Stella Nickell

Stella Maudine Nickell (nee Stephenson, born August 7, 1943) is a Seattle-area woman who was sentenced to 90 years in prison for two murders caused when she poisoned Excedrin capsules with lethal cyanide. Her May 1988 conviction and prison sentence was the first under federal product tampering laws instituted after the Tylenol murders.

She laced her husband, Bruce Nickell's, medicine with cyanide, which killed him. His death was mistakenly ruled to be as a result of emphysema, which meant that the accidental death insurance bonus was not liable to be paid to the widow.

Stella's next step was to plant five other Excedrin bottles (each one contaminated with cyanide) back in the store, hoping to make it appear like the work of a serial killer in hopes that Bruce's death would be reclassified as accidental. It was inevitable that at some point an innocent member of the public would enter the store, unknowingly purchase a bottle of poisoned Excedrin and ingest the contents. That person was 40-year-old Sue Snow, who died after swallowing poisoned Excedrin planted by Stella Nickell. Snow's husband also consumed the poisoned Excedrin, but survived. Once the death of Sue Snow was found to be from the cyanide-laced pills and the other bottles were found in the different stores, police released the batch numbers for the contaminated bottles in an attempt to warn consumers of the danger. Nickell then came forward, stating that she had two bottles of the contaminated medicine, bought from two different stores. Her husband's death was then ruled to be an accident, which meant that she was now eligible to receive his life insurance policy bonus.

Stella will be eligible for parole on December 7, 2017 and is serving her term of imprisonment at the Federal Correctional Institution, Dublin a federal prison in Dublin, California.

Seattle author Gregg Olsen wrote about the Nickell case in his book, Bitter Almonds: The True Story of Mothers, Daughters and the Seattle Cyanide Murders. The case was also featured on an episode of Forensic Files.

There is an episode of the TV show Law and Order: Criminal Intent which has plot elements strongly resembling the Stella Nickell case. See Poison (Law & Order: Criminal Intent episode)

External links

• Poisoned Painkiller Panic: The Snow-Nickell Cyanide Murders
• CBS broadcast article detailing recent developments of the case
• Article describing events of the original case