Hong Kong’s Milkshake Murder inspires a stage play, Distressed Asset – a story of love, hate, drugs and death
- Nancy Kissel drugged her husband with a milkshake, bludgeoned him to death and rolled his body in a carpet. She was convicted of murder and jailed for life
- Candice Moore, founder of a Hong Kong theatre company, has created a stage show inspired by the murder. She recalls her fascination with the case
The 2003 murder of Robert Kissel, the 40-year-old Merrill Lynch investment banker who was bludgeoned to death by his wife, Nancy, gripped Hong Kong.
The murder sparked a media frenzy and readers couldn’t get enough – including Candice Moore, who has now written a play about the killing.
The story of the wealthy couple with three children who, on the outside, looked like the picture-perfect family, had all the ingredients for a made-for-TV movie: drugs, infidelity, domestic violence.
Another key ingredient was a sedative-laced strawberry milkshake that Nancy had made for her husband and had their six-year old daughter give to him, earning her the nickname Milkshake Murderer.
If you mentioned the case to people it was usually met with a strong reaction … it even happens today
Once he was sedated, Nancy whacked her husband with a lead statuette, a family heirloom apparently, the scene playing out in the American couple’s apartment in Parkview, a luxurious residential complex in Tai Tam overlooking the south side of Hong Kong Island.