Stella Nickell

Drugs Used

• Excedrin is an Acetaminophen
• Excedrin contains a combination of acetaminophen, aspirin, and caffeine.
• Acetaminophen is a pain reliever and a fever reducer.
• Acetaminophen is used to treat many conditions such as headache, muscle aches, arthritis, backache, toothaches, colds, and fevers
• Taking certain products together can cause you to get too much acetaminophen which can lead to a fatal overdose.
• Never mix with other drugs
• Cyanide is a rare but potentially deadly poison. It works by making the body unable to use life-sustaining oxygen
• Cyanide can be found in the soil, smoke from a fire or cigarette, and factories that make plastics,

• Stella had mixed cyanide into the capsules
• With more examination, the FBI lab found an important clue: green crystals mixed in with the cyanide
• The green crystals turned out to be algae destroyer, a product used to kill algae in fish tanks

Stella Nickell's Early Life

The truth comes out

Continuation

• When police arrived, Stella handed over two bottles of Excedrin
• Both were found to contain cyanide-laced capsules
• She said she had bought the bottles on two occasions, one somewhere in Auburn, the other at Johnny's Market in Kent
• Around the time Stella failed a FBI polygraph, her daughter from a previous marriage, Cindy Hamilton, 27, came forward
• Cindy told the FBI that her mother had wanted to kill recovering alcoholic Bruce because after he had gone through rehab and sobered up, he had become a bore.
• According to Cindy, Stella had pointed out that if Bruce died, she and Cindy would have the cash they wanted to open a tropical fish store
• The Auburn Public Library, responding to an FBI subpoena, revealed that Stella had checked out titles such as Deadly Harvest and Human Poisoning from Native Plants
• Technicians determined that Stella had left finger and palm prints on entries about cyanide in three encyclopedias

Summary of her Crimes

• Stella Nickell is an American woman
• She was born as Stella Maudine Stephenson in Colton, Oregon, on August 7, 1943 to Alva Georgia "Jo" and George Stephenson.
• Her and her family grew up very poor.
• By age sixteen, she was pregnant with her daughter Cynthia.
• Nickell then moved to Southern California, married, and had another daughter.
• Stella met Bruce Nickell in 1974. Nickell was a heavy equipment operator with a drinking habit, which suited Stella's lifestyle, and the two were married in 1976.

• Stella was indicted in federal court and Cindy testified against her at the trial.
• Cindy subsequently received $250,000 of the $300,000 drug industry award.
• Stella Nickell was found guilty in federal court not of murder but of product tampering on May 9, 1988, and was sentenced to 90 years.
• She continues to claim that her daughter lied for the reward money. She will be eligible for parole in 2017.

• On June 5, 1986, the couple were living in Auburn, Washington when Bruce Nickell, 52, came home from work with a headache.
• Nickell took four Extra-Strength Excedrin capsules from a bottle in their home for his headache and collapsed minutes later.
• Nickell died shortly thereafter at Harborview Medical Center, where treatment had failed to revive him.
• A second death, less than week a later, forced authorities to reconsider the cause of Nickell's death.
• On June 11, Susan Snow, a 40-year old Auburn bank manager, took two Extra-Strength Excedrin capsules for an early-morning headache.
• Snow's husband, Paul Webking, took two capsules from the same bottle for his arthritis and left the house for work.
• . At 6:30 am, the Snows' fifteen-year-old daughter found Susan Snow collapsed on the floor of her bathroom, unresponsive and with a faint pulse.
• Police say that Stella was desperate to establish an accidental cause of death. So she put poisoned painkillers in stores,
• She hoped that someone else would die and the tainted capsules would be discovered.

The Excedrin Poisoner

Stella Nickell

Sources

Quiz Time !!!

• http://www.drugs.com/cg/cyanide-poisoning.html
• http://www.drugs.com/acetaminophen.html
• http://www.truthinjustice.org/stella.htm
• http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/cyanide/basics/facts.asp
• https://www.excedrin.com/products/extra-strength/
• http://www.drugs.com/excedrin.html

By: Abigail Butcher