photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Chloe Colby is pictured at her plea hearing on July 3, 2024, in Douglas County District Court.

Updated at 5:48 p.m. Friday, Nov. 8

A Lawrence woman was sentenced on Friday to 40 months in prison for her role in the fentanyl death of her 21-year-old boyfriend more than three years ago.

The sentencing came as a relief to the family of the victim — Kendall Royce Stiffler — who had appeared in court last month, some from out of state, expecting the sentence to be handed down only to be disappointed by a last-minute delay caused by Chloe Colby’s allegedly becoming pregnant while she was out on bond. No mention of a pregnancy was made Friday in court.

Ashli Gill, Stiffler’s mom, told the Journal-World after the hearing that her family was “very happy with the sentence.”

photo by: Contributed

Kendall Stiffler

As the Journal-World has reported, Colby, 23, was found to have provided deadly drugs from the “dark net” to Stiffler, who was her boyfriend at the time. Stiffler died on April 21, 2021, and Colby pleaded no contest to involuntary manslaughter in July of this year.

Colby, who has no prior convictions, was sentenced on Friday to 32 months for involuntary manslaughter and eight months for conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance, and the sentences are to run consecutively. The state, represented by Deputy District Attorney David Greenwald and Assistant DA Samantha Foster, had requested the aggravated sentences for both crimes, which would have amounted to four more months total — a small amount, Greenwald conceded, but he saw symbolic value in “cracking down” on someone he had described to the court as a “drug queenpin,” saying that police found more than 1,000 pills in her residence and noting that she had sought to acquire more illegal drugs for someone else, even after Stiffler’s death.

“She is dangerous,” Greenwald said, “and that is paramount to all other concerns.”

Judge Sally Pokorny did agree to run the sentences consecutively, though defense attorneys Angela Keck and Branden Smith had argued for minimum sentences to run concurrently. Keck argued that Colby, whom she described as a “very sweet and sensitive” woman who was just 19 when Stiffler died, had been a model client, never missing an appointment and complying with everything the legal system had required. Keck also noted that Colby had scored well on a recidivism risk test and that she was remorseful over Stiffler’s death.

Colby made as if to address the court, but seemed to choke up and didn’t end up speaking, although her parents did.

Colby’s dad, Troy Colby, described his daughter as a “kind, gentle soul” who deserved a second chance, noting that she had been at a vulnerable moment in her life. Her mom, Shellie Colby, praised Stiffler as polite and caring and told the court that she was “sad to see such a young person lose his life so senselessly,” but she didn’t believe that her daughter was responsible for his death. Rather, she said, they were two very young people — “addicts” — who made bad choices while under the influence.

The picture she painted was at odds with that of Stiffler’s family, who also addressed the court and characterized Colby as emotionally abusive.

Gill, after describing her son’s “big heart” and his love of family, reading, wrestling and their regular “mother-son date nights” at sushi restaurants and IHOP, told the court about her son’s struggles with ADHD and his efforts to kick drugs — efforts that she said were thwarted at every turn by Colby, whom he met in his senior year of high school.

“She controlled him in over 100 ways, and the drugs were just one,” she said a mediator in the case had told her after reviewing texts between Stiffler and Colby.

She said her son, trying to straighten out his life, had asked her husband to go through the couple’s residence to make sure it was drug-free but that Colby wouldn’t permit it.

“She used addiction to control him,” said Gill, who also told the court that when Stiffler was in the emergency room after the overdose that Colby declined to tell the doctor what drugs he had taken — a claim echoed by prosecutors.

Stiffler’s sister, Josi Gill, nine years his junior, testified about the pain of suddenly losing her big brother at age 12. She said he was her “fiercest champion,” even though she sometimes annoyed him by being underfoot.

“Mom, come get Josi; she’s in our way,” she said he would yell when his friends were over. “I would give anything to hear those words again.”

She said her brother taught her to always look for the good in a bad situation — a trait that their mom also alluded to when she told the court: “I continue to pray for Chloe because I know in the end Kendall would want her to heal and get her life on track.”

Before pronouncing her sentence, Pokorny called the situation a “terrible tragedy” with huge impacts on two families. While noting the awful pain of losing a child, she said that jailing people was ultimately “not the answer” to the country’s drug crisis — as she ordered the standard sentence under the state’s sentencing guidelines for involuntary manslaughter and the minimum sentence for the conspiracy to distribute conviction.

Colby had been free on a $250,000 own-recognizance bond since her arrest on Oct. 7, 2021, meaning she was not required to pay any money to be released from jail. She was handcuffed and taken into custody immediately after Friday’s hearing.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Chloe Colby is taken into custody after her sentencing hearing Friday, Nov. 8, 2024, in Douglas County District Court. Her attorney, Angela Keck, is at left.