Sep 1, 2005 4:31 pm US/Central
Jury Finds Woman Guilty In 'Milkshake Murder' Case
Hong Kong (AP) ―
An American was convicted Thursday of murdering her wealthy husband in a sensational trial full of lurid details: a milkshake spiked with a date-rape drug, a love affair with a trailer park dweller and a decomposing body rolled up in a rug and stashed in a storage locker.
Nancy Kissel, 41, who had testified that she killed her husband, Robert, in self- defense, listened stoically to the verdict that got her a mandatory life sentence. Her lawyer wouldn't say whether she would appeal.
People packed the courtroom during what became known as the "Milkshake Murder" trial to listen to witnesses describe the Kissels' troubled marriage that ended November 2003 in the bloody bedroom of their luxury apartment on a mountain overlooking Hong Kong's dazzling skyscrapers.
The three months of testimony gave the public a rare glimpse into the private life of one of the expatriate families who seem to live in an ideal world of maids, fancy cars, swimming pools, cocktail parties and high-flying finance jobs in this global business center.
A seven-member jury convicted Kissel of murdering her investment banker husband by mixing him a milkshake laced with sedatives before striking him five times in the head with a heavy metal ornament.
Kissel, who dressed in black throughout the trial, was depicted by the prosecution as a cold-blooded killer who carefully planned the murder, surfing the Internet for tips on how to drug her husband, a top investment banker at Merrill Lynch. A mixture of sedatives -- including the date-rape drug Rohypnol -- was found in his stomach.
The prosecution argued that Robert Kissel, 40, of New York, was seeking a divorce and custody of their three children partly because he caught his wife having an affair. The lover -- acknowledged by Nancy Kissel -- was a TV repairman who lived in a trailer park near the couple's vacation home in Vermont.
Nancy Kissel, who was born in Adrian, Mich., and studied business at the University of Minnesota, said her husband was a cocaine-snorting, whisky-swilling, abusive, workaholic monster who frequently forced her to have anal sex. She said he was dragging her into the bedroom and assaulting her with a baseball bat the night she killed him in self-defense.
The woman testified that she lost her memory after she killed her husband.
The prosecution said the body was left in the bedroom for two days before she rolled it up in a carpet and asked maintenance workers to haul it away to a storage locker the couple rented in the apartment complex. The workers said the carpet had a rotten fish smell, and one of the family's two Filipino maids noted that it seemed unusually bulky.
A day after the killing, Nancy Kissel sent an e-mail to a friend saying, "My husband is not well. I need to take care of something with him," the prosecution said.
Nancy Kissel's mother supported her during the trial in this former British colony, where English is still the language used in court. The victim's father, William Kissel, was also present, taking careful notes.
As the jury deliberated Thursday, William Kissel spoke to a big pack of reporters outside the courtroom.
"This is not a moral person," he said of his daughter-in-law. "This is a coward."
Nearby, Nancy Kissel's friends gathered around her mother, Jean McGlothlin, and shot angry glances at William Kissel and whispered to each other. They declined to speak to reporters.
After the verdict, McGlothlin said only: "Right now, I'm just going to try and get by. Feet on the ground again."
William Kissel was thrilled with the jury's unanimous decision. "It's a 65-day trial and its unanimous," he said. "That's justice."
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