Jury verdict unanimous after over 11 hours of deliberation

A jury has upheld the conviction of 46-year-old Nancy Kissel in the Nov 2, 2003 bludgeoning death of her husband Robert, an executive with Merrill Lynch.

Kissel, who had been serving a life sentence after her earlier conviction in the case, sat stoically, rocking back and forth in the prisoners' dock as the verdict was read.

Once a robust, active woman, Kissel now weighs but 38 kilograms and cannot walk unassisted.

Kissel, who won a retrial in 2010 after the Court of Final Appeal ruled that her original trial had been prejudiced against her, had entered a plea of guilty to manslaughter at the start of her 45-day retrial in the brutal killing.

But the seven-woman-two-man jury, after more than 11 hours of deliberation, returned a unanimous verdict that rejected Kissel's plea to the lesser charge.

"The sentence for murder is prescribed in the law and my hands are tied. I don't want to say anything to add to your misery," Justice Andrew Macrae said.

He added he will send a recommendation to the Long-term Prison Sentences Review Board on the grounds that Kissel was emotionally distressed, of good character and had been through an incredible ordeal with the loss of her children and former lifestyle.

Macrae also reserved special mention to the jurors, describing them as a model jury and doubling their pay for their two and a half months of service.

Nancy Kissel, nicknamed "milkshake murderer", had served six years of a life sentence when her re-trial opened.

Her mother Jean McGlothlin told reporters outside the court the family were not, at this stage, considering another appeal which she said will be a year away, adding their first task was to help Kissel "heal physically and psychologically".

Michael McGlothlin, Nancy Kissel's stepfather said that, while the trial was fair, he could not "conceive the mindset of the jurors that could listen to that evidence for 10 weeks and come away with that belief".

He ascribed the jury's decision to cultural differences.

Nancy Kissel had denied planning to kill her husband, but testified she was provoked by threats of divorce and the loss of her three children.

Testifying as a defense witness, psychologist Lenore Walker, the pioneer researcher on battered women syndrome, said Kissel was not in control of her emotions or actions because of a family history of depression and years of physical, psychological and sexual abuse at the hands of her husband.

Walker said Kissel's symptoms explained why she hid her abuse for years and that Kissel was in a dissociative state when she lied and tried to cover up the slaying.

Prosecutor David Perry had told the jury Kissel's correspondence did not reveal any history of physical or sexual violence, adding her email records in the run up to the killing showed she was in full control of her faculties, hosting parties and actively preparing her children's school yearbook while juggling her own photography business during the days before the killing.

He also pointed out Kissel was the primary beneficiary of Robert's $15 million estate along with three life insurance policies.

Kissel's marriage began spiraling downward in the summer of 2003, when she began an affair with an electrician working on the couple's $1.5 million Vermont vacation home.

In the summary, Macrae said Kissel gave her husband a concoction of six types of sedatives mixed into a milkshake on the day of the murder.

While Robert Kissel remained under sedation, his wife crushed his skull with five blows from an eight-pound lead figurine.

His body was wrapped in plastic bags and a sleeping bag before it was rolled up in a rug and hidden in a storeroom until it was discovered three days later by police executing a search warrant in response to a missing persons report.

China Daily

(HK Edition 03/26/2011 page1)