US expat appeals to HK Supreme Court for appeal over murder conviction

The mother-of-three who had killed her banker husband in 2003 is set to appeal against her murder conviction. Nancy Kissel is reportedly scheduled to provide arguments tomorrow for Hong Kong's highest court to overturn the 2011 conviction due to the alleged improper consideration of evidence regarding her mental state when she struck her late husband Robert in the head with a lead ornament.

Bloomberg said that the hype over Kissel's journey from being an opulent lady of the house with a $20,000-a-month apartment to a convicted felon in a prison cell located along Hong Kong's Chinese border reached to new heights following the fatal stabbing of her husband's real estate millionaire brother Andrew in 2006. Should judges decide to uphold the 2011 conviction on the basis that there is no injustice seen in the previous ruling or that there is mo important point of law to question the conviction, Kissel's appeal process would then be over.

The news agency said the 2011 conviction spawned from a new trial of Kissel's case in 2010 following the fact that hearsay evidence and improper questioning marred her first conviction in 2005. At her retrial, Kissel reportedly tried to convince the jury that her husband had threatened to kill her and physically abused her. The jurors in the 2010 trial, which consisted mostly of women, still found her guilty of murder.

The Merrill Lynch & Co banker was bludgeoned to death by Kissel after drinking a milkshake laced with prescription sedatives. His body was later found four days after Kissel killed him and stored him in a family storeroom at the Hong Kong Parkview housing estate. Bloomberg said police discovered the body following a missing person filing done by a work colleague. Prosecutors have said that the body was wrapped in a sleeping bag inside a carpet.

Judge Roberto Ribeiro is among the three judges at the panel who is scheduled to decide tomorrow on whether to schedule a date for Kissel's appeal. Bloomberg noted that Ribeiro was among the five judges who had ordered the retrial in 2011.

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Nancy Kissel, Nancy Kissel murder conviction appeal, Merrill Lynch & Co

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