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Kristopher Torgerson was sentenced in Marathon County Circuit Court on June 8, 2017, to life in prison without the possibility of release to extended supervision for killing Stephanie Low, 22, in Wausau, Wisconsin, plus nine years in prison for hiding a corpse.

Low lived in a second-floor apartment on West Thomas Street. Police said she and her boyfriend were known cocaine traffickers, and a safe in the apartment held cocaine packaged in small baggies. Her mother reported her missing on October 10, 2010. An officer who visited the apartment noted a smell of cleaning solution, a bed stripped of sheets and blankets and what appeared to be blood in several places. Torgerson reportedly told six people he went there that day intending to rob Low, that she fought back, and that he strangled and stabbed her.

According to the criminal complaint, Torgerson enlisted a friend who accompanied him to the apartment and saw Low's body rolled up in blankets on the bed. They moved it to Torgerson's vehicle and followed his girlfriend to a cabin near Wabeno, in Forest County, owned by the girlfriend's mother. A shovel was bought that morning, and the body was buried with a rock rolled over the grave. In 2013, Wausau police said they had enough evidence to believe Low had been killed. Torgerson was in state prison on an unrelated drug case when, in September 2014, after learning prosecutors planned to file a homicide charge without a body, he led police to a shallow grave near Wabeno. A broken knife was found with the remains, and the key to the apartment safe was in Low's shirt pocket.

Torgerson, 34 when charged in 2014 and 37 at trial, was charged in Marathon County Circuit Court in September 2014 with first-degree intentional homicide, attempted armed robbery as a repeater and hiding a corpse as a repeater. Bond was set at $2 million at his initial appearance on October 15, 2014. He never admitted to police that he killed Low. In his recorded interview with detectives, he says he is being made a scapegoat. Near the end, a detective confirms that Torgerson is saying he would take them to Low if he could speak with his attorney, and they arrange to contact the public defender's office.

The trial opened in March 2017 in Marathon County Circuit Court before Judge Gregory Huber, with a jury chosen in Eau Claire County. More than 40 people testified. Before trial, the court denied a defense request to present evidence that another man committed the homicide. The defense acknowledged Torgerson's involvement in burying the body but said no physical evidence tied him to the killing. Torgerson did not testify. On March 24, 2017, after just over five hours of deliberation, the jury found him guilty of first-degree intentional homicide and hiding a corpse and not guilty of attempted armed robbery.

The jury had not heard about the 2001 stabbing death of Torgerson's father in Alabama, which Torgerson has said was self-defense and for which he served time in Alabama. At a May 2016 hearing, Judge Huber ruled that it could unfairly influence the jury. The judge cited that record when sentencing Torgerson on June 8, 2017.

A notice of appeal was filed in June 2017. On August 24, 2021, in case 2018AP2102-CRNM, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, District III, rejected a no-merit report filed by his appellate lawyer, dismissed the appeal without prejudice and extended the deadline for a postconviction motion or notice of appeal. It could not conclude that his claim that he did not knowingly and voluntarily give up his right to testify, based on his trial lawyer's advice, lacked arguable merit. A Wisconsin Supreme Court listing dated February 10, 2026, shows a petition for review in the same appeal. No ruling reversing the conviction or sentence has been reported as of November 1, 2026.