- Nancy Kissel
Nancy Kissel (born Nancy Keeshin circa 1964 in
Adrian, Michigan ) was an American expatriate who was convicted of the murder of her husband, Robert Kissel in their apartment inTai Tam ,Hong Kong on November 2, 2003. Robert was aninvestment banker who worked forMerrill Lynch .Kissel was prominent in the community and frequently helped out at the
Hong Kong International School , which her two daughters attended.Kissel is known as the "milkshake murderer" because she incapacitated her husband by serving him a strawberry milkshake full of sedatives before bludgeoning him to death. On September 1, 2005, Kissel became the first non-Chinese to be sentenced to
life imprisonment for the murder in Hong Kong.Biography
Kissel dropped out of the
Parsons School of Design after two years. She had already worked as the floor manager of the Caliente Cab Company, a Mexican restaurant on Waverly Place in New York City, and had switched to the El Rio Grande on 38th Street. She also was general manager of Docks Restaurant on Broadway in Manhattan.Robert and Nancy Kissel married at the
East River Yacht Club in New York in the United States in 1989 whereAlison Gertz was her maid of honour. The couple arrived in Hong Kong in 1997 with their three children, and resided at the Hong Kong Parkview. Kissel was vice-president of the school's parent-teacher board. At the time of the murder, the couple had three children, Reis (aged 5), June (aged 8) and Elaine (aged 11).Robert was a vice president in
Goldman Sachs ' Asian special situations group.Merrill Lynch hired him from Goldman in 2000 to head its distressed assets business in Asia outside Japan.The murder
On a return trip to the United States in mid 2003, Kissel met and had an affair with Michael Del Priore, the twice-married electrical repairman who had rewired the Kissel home in
Vermont . They remained in frequent telephone communication during the days immediately following the murder.Robert was suspicious of Kissel's infidelity, and had hired a New York
private detective s to spy on his wife. Robert also had spyware secretly installed on Kissel's laptop. Kissel claims to have had some violent disagreements with her husband, and said that her husband claimed to have initiated proceedings fordivorce and for the custody of their children.Kissel drugged her husband by serving him a strawberry milkshake laced with a cocktail of sedatives before bludgeoning him to death. She then rolled up his body in a carpet and put it into their store room.
After her arrest, Kissel admitted to killing her husband, claiming that she had been in an unhappy marriage and the victim of
domestic violence : her husband had apparently subjected her to rape and sodomy over a five year period. She attempted to portray Robert as a work-crazed and controlling husband, who had succumbed to habitual and regularcocaine use since going on anMBA course.The Verdict
The case was brought before Mr Justice Michael Lunn at Hong Kong's High Court. At the end of the trial lasting 65 days, the jury of five men and two women decided unanimously on her guilt after 8 hours of deliberations. On September 1, 2005, she was sentenced to life imprisonment. The appeal against her conviction was dismissed on October 6, 2008. Kissel's lawyer said she would to Hong Kong's Court of Final Appeal. [Bei Hu and Hanny Wan, [http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aG7px6AFf858 Nancy Kissel's Murder Appeal Dismissed in Hong Kong] , Bloomberg, October 06, 2008]
Aftermath
In April of 2006, Robert's brother, Andrew, who had been granted temporary custody of the Kissel's three children, was found stabbed to death in the basement of his rented mansion in
Greenwich, Connecticut . Custody was transferred to Robert and Andrew's sister, Jane Kissel Clayton, who filed a wrongful death suit on behalf of the children.References
External links
* [http://www.zonaeuropa.com/kissel.htm EastSouthWestNorth on the Kissel case]
*The Standard [http://www.thestandard.com.hk/stdn/std/Others/Kissel.html : Complete coverage of the Kissel murder trial]
* [http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/11/16/48hours/main2189936.shtml Blood And Money: '48 Hours' Looks At The Killing Of Two Brothers Thousands Of Miles Apart]
* [http://www.amazon.com/Never-Enough-Joe-McGinniss/dp/0743296362 "Never Enough" by Joe McGinnis - The Nancy Kissel Case]
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