skyline, the bank of china. very bad feng shui because the building with sharp edges like glass daggers brings the force inside. bad luck comes in and near it. it is not clear if he cared for that, but he was focused on the bank of china. in 2003, this was a huge market. talking billions of u.s. dollars. albert wong is a reporter in hong kong. it was competing with merrill-lynch, goldman, sachs all the big ones. on the first sunday after halloween, 2003, a close friend and colleague of rob s called to discuss an important conference call on the bank of china deal later that night. he said kissel sounded sleepy, out of sorts. not making sense? exactly. at first, the friend didn t make much of it. when kissel missed the
his younger brother rob, andrew kissel was in a funk. friend and theater producer ryan howie said not even a booze cruise on his yacht could cheer him up. parts of the trip andrew would be crying. you could tell he was deeply troubled and saddened. everyone assumed his grief was over the family s great tragedy. rob killed by his wife, the children left behind. but maybe the tears were for himself. it seems andrew s crooked monopoly game was catching up with him. he was about to draw the go directly to jail card. as his family was sitting through a traumatic trial in hong kong, andrew kissel was making headlines back home, here.
was guilty of nothing less than cold-blooded murder. it resurrected the gory details from the first trial. the drugged milkshake, the lead statue, the bloody death. this case is emotionally unsettling. it s disturbing to reporters who heard it for the first time, it is disturbing to reporters who heard it for the fifth time. it s a disturbing case. in her first trial, her lawyers argued she killed rob in self defense. this time around they claimed something called diminished responsibility. through psychiatric experts, they tried to show nancy was a battered woman. the argument was she was in the throws of a major depression the night she killed her husband. as she listened to the testimony, nancy would sometimes break out in tears. sometimes audibly, sometimes just sort of to herself. and she is surrounded by three corrections officers who are constantly, you know, either holding her hand or rubbing her
andrew kissel, lucky to be only spanked by the apartment neighbors he swindled, continued to buy residential and commercial properties all over wealthy connecticut. it was about then worrying news was coming out of asia. the airborne killer sars put the region on high alert, including hong kong where rob and his family lived. there was no question rob had to get nancy and the now three kids out of asia. so he sent them to the kissel family ski house in vermont. rob the dutiful breadwinner elected to stay in hong kong, one of those fateful decisions. he first approached me june of 2003. frank shay is a former new york city police detective turned private investigator. during the separation from his family, rob got that funny feeling, one that tells you your spouse is doing something she shouldn t. he wanted the confirmation. he was pretty convinced it was going on, but he wanted the
had been mentally damaged when she killed rob kissel, they could find her guilty of the lesser charge, manslaughter. in that case, the judge could take into account the time she had already served, and in effect let her walk out of the courtroom a free woman. in march, after ten and a half hours of deliberations, the jury returned with its verdict. and the judge says is it unanimous, and they say yes, it s unanimous. and the judge says what is it? for the second time in more than five years, a hong kong jury found nancy kissel guilty of murder. there was a gasp in the courtroom, mainly from family and supporters, and people who may have thought after hearing the evidence that it was going to be manslaughter. and with the same verdict came the same sentence. life in prison for nancy kissel. afterwards, her mother spoke to nbc news.