The chief prosecutor in the southwestern Iowa murder case that concluded last week says he’s still nagged by unanswered questions. On Thursday, forty-one-year-old Stan Tribble of Council Bluffs was sentenced to a mandatory life prison term for the slaying of his wife, Tracy.
Pottawattamie County Attorney Matt Wilbur says there are still several unanswered questions about the woman’s murder. Wilbur says, "We know what condition her body was found in. Really, how she got from A to B, you know, is still a bit of a mystery and that’s one of the questions that lingers in my mind is exactly what happened that night."
Mrs. Tribble’s body was found in the Missouri River in May of 2006, some two weeks after she was reported missing. She’d been strangled. Wilber says Tribble’s conviction and life sentence doesn’t completely close the case.
Wilbur says, "We’ve got appeals to deal with now and assuming that we prevail on appeal, I’m sure they’ll file a post-conviction relief petition saying that their lawyers weren’t good, and unfortunately, these cases never really end to a certain extent." Wilbur says this was one of the most emotional cases he has had to deal with in his legal career. Relatives of the 35-year-old victim spoke during last week’s sentencing, openly weeping and saying Tribble deserves only to be brutally killed by another inmate.