'Milkshake Murderer' Wins Appeal

American socialite Nancy Kissel to get retrial in Hong Kong
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 11, 2010 1:43 AM CST
'Milkshake Murderer' Wins Appeal
American expatriate Nancy Kissel is escorted in a van from Hong Kong Correctional Services at the Court of Final Appeal in Hong Kong.   (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

Hong Kong has granted a retrial to an American socialite convicted of one of the territory's most notorious murders that began with a spiked milkshake. Nancy Kissel, 45, was handed a life sentence in 2005 for giving her husband, a Merrill Lynch investment banker, a sedative-laced milkshake and beating him to death with a statuette. She rolled up his body in a carpet and placed it in storage in the couple's luxury apartment building. Kissel argued that she acted in self-defense after years of abusive sex.

Hong Kong's court of final appeal ruled in favor of Kissel's lawyers, who argued that evidence rules had been breached when prosecutors introduced hearsay evidence at her trial from witnesses who reported Kissel's husband believed she was poisoning his whiskey. Though Kissel's conviction has been overturned she will remain in custody pending the retrial, reports the BBC. Her attorney said the mother of three was "very frail, emotionally and physically." (More Nancy Kissel stories.)

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