A Karen Kistle homicide charge has been brought against her husband, Anthony Kistle, more than two years after investigators initially treated her death as a possible suicide, Pennsylvania State Police have announced. Kistle was arrested in Colorado on Tuesday during a routine traffic stop, having relocated from Pennsylvania in the period following his wife’s death.
Karen Kistle was found with a gunshot wound at the couple’s home on Vandien Drive in Dingman Township, in Pennsylvania’s Pike County, near Dingmans Ferry, according to WNEP. She died of her injuries as paramedics attempted to airlift her to Geisinger Community Medical Center in Scranton. Multiple local outlets, including the Pocono Record and Wayne Pike News, place the incident on 22 May 2024.
The Karen Kistle Homicide Charge and What Investigators Found
For an extended period following the incident, authorities treated the death as a possible suicide. Pennsylvania State Police said on Thursday that the conclusion changed after a sustained multi-agency investigation. ‘Evidence gathered at the scene, witness interviews, forensic examination and subsequent investigative findings concluded that Karen Kistle’s death was the result of a homicide rather than a self-inflicted gunshot wound,’ the force said in a statement.
Anthony Kistle now faces charges of criminal homicide, theft by unlawful taking involving a firearm, and theft by unlawful taking of a motor vehicle, according to Pennsylvania State Police. The charges will be prosecuted in Pike County.
There is a minor discrepancy in the ages reported across sources. The snippet identifies Anthony Kistle as 45 and Karen Kistle as 61; the Pocono Record and Wayne Pike News report Anthony’s age as 46 and Karen’s as 60, a figure also carried by WNEP. The underlying facts of the case are not in dispute between sources.
Arrest Made During Colorado Traffic Stop
Anthony Kistle was taken into custody on Tuesday morning during a traffic stop on northbound Interstate 25 near Castle Pines, a small city approximately 20 miles south of Denver. The Colorado Bureau of Investigation confirmed the arrest, describing him in a press release as ‘a murder suspect wanted in Pennsylvania for a 2024 homicide.’
He is currently being held in Colorado and will be extradited back to Pennsylvania to face the charges.
Friends of Karen Kistle told Colorado Springs ABC affiliate KRDO that the suicide narrative had never sat comfortably with them. One friend said Karen suffered from carpal tunnel syndrome in both hands, a condition she attributed to years of working at ShopRite, a supermarket chain in the north-east and Mid-Atlantic regions. ‘I cannot imagine how you can take a gun and hold a gun in a position,’ the friend told the station.
The same friend also questioned why Karen would have used her husband’s firearm rather than her own. A second friend, a former ShopRite co-worker, said the absence of any public movement on the case over two years had caused many in Karen’s circle to fear it had been quietly shelved. ‘A lot of us, we’re pretty hopeless that anything was going to be done because nothing was being said in New Jersey or Pennsylvania, where she lived,’ the co-worker told Fox56. ‘So we just assume that the cops were investigating.’
‘We really want… all her friends want justice,’ the second friend continued. ‘Justice for Karen. Because we don’t feel that she really got it, you know?’
The Karen Kistle homicide charge now moves toward extradition proceedings, with the Pike County prosecution the next formal stage. Subject to any extradition challenge, the case is expected to return to Pennsylvania court in the weeks ahead.
