by emad » Thu Aug 04, 2005 10:42 am
U.S. Woman Admits Killing Banker Husband <br><br>Thursday August 4, 2005 2:16 PM<br><br>By SYLVIA HUI <br><br>Associated Press Writer <br><br>HONG KONG (AP) - An American woman who pleaded innocent to murdering her husband in Hong Kong testified Thursday that she beat the wealthy investment banker to death with a metal statue. <br><br>Nancy Kissel, 41, is accused of giving her husband a milkshake spiked with drugs, bludgeoning him to death during a quarrel, wrapping his body in a rug and placing it in a storage locker at the couple's luxury apartment complex in 2003. <br><br>Kissel has testified that the day her 40-year-old husband died, he told her he was divorcing her and taking their three children. She said that during an argument, he hit her with a baseball bat and she struck him with a metal statue with human figurines on it. <br><br>But the defendant said she couldn't clearly recall what happened in the struggle, although she said she did hit something and her husband's head was bloody. <br><br>On Thursday, prosecutor Peter Chapman asked Kissel: ``Do you accept that you killed Robert Kissel?'' <br><br>She replied in a firm voice, ``Yes.'' <br><br>When the prosecutor asked Kissel if she beat her husband to death with a statue, she said, ``Yes.'' <br><br>Kissel testified that the last thing she remembered thinking during the struggle was: ``I just wanted him to stop ... swinging the bat at me. I was afraid of him (because) he said he's going to kill me.'' <br><br>She has said that she had only a vague recollection of the following two months, when prosecutors said she tried to cover up the killing. <br><br>Questioned by her lawyer Thursday, Kissel did not specifically deny spiking her husband's milkshake. She said, ``It was a milkshake that I made for my children and someone else's child. I wouldn't harm my own children. I wouldn't harm someone else's child.'' <br><br>A high amount of sedatives was found in Robert Kissel's body. <br><br>Kissel has said that she put sedatives in her husband's whiskey once during a vacation in Vermont. She said she did it to calm him down and prevent him from being too aggressive with their children. <br><br>The trial has riveted Hong Kong and produced a slew of sensational details about the wealthy couple's life. Robert Kissel was a high-powered investment banker for Merrill Lynch. <br><br>Nancy Kissel has admitted to having an affair with an electrician in Vermont. She has also described her husband as an abusive workaholic who indulged in alcohol, cocaine and forceful sex. <br><br>If convicted, she faces up to life in prison. <br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5189462,00.html">www.guardian.co.uk/worldl...62,00.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br> ---------------------------------------<br><br>The ghost of 'God's Banker' ROBERTO CALVI looks on in wry amusement??????? <p></p><i></i>
