lie to those claims.
“A search warrant of his phone tower history revealed that he was in Bedford County the night of the incident,” a search warrant explains. “The tower his phone communicated with is within 1 mile of the victim’s address. The victim’s phone also has a record of an argument via text between Trenton Frye and herself over their recent break-up on the night leading up to this incident.”
Deputies learned Frye spent “several days” in the Lynchburg and Bedford County areas during the time period since the break-up and prior to the death of the beloved “loving” mother and “dancing queen.”
The defendant was arrested roughly two weeks later in North Carolina and extradited back to Virginia. Justice moved glacially for years.
On March 31, Frye’s trial began.
Out came the text messages — the defendant’s lies unfurled and punctuated with nasty, brutish and terse vindictiveness as the man came to realize the woman would not take him back.
“Lowlife, piece of s–,” Frye texted Montgomery after she denied his advances, prosecutors showed jurors. Another text reads: “karma is a b–” as Frye accuses Montgomery of “shady s—” and “toxic bs.”
Then came the pleas for sympathy.
“My mental issues are getting out of control,” he told his victim in another message, jurors learned. “Hurting like I never have before.”
Frye took the stand in his own defense to argue he was physically incapable of carrying out the crime the way the state said it happened.
“I could not have climbed the balcony without making a sound,” the defendant testified, according to a courtroom report by Roanoke-based CBS affiliate WDBJ. “I would have to be a ninja of some sort. To move an entire, what she described as a metal bench, put it on a concrete wall that was described, then put it on what looked like a fiberglass balcony, not break anything and not make a sound. How is that possible?”
This angle was a permutation of a belated admission that Frye was, in fact, at the apartment complex on the day in question. But, defense attorney Joseph Sanzone argued: “There’s no evidence that shows Trenton was ever in the apartment.”
Still, there was other evidence of Frye’s stalking and obsession.
Search warrants for the defendant’s Ford Explorer show deputies recovered several receipts, a purple hairbrush, black glasses, a car charger with two cords, three pairs of black pants, and two black shirts. Montgomery’s obituary notes that purple was her “favorite color” and asked loved ones to attend her funeral “wearing purple.”
Frye also searched for floor plans of the unit where Montgomery lived with her daughter and a roommate, prosecutors told the jury.
All the stalking, the state said, amounted to motive.
“His phone data and his lies, they all interact to prove his guilt,” Bedford County Commonwealth Attorney Wes Nance said, according to a courtroom report by The News & Advance.
In comments to Lynchburg-based ABC affiliate WSET after the verdict, the prosecutor again referenced the killer’s problems with the truth.
“From my perspective, I think his constant flow of lies to law enforcement played a big role, but we also wouldn’t have been here without the flow of digital evidence,” Nance said. “So, I think it’s a combination of those two things.”
During the sentencing hearing, Updike explained how a person in Frye’s position would typically be sentenced to 22-38 years in prison.
The judge, however, punished the killer far in excess of the sentencing guidelines – saying the woman’s murder was as “cold-blooded and calculated” as anything he had ever seen, according to WDBJ.
Chris Perez contributed to this report.
