27 Facts About Stella Nickell

Stella Maudine Nickell is an American woman who was sentenced to 90 years in prison for product tampering after she poisoned Excedrin capsules with lethal cyanide, resulting in the deaths of her husband, Bruce Nickell and a stranger, Sue Snow.

In 1959, following the birth of her first daughter, Cynthia Hamilton, Stella Nickell moved to Southern California, where she married and had another daughter.

Stella Nickell had several legal issues, including a conviction for fraud in 1968, a charge of child abuse for beating Hamilton with a curtain rod in 1969, and a conviction for forgery in 1971.

Stella Nickell served six months in jail for the fraud charge, and was ordered into counseling after the abuse charge.

Stella Nickell 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.

Tests by the Food and Drug Administration confirmed the presence of cyanide in her husband's remains and in two Excedrin bottles Stella Nickell had turned over to police.

Webking did so, but Stella Nickell, who had started drinking heavily, declined.

Stella Nickell had taken out a total of about $76,000 in insurance coverage on her husband's life, with an additional payout of $100,000 if his death was accidental.

Stella Nickell was known to have, even before Snow's death, repeatedly disputed doctors' ruling that her husband had died of natural causes.

Investigators were able to verify that Stella Nickell had purchased Algae Destroyer from a local fish store; it was speculated that the algaecide had become mixed with the cyanide when Stella Nickell used the same container to crush both substances without washing it between uses.

Stella Nickell finally consented to a polygraph examination in November 1986.

Stella Nickell failed and investigators narrowed their focus to her even further.

In January 1987, Stella Nickell's grown daughter, Cynthia Hamilton, approached police with information: her mother had spoken to her repeatedly about wanting her husband dead, having grown bored with him after he quit drinking.

Stella Nickell, Hamilton claimed, had even told her that she had tried to poison Bruce previously with foxglove hidden in capsules.

Hamilton claimed that Stella Nickell had spoken to her about what the two of them could do with the insurance money if Bruce was dead.

Records from the Auburn Public Library, when subpoenaed, showed that Stella Nickell had checked out numerous books about poisons, including Human Poisonings from Native and Cultivated Plants and Deadly Harvest.

On December 9,1987, Stella Nickell was indicted by a federal grand jury on five counts of product tampering, including two which resulted in the deaths of Bruce and Snow, and arrested the same day.

Stella Nickell went on trial in April 1988 and was found guilty of all charges on May 9, after five days of jury deliberation.

Stella Nickell 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.

All sentences were to run concurrently, and the judge ordered Stella Nickell to pay a small fine and forfeit her remaining assets to the families of her victims.

Stella Nickell will be eligible for release in 2040, with credit given for good behavior, by which time she will be 96 years old.

Stella Nickell petitioned for compassionate early release in 2022, stating that her health is failing; this request was denied.

Stella Nickell 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.

Stella Nickell alleges that the evidence actually points to another person as the killer, and that the testimony about various smaller details in the case, such as the store owner who testified about her having purchased Algae Destroyer, was influenced by promises of payment.

In 2022 Stella Nickell filed a petition for compassionate release in which she no longer maintained her innocence.

Stella Nickell had previously been denied parole twice, in 2017 and 2021.

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.