| “ | I am not guilty, and I won't quit fighting until I prove it. | ” |
— Nickell
| ||
Stella Nickell (a.k.a. The Excedrin Killer) is a budding serial killer and poisoner imprisoned for lacing containers of Excedrin with cyanide in Washington State, resulting in the murders of her husband Bruce Nickell and of Sue Snow in 1986.
Background[]
Nickell was born in Colton, Oregon on August 7, 1943, to Alva and George Stephenson. The family was poor, and Nickell had her first daughter, Cynthia Hamilton, at the age of 16. She married after moving with Cynthia to Southern California, having a second daughter from the marriage before it fell apart, In 1969, when Cynthia was nine, Nickell beat her legs with a curtain rod, so Cynthia reported her for assault. In spite of Nickell defending herself by alleging Cynthia lied, she was sentenced to court-mandated counseling. The rest of her record including fraud in 1968 and forgery in 1971, serving six months imprisonment for the fraud conviction. Nickell met her second husband Bruce Nickell, a heavy machinery operator, in 1974, while Nickell worked in airline screening at Seattle-Tacoma International. Finding Bruce appealing because of his drinking, Nickell married him in 1976. Bruce became sober ten years later from dedicating to rehab, but Nickell found the marriage passionless and her own drinking became worse. She further avoided her family by retreating to her home aquarium and keeping her airline shifts in the evening. Eventually, she wanted to kill Bruce instead of divorce him, confiding all her plans to Cynthia in the belief Cynthia wouldn't report her. Nickell forged Bruce's signature on a $76 grand life insurance policy under his name, with an additional $100 grand bonus if his death were accidental. She would also check out books from the Auburn Public Library about plants with poisonous properties, including one she never returned. Nickell planned to use the insurance payouts to open her own infants' clothing store.
Murders and Investigation[]
Nickell tried to kill Bruce first with foxglove in his medicine, but when that failed, the references she studied were her inspiration to choose cyanide. Acquiring or manufacturing the poison by means unknown, she crushed cyanide in her algaecide crushing machine, which she never cleaned and left traces of algaecide to be laced with the cyanide. She placed the poison in two bottles of Excedrin for Bruce, then tampered with three more with the same lot number and placed them back on store shelves across the Seattle area. On June 5, 1986, Bruce died from the cyanide, but it was attributed to emphysema by the staff of the Harborview Medical Center. On June 11, bank manager Sue Snow died after being found at her home by her then-teenaged daughter Hayley. Her husband Paul Webking also took some Excedrin pills, but he lived. Sue was taken to the same hospital as Bruce, where Assistant M.E. Janet Miller smelled bitter almonds from Sue's mouth, a side effect of cyanide poisoning. Sue tested positive for the poison, as well as the Excedrin investigators later recovered. A tainted bottle of Excedrin in Kent and one of Anacin-3 at the store the Snow-Webkings bought Excedrin were later recovered as well, before being purchased and used. The manufacturer, Bristol-Myers, slowly recalled all Excedrin, first in the Seattle area, then across the country; this was followed by recalls of all their nonprescription pill products, and Washington state banned sales of nonprescription pills for 90 days. Multiple drug companies offered $300 grand as a reward for finding the poisoner.
Nickell came forward on June 19 to report Bruce's death, FDA testing proving he was killed by cyanide as well, resulting in Nickell joining Sue's family in wrongful death suits on Bristol-Myers. The factory in Morrisville, North Carolina, where the Excedrin was manufactured never tested positively for cyanide, so investigators suspected product tampering. Nickell was suspected due to her having two tainted bottles, let alone from the same lot number, as well as the FBI Crime Lab identifying her algaecide in the bottles as well. She was requested to take a polygraph exam, but she refused. Continuing to investigate her, investigators found her forged signatures, as well as her library records they subpoenaed; her fingerprints were on the pages about cyanide of the books she checked out. Nickell agreed to a polygraph in November 1986, which she failed, but the evidence against her was still circumstantial, until Cynthia came forward in January 1987 and offered her testimony to everything Nickell confided in her.
Arrest, Trial, and Aftermath[]
Nickell was arrested and indicted on December 9, 1987. She was charged with two counts of product tampering resulting in death and five additional counts of product tampering, federal crimes that were passed into law after the attacks from The Tylenol Killer, a case which Nickell is believed to have copied. Her defense filed for a mistrial, as they argued a juror who had a pill baked into Goldfish crackers once would be opinionated, but the motion was denied. Nickell was found guilty of all charged and sentenced to ninety years imprisonment for the two strongest charges, with additional ten year prison sentences for each of the remaining five, all sentences running concurrently. Nickell was ordered to pay a small fine and to forfeit her assets to her family and the Snow-Webking family. She has long appealed her case on grounds of jury tampering and misconduct, corruption as far as FBI evidence withholding, and even bribery of witnesses, including Cynthia. All appeals have been rejected, as have Nickell's appeals for earlier releases from prison on grounds of her failing health. Nickell is incarcerated today at the low-security FCI Dublin.
Modus Operandi[]
Nickell originally targeted her husband Bruce for his life insurance policy. She directly gave him medicine laced with poisons she administered, first digitalis, but that failed to do any serious harm. Nickell then switched to cyanide, but she planned on poisoning other people so it appeared a random killer targeted Bruce among many other victims. Nickell would buy bottles of Excedrin, lace the medicine with cyanide, reseal them, and replace them on random store shelves for whoever would buy them to be poisoned. Nickell then came forward once the case got attention to act like a grieving widow. When she attacked her daughter, Cynthia Hamilton, she beat Cynthia's legs with a curtain rod.
Known Victims[]
- 1969: Cynthia Hamilton, 9 (her first daughter; assaulted; bludgeoned her legs with a curtain rod)
- June 1986, Auburn, Washington:
- June 5: Bruce Nickell, 52 (her second husband; previously poisoned with digitalis, but survived)
- June 11: The Snow-Webking couple
- Sue Snow, 40
- Paul Webking (incidental; poisoned, but survived)
On Criminal Minds[]
- Season Twelve
- "Unforgettable" - While never directly mentioned or referenced in the franchise, Nickell appears to be the primary inspiration for the episode's unsub, Sara McLean - Both are psychopathic killers and poisoners who primarily targeted their husbands, generally operated in the regions where they lived, attacked and killed varied victims to divert suspicion away from their ultimate motives, directly fed their husbands poisons to collect their life insurance policies after killing them (though only Nickell succeeded in killing her husband), were turned in by their families, and were the subjects of federal investigations.