A western Iowa jury has found a Council Bluffs man guilty of killing his wife. Forty-year-old Stanley Tribble was convicted of first degree murder, which carries a mandatory life prison sentence. Thirty-five-year-old Tracey Tribble disappeared from the couples’ Council Bluffs home on May 3rd, 2006. Her battered body was found floating in the Missouri River nearly two weeks later. An autopsy revealed she had suffocated.
There was no reaction from Tribble when the verdict was read, but Tracey’s mother wept. Afterwards, Mary Gostomski praised police and prosecutors for acting when she reported her daughter missing. "They believed me when I came over here that morning," she told reporters outside the courthouse. "They believed me that something had happened to my daughter and they were on it right then."
Stan Tribble’s family was not in the courtroom when the verdict was read. They arrived shortly after he was led away to a holding cell and were visibly upset. Pottawattamie County Attorney Matt Wilber told reporters he believes phone records convinced the jury of Tribble’s guilt. Those records showed all the calls Tribble made to his wife in the days before her disappearance, but no calls were made after she went missing.