machine off.
“Based on your physiological responses,” he said, “I am positive you caused Bruce’s death.”
“I want to see my attorney,” said Stella Nickell. It was plain that Cusack was not going to get a confession.
Cusack had already questioned Cindy Hamilton, Stella Nickell’s 27-year-old daughter from a previous marriage. She had defended her mother but, hearing about the result of the polygraph test, she was beginning to have second thoughts. When Cusack questioned her for a second time, she said that her mother had talked about killing her stepfather for years. She was bored, but she did not want a divorce because she would lose half of their meagre property. She had even talked of hiring a hit man to shoot Bruce or run his car off the road. Once, she tried to poison him with foxglove seeds, but they only made him drowsy. Then, a few months before his death, Cindy said, Stella began talking about cyanide. When Bruce died, Cindy talked over the matter with her mother.
“I know what you’re thinking,” said Stella, “and the answer is no.”
Cindy had allayed her suspicions until the polygraph results revived them.
“I knew my mother was capable of doing this,” she said. “I just didn’t want to believe it.”
Slowly, a nine-hour interview with Cusack brought home to Cindy the enormity of what her mother had done. She had killed an unsuspecting victim to make the murder of her husband seem like the random act of a deranged poisoner. What if Sue Snow’s daughter Hayley had taken the capsules that morning? What if the other two bottles had found their way into people’s homes? How many people would Stella Nickell have killed for an extra $105,000?
Cindy agreed to testify against her mother as long as she did not have to face the death penalty. Cusack assured her that a Federal conviction for product-tampering conviction carried a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
But there was still no smoking gun. Cindy had not seen her mother put the cyanide in capsules, administer them to her husband or place the contaminated bottles in stores. In court, her testimony could be dismissed as a feud between mother and daughter. Indeed, the maternal bond was strong and she might deny everything in court.
As the grand jury began hearing testimony in February 1987, the FBI team had shrunk to just three men – Cusack, Nichols and a rookie named Marshall Stone. Desperately they tried to put together the last link in the chain of evidence against Stella Nickell. But most of the leads they checked out went nowhere. Then Cusack remembered that Cindy had told him, in the months before her stepfather’s death, her mother had been researching in libraries. Stone headed for Stella Nickell’s local library in Auburn.
“Do you have a library-card holder by the name of Stella Nickell?” he asked the librarian. She searched the files and handed to Stone an overdue notice for a book Stella had borrowed and never returned. Its title: Human Poisoning .
Armed with the number Stella Nickell’s library card, Stone combed the aisles for other books on toxicology. He found a volume on poisonous plants called Deadly Harvest . Stella Nickell’s library number had been stamped twice on the checkout slip – and both dates were before her husband’s death. The book was sent off to Washington, DC, where the FBI crime lab found 84 of Stella’s prints in Deadly Harvest – mostly on the pages covering cyanide.
On 9 December 1987, Stella Nickell was charged with the murder of her husband and Sue Snow. When her trial began four months later, she pleaded not guilty. It took 31 witnesses to piece together a portrait of a woman whose unhappy marriage and financial desperation led to her to see random acts of murder as a solution. The prosecutor called her an “icy human being without social or moral conscience”.
The jury found her guilty on 9 May. Saying her crimes exhibited “exceptional callousness and cruelty”, Judge
“Based on your physiological responses,” he said, “I am positive you caused Bruce’s death.”
“I want to see my attorney,” said Stella Nickell. It was plain that Cusack was not going to get a confession.
Cusack had already questioned Cindy Hamilton, Stella Nickell’s 27-year-old daughter from a previous marriage. She had defended her mother but, hearing about the result of the polygraph test, she was beginning to have second thoughts. When Cusack questioned her for a second time, she said that her mother had talked about killing her stepfather for years. She was bored, but she did not want a divorce because she would lose half of their meagre property. She had even talked of hiring a hit man to shoot Bruce or run his car off the road. Once, she tried to poison him with foxglove seeds, but they only made him drowsy. Then, a few months before his death, Cindy said, Stella began talking about cyanide. When Bruce died, Cindy talked over the matter with her mother.
“I know what you’re thinking,” said Stella, “and the answer is no.”
Cindy had allayed her suspicions until the polygraph results revived them.
“I knew my mother was capable of doing this,” she said. “I just didn’t want to believe it.”
Slowly, a nine-hour interview with Cusack brought home to Cindy the enormity of what her mother had done. She had killed an unsuspecting victim to make the murder of her husband seem like the random act of a deranged poisoner. What if Sue Snow’s daughter Hayley had taken the capsules that morning? What if the other two bottles had found their way into people’s homes? How many people would Stella Nickell have killed for an extra $105,000?
Cindy agreed to testify against her mother as long as she did not have to face the death penalty. Cusack assured her that a Federal conviction for product-tampering conviction carried a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
But there was still no smoking gun. Cindy had not seen her mother put the cyanide in capsules, administer them to her husband or place the contaminated bottles in stores. In court, her testimony could be dismissed as a feud between mother and daughter. Indeed, the maternal bond was strong and she might deny everything in court.
As the grand jury began hearing testimony in February 1987, the FBI team had shrunk to just three men – Cusack, Nichols and a rookie named Marshall Stone. Desperately they tried to put together the last link in the chain of evidence against Stella Nickell. But most of the leads they checked out went nowhere. Then Cusack remembered that Cindy had told him, in the months before her stepfather’s death, her mother had been researching in libraries. Stone headed for Stella Nickell’s local library in Auburn.
“Do you have a library-card holder by the name of Stella Nickell?” he asked the librarian. She searched the files and handed to Stone an overdue notice for a book Stella had borrowed and never returned. Its title: Human Poisoning .
Armed with the number Stella Nickell’s library card, Stone combed the aisles for other books on toxicology. He found a volume on poisonous plants called Deadly Harvest . Stella Nickell’s library number had been stamped twice on the checkout slip – and both dates were before her husband’s death. The book was sent off to Washington, DC, where the FBI crime lab found 84 of Stella’s prints in Deadly Harvest – mostly on the pages covering cyanide.
On 9 December 1987, Stella Nickell was charged with the murder of her husband and Sue Snow. When her trial began four months later, she pleaded not guilty. It took 31 witnesses to piece together a portrait of a woman whose unhappy marriage and financial desperation led to her to see random acts of murder as a solution. The prosecutor called her an “icy human being without social or moral conscience”.
The jury found her guilty on 9 May. Saying her crimes exhibited “exceptional callousness and cruelty”, Judge
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