Nancy Kissel's twist of fate: The 'Milkshake Murderer' wins appeal

The 'Milkshake Murderer' is once again back in the media spotlight. In a new twist in the sensational case of Nancy Kissel, Hong Kong's Court of Final Appeal granted a retrial today. Defense lawyers argued inadmissable evidence was used in the first trial. 

Dubbed the 'Milkshake Murderer,' Kissel was found guilty of killing her Merrill Lynch banker husband in September 2005 and has been serving a life sentence ever since. The prosecution alleged that she fed Robert Kissel a drug-laced strawberry milkshake before bludgeoning him to death. She lost her first appeal as lower courts called the killing “as cogent a case of murder as might be imagined.” 

But while she admits killing her husband, she claims she was acting in self defense and under provocation. 

Hong Kongers have been engrossed with the nasty yet oh-so-juicy details that emerged during the trial of the case: Kissel's claim of self-defense from abusive sex; reported details of affairs with the electrical technician in Vermont; the private detective claiming to have tried to warn the victim of Kissel's murderous plans; the serving of the poisonous milkshake; and the macabre details of the death and its aftermath.

In a separate tragedy, three years after the victim's death, his brother Andrew was also found murdered in Connecticut, with multiple stab wounds. He was about to plead guilty to bank fraud.

Throw the Lifetime Original movie "The Two Mr. Kissels," inspired by the murders, into the mix (replete with John Stamos' overacting plus a morality-loaded plot line) and this narrative just seems unwilling to end anytime soon.