Stella Nickell, then 75, had been sentenced to 90 years in prison in 1988, after she was found guilty of product tampering. In early 1974, when she was 32, she met Bruce Nickell. The FBI began an investigation into possible product tampering having been the source of the poison. However, the motion was denied. But Tom Noonan, manager of the local fish store, says she did buy algae destroyer. She was the first person to be found guilty of violating the Federal Anti-Tampering Act after putting cyanide. Both were found to contain cyanide-laced capsules. By CYNTHIA FLASH. According to Cindy, Stella had pointed out that if Bruce died, she and Cindy would have the cash they wanted to open a tropical fish store, or perhaps a ceramics store, another of Stella's hobbies. "She thought, 'If that murderer got away with it, I can, too,'" Olsen said of Nickell. Authorities ruled his death to be from natural causesemphysema, the attending physicians said. Bruce worked as a heavy equipment operator and had a fondness for alcohol. Snows suspicious death triggered an autopsy. Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you're on the go. ", If you have information regarding this case, please contact Al Farr at, The Tylenol Mafia: Marketing, Murder and Johnson & Johnson. The media was riveted because of its similarity to the notorious Chicago "Tylenol murders," less than four years earlier, when seven people died in fall 1982 after taking cyanide-tainted Tylenol pills. A federal judge has denied a plea for compassionate release from prison by an Auburn woman whos serving 90 years for planting poisoned pills that killed two and prompted national recalls of over-the-counter painkillers. But why would she bring the poisoning to police attention in the first place? May 9, 1988, U.S. Marshall Merry Moore leads Stella Nickell from the federal courthouse after a jury convicts her on five counts of product tampering. "She can sometimes be very, very skillfully evasive," says Farr. Stella Maudine Stephenson was a native of Colton, Oregon. [2] A total of five bottles had been found to have been contaminated in the entire country, and it was regarded as suspicious that Stella would happen to have acquired two of them purely by chance. Hamilton testified. The film was to have been directed by Jeff Reiner and starring Katey Sagal as Stella Nickell. Reports said Snow died after swallowing cyanide-laced Excedrin. "The case brought the whole pharmaceutical industry to its knees," Olsen said. She told police, and doctors realized that Bruce Nickell had also been poisoned. Stella Maudine Nickell (ne Stephenson; born August 7, 1943) is an American woman who was sentenced to ninety years in prison for product tampering after she poisoned Excedrin capsules with lethal cyanide, resulting in the deaths of her husband Bruce Nickell and Sue Snow. The reward is the second paid by the pharmaceutical group. Search for birth, death, marriage, divorce, US Census, and military records. Nickell was the first to be convicted under it. When police arrived, Stella handed over two bottles of Excedrin. } She told police that her husband had recently died suddenly after taking pills from a 40-capsule bottle of Excedrin with the same lot number as the one that had killed Snow. Copyright 2023 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. When detectives investigated, they found that Stella had borrowed, but never returned, a book called Human Poisoning. She wanted to stay home. [23], After the 1982 Chicago Tylenol murders, new FDA regulations went into effect which made it a federal crimerather than just a state or local crimeto tamper with consumer products. She claimed to have bought the two bottles at different times in different stores. These included convictions for fraud and forgery and a charge of beating Cindy with a curtain rod. America immediately thought of the unsolved 1982 Chicago Tylenol product-tampering murders in which seven people died. Comments can only be made on article within the first 3 days of publication. [24] Under this law, Stella Nickell's crime was prosecutable as a federal product tampering case as well as a state murder case, and she was not convicted of murder, but of product tampering that caused death. Grant hoped to control the strategic read more, On May 8, 2010, 88-year-old actress Betty White, known for her former roles on The Golden Girls and The Mary Tyler Moore Show, becomes the oldest person to host the long-running, late-night TV sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL). Paramedics rushed to the home at 1404 N Street NE in Auburn. ", Klein has watched all three of Nickell's parole hearings, where she's petitioned for release on "compassionate grounds." The judge sentenced her to two 90-year terms for tampering with the bottles that caused the deaths of Bruce and Sue Snow. Stella's neighbor, Sandy Scott, became a spy for the FBI. Death by cyanide poisoning was big news in Washington. There Stella Nickell poisoned two people trying to get her husbands life insurance money. When she saw a news report about a woman dying from Excedrin capsules filled with cyanide, she called the police. Farr and Ciolino believe that finding Hamilton is the key to their case. In chemistry, a cyanide (from Greek kyanos 'dark blue') is a chemical compound that contains a CN functional group.This group, known as the cyano group, consists of a carbon atom triple-bonded to a nitrogen atom.. Stella had two of them. Stella Nickell's small-time world was one of big-time dreams. [25], Seattle author Gregg Olsen wrote about the Nickell case in his 1993 book Bitter Almonds: The True Story of Mothers, Daughters and the Seattle Cyanide Murders. She later moved to Southern California where she married and had another daughter. Olsen said that Nickell laced Bruce's Excedrin with cyanide so that the authorities would think his death was accidental, which would allow her to claim his $100,000 life-insurance policy. SEATTLE -- A federal jury convicted Stella Nickell Monday of lacing pain relief capsules with cyanide, killing her husband and a random victim, in the nation's first fatal . [1] By the summer of 1987, even Stella's attorneys acknowledged that she was the prime suspect in the case. LISTENER DISCRETION ADVISED & Stella Nickell - The Seattle, Washington Excedrin Cyanide Murders | Listen Notes Nickell was the first to be convicted. A year later, Stella put cyanide in an Excedrin capsule that Bruce later took for a headache. The other three charges each drew a 10-year term. Stella . He was able to do this during his time as a hospital orderly.His spree took place between 1970 and 1987. Stella denies this, and says she told them she didn't know where she had bought the bottles. As any songwriter would, Sebastian first tried working that title into his read more, On May 8, 1963, with the release of Dr. No, North American moviegoers get their first lookdown the barrel of a gunat the super-spy James Bond (codename: 007), the immortal character created by Ian Fleming in his now-famous series of novels and portrayed onscreen by the read more, Claiming that its athletes will not be safe from protests and possible physical attacks, the Soviet Union announces that it will not compete in the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. Stella says she researched cyanide after her husband died. Examination showed that Bruces signatures on at least two of the policies in his name were forgeries. She claimed Stella admitted to researching poisons and told her of an unsuccessful attempt to poison Bruce with foxglove. Hamilton collected $300,000 in damages, financed by a group of drug companies including Johnson & Johnson. Like cyanide poisoning. Now, 13 years later, private detective Al Farr and his partner Paul Ciolino are on a mission to prove what they both firmly believe: Nickell is innocent. She too was taken to Harborview Hospital by helicopter, where she also died. One June evening in 1986, he came home with a headache and four Excedrins. Stella Nickell, then 75, had been sentenced to 90 years in prison in 1988, after she was found guilty of product tampering. Stella Nicholas. The Food and drug administration and the manufacturer, Bristol - Meyers, moved quickly to remove all Extra - Strength Excedrin bottles from the shelves across the, The victims had taken it as a regular pill and did not realized it had Cyanide. He was taken by helicopter to a Seattle hospital. But the policy would pay an additional $100,000 if he died from accidental causes. Social Profiles. The killer in that case has never been caught. Other occupants: Joanna R Nicholls. A total of five bottles containing cyanide-laced capsules were recovered: the bottle Sue Snow had purchased, the two bottles Stella Nickell had turned in, the Excedrin found on the shelves at Johnny's Market in Kent, and the Anacin capsules discovered at Pay-n-Save in Auburn. Stella claimed that her daughter, Cynthia Hamilton, lied about her involvement in the case in order to reap the $300,000 of reward money being offered. HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate. The Chicago Tylenol case had resulted not only in the 1983 Federal Anti-Tampering Law under which she was charged, but FDA requirements that products be packaged with tamper-resistant technology such as blister-packs, bottle mouth seal covers, shrink wrap bottle covers, visible seals that must be broken to open the bottle, and taped box ends. At the end of the movie, she won the prize for the scariest story ever. Stella Nickell (born August 7, 1943) is an American woman murdered her husband and another and tried to make it look like the work of a serial killer. Seven people died in that case, which was never solved. Background Report for Stella Chen. Farr says that there is no credible evidence against her. The jury convicted Stella on all counts on May 9, after five days of deliberation. Six days later, Susan Snow took one of these capsules and died instantly. Name Stella Nicholls Occupation Student Gender Female Species Human Age 15-17 Status Alive Birth date c. 1951-1953 Appearances Film (s) Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark Actors/Actresses Portrayed by Zoe Colletti Stella Nicholls is a fictional character appearing in the 2019 film Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. Noonan, the fish store manager, was paid a $15,000 reward. It was found among a thousand pages never turned over to the defense. But why would she bring the poisoning to police attention in the first place? Cynthia Hamilton, Stellas daughter, came forward (possibly in order to obtain reward money) with her account of Stellas plan to kill her husband. Klein laments the fact that her mother missed every milestone in her life, like her wedding and the birth of her son, over the past 36 years. Following that failure, Stella had begun library research into other methods and hit upon cyanide. Prosecutors said that Nickell had tampered with medication in several stores to cover up her husband's death. "My belief is that the polygraph was a ruse to try and coerce a confession out of her," says Stella's new lawyer, Carl Colbert. Stella Nicholls : They locked her away because she was different. [1] In the course of their ten-year marriage, Bruce entered a drug rehab and gave up drinking, which Stella reportedly resented as she later felt he had "turned into a boring man". [6] Bruce had taken them to no effect save for complaining of sudden drowsiness. Stella Nickell is convicted on two counts of murder by a Seattle, Washington, jury. [17], Stella was sentenced to two terms of ninety years in prison for the deaths of Bruce and Snow, and three ten-year terms for the other product tampering charges. A second autopsy proved her right. Noonan claimed she bought so much algae destroyer, he had to special order it just for her. The case was also featured in episodes of Autopsy, Forensic Files,[26] The New Detectives,[27] Mysteries at the Museum, and Snapped,[28] as well as two episodes of Deadly Women. Hamilton testified. You have permission to edit this article. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. During the autopsy, an assistant medical examiner noticed the odor of bitter almonds, a tell-tale indicator of cyanide. Stella Nickell used Cyanide to kill her victims. [5] On June 27, Washington State put into effect a 90-day ban on the sale of non-prescription medication in capsules. Police initially focused on Snow's husband Paul Webking. As the investigation continued, the FBI lab found an important clue: green crystals mixed in with the cyanide. Joseph was born on July 27 1873. Stella Nickell was convicted two years later. was to be made about the Nickell case to air on USA Network, but it was cancelled shortly before production began. Now 27, Hamilton had been in and out of Stella's life for years. Her husband, heavy-equipment operator Bruce Nickell, 52, was in distress in their single-wide trailer home just off Lake Moneysmith Road in the town of Auburn. "I started reaing books to find out what plants I might have on the property that would be a danger to kids and pets," Stella says. The Free Encyclopedia of Washington State History. "Rock star" reptile breeder murdered; Coroner: "Not a random act" Stella Nicholls : I can't leave my dad. Since her husband, Bruce Nickells was already dead and buried they could not do anything. 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stella nicholls cyanide