Aug 11, 2005 9:08 am US/Central
Woman Admits To Storing Body In Expensive Carpet
Hong Kong (AP) ―
A U.S. housewife on trial for the murder of her wealthy banker husband in Hong Kong acknowledged Thursday that she arranged for a storeroom to store her husband's corpse -- wrapped up in an expensive carpet.
Nancy Kissel, 41, who was born in Minneapolis and attended the University of Minnesota, is accused of giving her husband Robert a milkshake laced with sedatives before she bludgeoned him to death with a metal statue in their luxury apartment complex in Hong Kong on Nov. 2, 2003.
She has admitted killing her 40-year-old husband, a New York native, but denies drugging him and has pleaded innocent to murder. Prosecutor Peter Chapman has accused Kissel of fabricating events, saying she was able to hit her husband because he was drugged and unable to defend himself.
Robert Kissel's body was found bundled in an expensive rug in a storage room near the couple's Hong Kong apartment. Chapman pressed Kissel about the carpet containing her husband's body on Thursday during cross-examination.
Kissel answered "yes" when asked whether she packed bloodstained clothing into boxes, arranged in a storeroom to be emptied and sent her maids out on separate shopping trips after the alleged murder.
"Eventually, the rug containing Robert Kissel's body ... (was) removed from the apartment and placed in the storeroom?" Chapman asked the defendant in court.
"Yes," replied Kissel.
Maintenance workers at the apartment were asked by Kissel to help her haul the carpet to the storage room, according to previous testimony.
Chapman said Kissel went on a shopping spree to cover up the killing. He showed pictures of her returning to her apartment from several outings with a suitcase and a carpet the day following her husband's death.
Kissel testified Wednesday that she grabbed the statue and swung it over her head at her husband who was trying to have anal sex with her. Kissel had said earlier her spouse, an investment banker at Merrill Lynch, regularly physically and sexually abused her, leading her to consider suicide.
She said his forehead was bleeding from the blow and that when she tried to help him, he picked up a baseball bat and threatened to kill her. She fended off his attacks with the statue, she said.
But Chapman said Thursday police never found the baseball bat in the Kissels' apartment and the item was produced later as evidence only by the defense. He said Robert Kissel was unconscious by the time his wife attacked him because she had drugged him.
Chapman also alleged that Kissel retreated to her bedroom during a police visit to the apartment and tried to hide bloodied clothes from the killing by stuffing them into her children's closet. Kissel admitted going into her bedroom when police arrived, but said she could not recall moving any clothing.
The prosecution earlier portrayed Kissel as an unfaithful wife who secretly met with a lover while her spouse underwent back surgery.
She admitted Thursday that she had long telephone chats with her lover Michael Del Priore, an electrician in the U.S. state Vermont, following the alleged murder.
Chapman also disputed Kissel's saying that her husband abused alcohol and cocaine. He cited testimony from a close friend of the Kissels, Bryna O' Shea, as saying that Robert Kissel was neither an alcoholic or drug user.
If convicted, Kissel, faces up to life in prison.
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