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‘Milkshake murderer’ Nancy Kissel loses Hong Kong legal challenge seeking to convert her life sentence into a fixed term

Michigan native argued it was wrong and inhumane to keep her in the dark about when she would be considered for early release

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Nancy Kissel arriving at the High Court in Admiralty for a legal review last year. Photo: Nora Tam

An American woman who bludgeoned her husband to death 15 years ago in Hong Kong has lost her legal challenge against the authorities’ refusal to support the conversion of her life sentence into a fixed term that would see her released earlier.

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The High Court on Thursday denied 53-year-old Nancy Kissel’s request for a judicial review of the Long-term Prison Sentences Review Board’s decision in 2016. Then, the board said her period behind bars was “insufficient in all the circumstances to warrant the consideration” for a review of her sentence.

Kissel argued this was wrong and said it was inhumane for her to be kept in the dark about when she would be considered for early release.

But the court found it was “simply not open, inappropriate and impracticable” for the board to indicate a minimum period of sentence she had to serve to trigger its consideration of an early release, and concluded prisoners were not being “unfairly prejudiced”.

Kissel was convicted in 2005 of murdering her husband, Robert Kissel, at their home in Tai Tam in 2003. Photo: Sam Tsang
Kissel was convicted in 2005 of murdering her husband, Robert Kissel, at their home in Tai Tam in 2003. Photo: Sam Tsang 
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Kissel earned the nickname “milkshake murderer” when she incapacitated her husband, Robert Kissel, a Merrill Lynch investment banker, with a drug-laced milkshake and bludgeoned him to death with a lead ornament at their luxury flat in Tai Tam in 2003. She was convicted of murder in 2005.

But the jury’s unanimous verdict was quashed by the Court of Final Appeal in 2010, prompting a retrial that also returned a unanimous guilty verdict.

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