Hong Kong's milkshake murderer appeals conviction

Hong Kong  -  A wealthy American expatriate convicted of beating her banker husband to death after drugging him with a milkshake laced with sedatives, appeared frail and in ill-health on the opening day of her appeal hearing in Hong Kong Monday.

Michigan-born Nancy Kissel, dubbed the milkshake-murderer for the crime, needed help from a guard as she hobbled into the courtroom dressed in sombre black and grey and looking pale and thin.

Kissel, 44, is appealing her murder conviction and life sentence for the September 2005 death of Robert Kissel, 40, a senior Merrill Lynch banker, at their luxury apartment on Hong Kong island.

On one occasion during the hearing she broke down in tears upon seeing members of her family, including her father and mother, in court.

The court heard that Kissel now needs a wheelchair and is suffering from an eating disorder.

The original three-month trial, which had all the elements of a Hollywood thriller, captivated Hong Kong and grabbed the attention of the local and international media during the summer of 2005.

Kissel, who has been held at the Tai Lam Centre for Women in Hong Kong, has always denied the November 2003 murder, saying she acted in self-defence after years of physical and sexual assaults by her husband.

The prosecution argued the murder was cold-blooded and that she had first sedated her victim with a drug-laced milkshake before bludgeoning him to death with a heavy metal ornament.

It said she wrapped his body in a rug and then arranged for workmen to carry it to a storeroom.

The prosecution claimed the murder was planned to avoid a messy divorce so Nancy Kissel could be with her TV repairman lover, Michael Del Priore, who lived in a trailer park in Vermont.

In his opening address at the appeal Monday, Kissel's barrister Gerard McCoy said the orginal hearing was "a demanding and complicated trial."

He said the appeal would challenge the judge's summation on the basis that he misdirected the jury with his overly narrow definition of self-defence.

An application to present new evidence that the instructions were delivered in a manner which made it difficult for the jury, whose first language was not English, to understand, was rejected.

Kissel came to Hong Kong with her husband in 1997. The couple had three children, all of whom are now in the care of the victim's family in Seattle.

The appeal is expected to take eight days. (dpa)