FBI agent Kice remembered as determined investigator

He was 57.

She said the state Office of the Medical Investigator told her Kice — who was recovering from COVID-19 — had a blood clot in his leg. Kilburn added the blood clot was determined to have caused a pulmonary embolism, which ultimately caused the fatal heart attack.

Before his time in Santa Fe — where he served as team leader for the FBI Albuquerque Evidence Response Team — Kice spent 11 years working as a special agent in Los Angeles. He specialized in crime scene investigation, human remains recovery and crimes against children.

He also led teams investigating attacks at the Pentagon and World Trade Center on 9/11 and helped train hundreds of law enforcement professionals in Botswana, Hungary, Brazil, Turkmenistan and Bangladesh while an instructor for the U.S. State Department’s International Law Enforcement Academy Program, according to his obituary.

He retired from the FBI in 2017, but family and former colleagues said Kice maintained contact with friends and associates from his many years at the bureau.

FBI photographer Tammy Peter worked with Kice for 11 years while both were members of the FBI Albuquerque Evidence Response Team. She said throughout their years working together, Kice became not just a friend but a mentor and a role model as well.

“He was one of those people that could gauge not only the situation, but gauge the people around him — and you were better because of him,” Peter said. “We lost our friend, and that’s going to be something that will take a long time for me personally to put in perspective.”

Born April 18, 1965 in St. Louis, Kice received a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from Colorado College and a master’s degree in physical anthropology and archeology from the University of Chicago. It was that background, FBI spokesman Frank Fisher said, that proved valuable on the evidence response team.

“Every bone I saw, I was sure it was a human bone,” said Fisher, who worked with Kice on the team. “I would pick it up, and I would rush towards him and say, ‘Hey, I found something!’ … He’d say, ‘That’s a deer bone, that’s a rabbit bone.’ … After awhile, he’d just say, ‘Put the bones down.’ “

Kice was devoted to his family, and Becky Kilburn said her husband retired early at 52 to spend time with their children before they left for college.

“If he waited and retired at 57 [the mandatory FBI retirement age for an agent], he couldn’t ski with them and go to their soccer games and baseball games and music events — and he couldn’t volunteer at the school,” she said. “I was really happy that he had that opportunity. How many kids get to spend so much time with, especially, their dad?”

Becky Kilburn said Kice had planned on returning to work once his kids, Allison and Brian, left for college in August. He called it “reverse retirement,” she said.

Monty Kilburn said his brother-in-law “filled the room.”

“He had a loud voice and a loud laugh,” Monty Kilburn said. “He was big on cooking dinner for the family, grilling [and] hosting people … [those] were definitely passions of his.”

Kice’s father-in-law, Roger Kilburn, referred to him as a “wonderful gourmet chef” and recalled a family get-together about a month ago when Kice grilled elk and antelope he had hunted.

He remembers his son-in-law as a well-informed, intense conversationalist with a “nasty habit of getting it right most of the time.”

“We enjoyed a glass of wine together and just talking about the world,” Roger Kilburn said. “We all loved him and [this is just like] tearing part of your heart out.”

Becky Kilburn said Kice didn’t view his career as “a series of accomplishments,” but rather the fulfillment of a mission.

“He was really drawn to the mission of helping make the United States a better place, and doing that in a way that respected people’s civil rights,” she said. “He was more proud of contributing … to that mission rather than any particular accomplishments.”

Kice is survived by Becky Kilburn and their children, Allison Kilburn Kice and Brian Kilburn Kice.