The 1986 Excedrin Murders

Did Washington State Have a Copycat or Did the Chicago Tylenol Poisoner Move West? 

Bruce Nickell (photo source)

Sue Snow (photo source) 

In Chicago in 1982, seven people died after ingesting cyanide-laced Tylenol (see my article about the poisonings here).  Although the guilty party or parties were never charged and brought to trial, the acts led to a product tampering legislation which would make any deaths that resulted from product tampering a federal offense. 


King County, Washington in June of 1986 was a world away from Chicago and, like the rest of the country, four years past the Tylenol murders.  Singer Randy Travis had just released his debut album, Danielle Steel was sitting atop the fiction bestseller lists, devastating details about the Chernobyl disaster were being released and the United Kingdom was preparing to celebrate the wedding of commoner Sarah Ferguson to Queen Elizabeth's second son.   A month earlier, in May, King County residents had turned on their TVs to NBC to watch Mark Harmon portray Ted Bundy in a two-part miniseries.  Outside of the Green River Killer, Bundy was the area's most notorious serial killer and in the early summer of 1986 was residing on Florida's Death Row.  

Sue (photo source)

Sue

The city of Auburn is a suburb of metropolitan Seattle, roughly 20 miles south, liberally dotted with parks, open spaces and urban trails.  Housing both farming communities and business and industry, it boasts Boeing as its largest employer.  It has turned out its fair share of athletes and Olympians and even an astronaut  - Dick Scobee, who was killed in January of 1986 in the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion.   While Auburn is considered a friendly city with only a fraction of Seattle's population, crime is not unheard of -  although the majority of crimes are property related.  

One of Auburn's residents was the popular and outgoing Sue Snow, a 40-year-old mother of two and manager of a local bank.  Sue had become a wife and mother at sixteen and dropped out of school.  The marriage, unsurprisingly, did not last and she married a second time, to her former brother-in-law, Connie Snow.  It was Snow that had brought the New Mexico native to Washington State and quickly, Sue adapted and fell in love with the Pacific Northwest.  Finding job opportunities scarce as a twenty-year old high school dropout, she earned her GED and started her banking career as a teller, working her way up eventually to vice president.  She and Snow had a daughter, Hayley, together but the marriage did not last.  Sue did love her name with the surname of "Snow" and so she decided to keep it.   She met her third husband, Paul Webking, in the late 70s, thanks to her daughter being friends with one of Paul's kids.  Paul was a long-haul trucker and had been married four times.  He seemed to be the opposite of the optimistic, happy Sue - but the two fell in love and moved in together.  They lived together for over five years before eloping on Thanksgiving Day 1985.  

In that early summer of 1986, Paul, Sue, Paul's son from a previous marriage, and Hayley shared a home in Auburn.   The morning of Wednesday, June 11, 1986 should have been like any other. 

The call for help came in at 6:43 a.m.   Dispatcher Brenda Deeds heard the calm and steady voice of a young girl who said that her mother had fallen in the bathroom.  

Hayley Snow had seen her mother that morning as Sue went down the hall, headed for the master bedroom and bath.  Hayley herself was headed to her own bathroom for a morning shower.  She heard Sue turn on the faucet to the sink in the master bathroom as she stepped into her shower.  She thought it was just after 6:30 a.m. when she heard a noise, like something dropping.  When she got out of the shower to dress, she realized the faucet in her mother's bathroom was still running.  Sue was a creature of habit and Hayley knew her mother's morning routine.  For the water to still be running from the tap was a signal something wasn't right.  

Hayley found her mother laying on the bathroom floor, still wearing her zippered purple robe.  Seeing that water was about to overflow from the sink, she turned the tap off before dropping to her knees to see to Sue.  Sue's head rested on the track of the shower door, her eyes fixed.  One hand was across her breast and the fingers curled backward unnaturally.  Hayley checked her mother for a pulse and found one, although it was faint.  Thinking that Sue's fingers must hurt, she bent them back into a normal position.  Sue gasped for air but did not exhale.  Hayley recalled learning from her health classes at school that if a person was breathing on their own you should not perform CPR and so she called a friend of her mother's named Karen, who directed the teen to call 911.  

Within four minutes of the call for help, the fire department arrived and found Sue in agonal respiration with her eyes open, fixed, and dilated.  They attempted to ventilate her with a bag mask but she was quickly deteriorating.  Two more EMTs arrived as the firefighters moved Sue from the bathroom floor to the bedroom, where they would have more room to work.  They found she presented as if she had a head injury but nothing else fell in line with that.  They wondered if she had slipped while getting in or out of the shower but Hayley assured them that Sue's routine was to shower in the evening, not in the morning.   

An airlift was arranged to transport Sue to Harborview Medical Center, the area's best trauma center, as Hayley called Sue's bank to inform them that her mother had fallen and would not be in that day.  Hayley arrived at Harborview around 7:30, after Sue's friend Karen came by the home to pick her up.

Doctors in Harborview's emergency room determined after their initial examination of Sue that her brain was swelling and she was in a coma.  Within four hours, they felt she was brain dead and were asking if they could remove her from life support as there was no hope for recovery.     

As there was still no answer as to what had caused Sue to collapse and die, Dr. Corrine Fligner, King County's Assistant Medical Examiner, was assigned to perform an autopsy on her body.   Dr. Fligner was recording her findings when her assistant, Janet Miller, announced "I smell cyanide" and then made somewhat of a joking question as to whether Sue had taken Tylenol, referencing the Tylenol poisonings four years earlier in Chicago.  Dr. Fligner did not smell cyanide (a majority of the population is unable to detect its odor) and continued with the autopsy.  Another doctor came in to ask if anything had been discovered as he had been baffled by what happened to Sue.  Janet spoke up, saying that although Sue's body did not demonstrate the classic symptom of cyanide poisoning (cherry red skin), she smelled cyanide.  The doctor remarked that cyanide could explain why Sue had presented the way she did and Dr. Fligner arranged to have a toxicology screen for cyanide.  

The funeral for Sue Snow was held on Saturday, June 14 and hundreds attended.  She was remembered for her sense of humor, her zest for life, and her devotion as a mother. 

On Monday, June 16, Auburn police received word that the toxicology report on Sue had come back with a fatal level of cyanide in her blood.  Her death was classified as a homicide.   Sue's husband, Paul Webking, was the investigators' initial suspect in her murder.  He was apparently not well liked by anyone in Sue's family, including Hayley, and his marriage with Sue, although new, had been troubled by infidelity by him and tempestuous fights, leading Sue to suffer with bouts of irritability and depression.  The police found him to be strangely unmoved by his wife's death.  Webking told authorities that Sue had a routine of taking Extra Strength Excedrin each morning, something that Hayley confirmed.  However, he said that Sue routinely took capsules, which they had in the house, and red flags went up for Sue's twin sister Sarah, who had arrived in Auburn on the day that Sue collapsed.  According to Sarah, following the 1982 Tylenol incident in Chicago, Sue never, ever took capsules and would only take tablets.  The bottle of Extra Strength Excedrin that Sue had used the previous Wednesday was handed over to the police, with Webking telling them that he himself had taken two capsules from the bottle on Tuesday, the day before Sue collapsed.   Also collected were various other bottles of headache remedies and aspirin, all of which were tablets.  

The analysis of the Excedrin 60-count bottle showed that 56 capsules remained and of those, nine were tainted with potassium cyanide.  Much as it had in Chicago four years earlier, fear swept through the area, compounded by the fact that the Tylenol poisoner had never been apprehended.  The FDA, following its analysis of the bottle, notified the FBI of its findings.  Thanks to a federal law passed after the Chicago case, the FBI had jurisdiction over consumer-product tamperings.   

The FBI's first official act in the Snow investigation was to pull all bottles of Excedrin off the shelves in the Auburn area, while Excedrin's manufacturer, Bristol-Myers, initiated a nationwide recall.  A second tainted bottle was identified at a Johnny's Market in neighboring Kent and it too was sent off to be analyzed.  

Bruce and Stella (photo source)

Bruce

In the late afternoon of Tuesday, June 17, the King County police received a hysterical phone call from a woman who claimed that her husband had recently died and she had discovered a bottle of Excedrin capsules that matched the lot number of the one that had killed Sue Snow.  By the time the responding officer arrived at her home off Lake Moneysmith Road, just outside of the Auburn city limits, Stella Nickell had calmed considerably.  Stella told the officer that her husband Bruce had taken two Excedrin capsules two weeks earlier and had died at Harborview.  Although an autopsy was performed, the preliminary report stated that Bruce Nickell had died of emphysema, something that Stella disputed, saying that her husband had been very healthy.  She provided the officer with a nearly empty bottle of Excedrin; only eight capsules remained.  Bruce, she said, had been complaining of headaches at the time of his death and had been taking three or four capsules a day, a practice that had been ongoing for a week prior to his death.  Stella also provided a second bottle, still in its original box and with the price sticker adhered, claiming that she did not want it in the house.  The officer noted that the cap was loose on the second bottle but it was full to the top.  Stella said she had purchased both bottles two weeks earlier, although in two separate locations; the nearly empty bottle had been bought somewhere in Auburn and the full bottle had been bought at Johnny's Market on the Kent East Hill.  

Although Bruce Nickell had already been buried, a tube of blood from his eyes was at the eye bank; the tube was retrieved and sent for testing.

Analysis of the Nickell Excedrin bottles revealed that both of them had been tainted.  Bruce Nickell's blood showed a fatal level of cyanide, much as Sue's had, making him the first victim of the poisonings.

On Tuesday, June 24 an out of place bottle of Anacin-3 was noted at a Pay 'N Save drugstore off Auburn Way North.  Not only was the bottle sitting on a can of peanuts versus in the pharmacy's over-the-counter medications section, but it was stickered with an orange price tag not used by Pay 'N Save.   That bottle was also sent off for analysis.  

Although the case officially belonged to the FBI, the Auburn Police were continuing to investigate Sue's death and probe particularly into her husband Paul's background.  They firmly suspected that he was involved, even with Bruce Nickell now added to the mix.  Their suspicions were not assuaged by a report that Webking had gone to Sue's office two days after her death and requested the entire contents of her desk.  A coworker of Sue's said that Sue carried a large bottle of Excedrin tablets in her handbag, contradicting Webking's assertion that Sue always took capsules.  Another coworker said that Sue and Webking fought frequently over Webking's trips to California, where an ex-girlfriend with whom he had cheated on Sue with, lived.  The same coworker said that Sue was flirtatious with male customers at the bank and often had lunch dates with them.  Although she did not appear to have been unfaithful to Paul Webking, she had been unfaithful to her first and second husbands.  Additionally, she had been involved in several affairs with married men in Auburn, leading detectives to wonder if a scorned wife could have exacted revenge on Sue.  They also found out that six months before her murder, Sue had discovered some type of extortion or fraud scheme by a bank client.  That lead too was followed up on but went nowhere.  Although there seemed to be a motive for Paul Webking to kill Sue, detectives could find no connection between Sue, Paul Webking, and Bruce Nickell.  

Bruce Nickell had been born in June of 1934 and was adopted at one week old by an apple farmer and his schoolteacher wife.  Considered "the prettiest baby I ever did see," Bruce was beloved by his parents and brought up in a Norman Rockwell-esque environment in the rugged natural beauty of Washington's apple country.  Although neither of his parents were drinkers, Bruce began drinking at the age of fifteen, a year before he recalled finding out that he was adopted.  His drinking was an act his parents felt led to many of their son's mistakes, which included a brief enlistment in the Marines that ended with Bruce receiving a dishonorable discharge after going AWOL and fathering two sons that he was estranged from.  When he was not drinking, Bruce had an intelligent and gentle personality but alcohol brought out a combative side that would often lead him to being thrown out of bars and taverns, as well as several DWIs.  

Bruce had also married a lot - first to a woman named Ruby, then to a Linda, followed by a Mary, and then a Phyllis.  He had only recently married Phyllis when he first met a twice-married mother of two named Stella Strong.    

He and Stella married in 1976, separated in 1977 and reconciled three months later.  Bruce had been working as a mechanic and although the couple struggled financially, they continued their routine of drinking until 1979, when Bruce got sober.  From that point on, until June 5, 1986, his life consisted of working, talking on his CB radio, and spending time at home with his wife, who was by then working as a security screener at Sea-Tac International Airport alongside her adult daughter.  

On Thursday, June 5, 1986, Bruce reported for a normal day at work.  After returning home, he had taken a shower and as Stella was preparing their dinner, he had complained of a headache.  He took two Excedrin and, according to Stella's later statements, had planned on going outside to watch the birds but had stopped, said "I don't feel so well," and then collapsed.  The emergency call came in at 5:02 p.m. and first responders were sent out in aid of a man having a seizure.     As the home was in a rural area, they assumed that there would be someone waving them in from a driveway, as is often the case.  Not on this call.  They noticed Stella Nickell peering from behind curtains as they drove up.  Bruce Nickell, still damp from his shower and clothed only in his bathrobe, lay in front of the sofa on the living room floor, gasping for air.  Although he was deathly white from his neck down, from the neck up he was cherry red.  The EMS had never seen anything like it and were desperate to find what was causing his distress. 

Stella had reported that Bruce was not on any medication other than aspirin and had no underlying health issues, although he was a recovering alcoholic.  She ticked off his health history as calmly as she had let the first responders into the house.  She then brought a pack of cigarettes, musing that perhaps the cigarettes had caused the distress and then broke one open, looking for anything unusual.  The EMS team would also recall that Stella had mentioned the Tylenol poisonings of 1982 a few times.     

Despite best efforts, Bruce died at Harborview Medical Center.  He was only 52 years old.  

One of the paramedics recalled later that evening at around 10 p.m. a call came into the paramedic living quarters.  It was from Bruce's newly widowed wife, Stella.  She explained that the medics had wrapped Bruce up in a knitted afghan before transporting him to the hospital in Seattle and she wanted the afghan back.

June 18, 1986 New York Times article about the deaths (photo source)

A Break

Although detectives had thought Paul Webking, Sue's widower, was a good suspect, he had taken and passed a polygraph test.  He had not helped himself out though by telling detectives that they would never solve Sue's poisoning.  By October, only four months after Sue's death, Paul had a new girlfriend, was dressing in new clothing, and reportedly spending money left and right - but investigators had nothing to link him with Sue's murder.   By December, less than half a year after Sue was murdered, Paul was engaged to his new girlfriend.  

No one would have thought the case would break wide-open thanks to an aquarium and Bruce Nickell's stepdaughter.   

The poison found in the capsules confiscated from the Snow/Webking home, the bottles that Stella Nickell turned over to the police, and the bottles found on market/drugstore shelves were analyzed.  Not only did the 23 capsules contain a lethal amount of potassium cyanide powder but 17 of the tainted 23 capsules also had green particles in them later determined to be an algaecide called Algae Destroyer used in home aquariums.  

One of the detectives working the case, who had been inside the Nickell home to speak with Stella, recalled a very nice aquarium in the living room.   Discreetly, investigators visited fish supply stores and pet stores in the area, nearly 60 of them, until they found a clerk who remembered not only Stella Nickell but selling her Algae Destroyer.  He had suggested to her that she grind up the tablets before applying them into her aquarium as they would work better that way.

Detectives felt money could have been a motive after it was also discovered that Stella had taken out roughly $76,000 in life insurance on Bruce, with an additional $100,000 payout if his death was accidental.  

Taking these facts into consideration, as well as believing the odds that Stella Nickell would have purchased two out of the five tainted bottles found in the entire country -- and two weeks apart in two different locations -- Stella was requested to take a polygraph, as Paul Webking had.  She refused at first, consenting only in November of 1986 and failing it.  

A search of the Nickell home turned up a mortar and pestle set, which had traces not only of the Algae Destroyer but also of cyanide.

Although investigators had plenty of evidence against Stella, they could not find any records of where, when or how she may have purchased or used cyanide and so held off on arresting her.   

By the end of 1986, a reward for information on the tainted medication and resultant poisonings was sitting at $300,000 and both Paul Webking and Stella Nickell had filed wrongful death lawsuits against Bristol-Myers.     

Cindy Hamilton had been Stella Nickell's firstborn child, entering the world when Stella was only fifteen.  Stella had had a rough upbringing, being born into a poor family where it was said that her father molested her older sister.  It's unknown if a young Stella suffered the same fate but she was sexually active in elementary school and was shuffled between relatives and states fairly frequently.  That she found herself pregnant at fifteen should not have been a big surprise.  She told her family that the pregnancy was the result of a gang rape and wanting her baby to "have a name," tried to convince a 19-year-old who had been her boyfriend for two years to marry her and claim the child as his.  The marriage never happened, as the man did not want to lie on the marriage license and claim he was twenty-one but he did ultimately consider the child his.  He wanted to fight Stella for custody, feeling that Stella was an unfit mother, but Stella threatened to turn him in for statutory rape and the ploy worked.  He never contacted Stella again.  

He was not wrong, though, that Stella was not mother material.  Motherhood did little to slow down her good times.  She had begun bringing Cindy with her to bars from the time Cindy was of a young age and by the time Cindy was a teen, she was drinking, using drugs and running with a wild crowd.   Later, she would confirm that her mother was essentially trafficking her out to paying customers.  She too became a mother during her teens and, like Stella, at times would put her drinking and partying ahead of her child.   

Stella married first a man with the last name of Hamilton, who gave Cindy her surname, and a man  by the name of Bob Strong, with whom she moved to California.  Being married, however, did not slow her down.  She continued to drink and sleep with other men during both her marriages.  She and Strong became parents to a daughter named Leah, although Strong would question whether or not the child was biologically his.  

Stella's run-ins with the law began in 1968 with a conviction for fraud.  The next year, she was charged with spousal abuse after beating Strong with a curtain rod.  In 1971, she got popped for forgery and served six months in jail.  

She was still married to Strong when she met Bruce, who was married to Phyllis, wife number four, in 1974.  The fact that both were married to other people did not seem to concern them.  Stella found that Bruce being a hard drinker suited her lifestyle and Bruce seemed not to mind that Stella had not only a legal record but a record for being less than faithful.   Both eventually left their spouses, divorced and married each other.  In her divorce, Stella relinquished custody of Leah to Strong.

Cindy had told her grandmother, Stella's mother, in October that she believed Stella killed Bruce.  It would take several months before she felt comfortable enough to talk to the police, but she did so in January of 1987.  According to Cindy, Stella had talked about killing Bruce for years before the plan really seemed to take action while mother and daughter were working together at the airport.  Initially Stella had wanted to overdose him by putting cocaine or heroin in his iced tea.  Stella had not known where to get cocaine or heroin though and instead began reading up on poisons.  She had first tried to kill Bruce by filling capsules with poisonous seeds and feeding them to him.  Rather than kill him, though, they simply made him sluggish and lethargic.  That led Stella to consider a hitman who could potentially shoot Bruce through his truck window, run him off the road, or mess with his brakes.  Cindy said the issue with the hitman plan was that Stella had no money to offer for the hit.  

According to Cindy, money was only partially the motive in Stella's plan to kill Bruce although once Stella received the life insurance money, she was going to open a tropical fish store.  Once Bruce had given up drinking, said Cindy, Stella, who enjoyed barhopping, found him "boring" and decided he had to go.  Divorce wasn't an option in her mind because she didn't want to have to split anything.  Furthermore, she had been having an affair with one of Bruce's married friends in the year prior to his death.  That friend was a photographer and had a darkroom set-up at home.  Stella had told Cindy that cyanide was used in photography.  The friend would later provide chemical samples from his darkroom, none of which contained cyanide.    

At the same time Cindy Hamilton was talking to investigators, a document examiner in the FBI's forensic lab in Washington, D.C. found that the signatures on the September 1985 and October 1985 American Life insurance applications for Bruce Nickell had been forged, with the forger's signature a match for the known samples of Stella Nickell.  

Following up on what Cindy had said, investigators discovered that Stella had checked out a variety of books on poisons from the Auburn public library.  Her fingerprints were discovered on the cyanide-related pages of the books. 

The Nickells' finances in the months leading up to Bruce's death told a story as well.  From North Pacific Bank, the lienholder on the Nickell residence, investigators learned that there had been 39 times when payments were ten or more days late.  On April 9, 1986, a final notice of delinquency was written and sent to the Nickells, indicating that a total amount of $1,892.01 was due by April 25.  By that point, the Nickells had not made a payment since September of 1985.  Stella had written a note to North Pacific Bank, sending it back on the deadline of April 25.  In it, she admitted she knew that she was "tremendously overdue" with payments but marital problems were the cause of the delinquency.  She asked the bank to have faith in her, that "Bruce is no longer involved" and those marital problems "are about to be solved."  She promised to pay $500 a month and enclosed an $800 check.  On May 27, a foreclosure notice was sent to the Nickells, the same day that Stella went shopping at Johnny's Market and at Pay 'N Save.  On June 1, four days before Bruce died of cyanide poisoning, Stella sent a second note that enclosed a double payment.   On June 3, she shopped at Albertson's and Johnny's, two places where tainted capsules were recovered.  

Meanwhile, in February of 1987, Stella was telling a friend that Cindy had always wanted Bruce as a lover and would therefore not hesitate to turn Stella in for the reward money, which was $300,000 (nearly $830,000 in 2024 dollars).  

A grand jury was convened in March, with Cindy providing testimony against her mother.   Stella's own mother testified, saying that her daughter did have cyanide that she used in her aquarium as well as for use in killing coyotes.  Stella's adult niece testified that Stella could not kill anyone and that she had been planning on leaving Bruce so it would have made no sense to kill him.  She also admitted that her aunt had spoken so much of insurance money that "I was getting sick and tired of hearing about what she was going to get."   

In May, Stella filed a financial affidavit for a government attorney, listing her salary as $621 (just over $1700 in 2024 dollars), her monthly payments of her mortgage, two Visa cards, and a MasterCard that totaled more than $650.  She was then provided a federal public defender by the name of Tom Hillier.   In June, the Seattle Times had a front-page headline about the poisonings and mentioned there was a probe into one suspect - but the suspect was not named.  In mid-July, newspapers across Washington State headlined that Stella Nickell was now the chief suspect in the poisoning deaths of her husband Bruce and Sue Snow. 

It would take until nearly the end of the year but on November 4, an indictment sheet was finally filled out.  Stella was well aware.  She had been placed on a leave of absence from work.  She spent her days, until she was arrested on December 9, drinking and waiting.  Her arrest went without incident, although her decision to wear a blue windbreaker with Bruce's name embroidered on it raised eyebrows.  

Stella was denied bail and pled not guilty to each of the five counts against her.  Trial was set for February 16, 1988.     

(photo source)

The Trial  

Stella's trial, starting in April of 1988, was held on the fifth floor of the federal courthouse in Seattle before Judge Bill Dwyer.  Attorneys Joanna Maida, for the state, and Tom Hillier, for the defense, managed to select 12 jurors from the original pool of 97 in two days: five men and seven women, with two alternates.  

Maida laid out the prosecution's case in a precise and deliberate manner for the jury.  The state believed that Stella Nickell had wanted more out of her life than her marriage to Bruce Nickell could provide and came up with a plan for an insurance payout that depended on someone finding out about Bruce's death being caused by product tampering.  Maida said that Stella had expected the pathologists to rule the cause of Bruce's death acute cyanide poisoning - she had read in the multitude of library books she checked out that cyanide had the distinct smell of bitter almonds.  But when the pathologists ruled Bruce's death one of natural causes due to emphysema, that cut her insurance payout by $100,000 and necessitated a Plan B.  Unfortunately, that Plan B would cause the death of Sue Snow, as Stella needed something to call attention to Bruce's death and therefore some random person or persons would also have to ingest poisoned capsules and die.   To bring her plan to reality, the prosecution believed that Stella had bought nine bottles of Excedrin and cut through the protective film with a razor blade.  She laced some of the capsules with cyanide, as she had done with Bruce's Excedrin, and placed the bottles in random stores in the area.  Unfortunately for Sue Snow, she purchased one of the bottles.     

The jury liked Tom Hillier, whose folksy style contrasted against Joanne Maida's technical, almost cold, argument.  Maida had mentioned that Cindy Hamilton would be testifying, and Hillier asked the jurors to pay very close attention to Cindy's testimony, assuring them that Stella would contradict every bit of that testimony.  He admitted that yes, Stella had filled out the life insurance paperwork and signed documents, something she had done on all papers throughout the duration of her marriage to Bruce and there was nothing nefarious in those actions.  Hillier even had a reason for Stella to have checked out so many books on poisons from the library:  she was a voracious reader and she was concerned about her granddaughter's safety on the Nickells' rural property.  Stella's attorney admitted that Stella and Bruce were in dire financial straits at the time of Bruce's death and suggested that Cindy Hamilton's motivation for speaking to the feds was solely driven by the reward money.  Stella did take the stand and predictably denied everything.  

The case went to the jury on Tuesday, May 3, 1988.  It would take five days of deliberations because Juror No. 7, a real estate saleswoman by the name of Laurel Holliday, had broken from the feelings of the other jurors that Stella was guilty.  She felt that Stella was innocent and lying on the stand about where she shopped and when, canceled checks, and learning about poison was justified in order to not be convicted.   

At 2:50 p.m. on Friday, May 6, Jury Foreman Murray Andrews sent a note to Judge Dwyer stating that after three votes taken over the previous three days, the jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict and that no juror had changed his or her mind.  Judge Dwyer was adamant that deliberations continue and felt it was premature to declare a mistrial.  He asked that the jury retire early for the weekend, rest, and resume deliberations on Monday.  Stella and Hillier were given a sliver of hope that the jury may not have believed Cindy and Stella would leave a free woman.

On Monday, May 9, 1988, as the judge and attorneys prepared for the court reporter to read back portions of Cindy's testimony at the request of the jurors, Laurel Holliday reported to the court that she had received a concerning and threatening call over the weekend.  That forced all jurors to be questioned if they had received any similar calls.  None of them had and many of them believed the story to be untrue.  Once it was determined that Holliday could continue on the jury and deliberate fairly, the court reporter read back the testimony and at 10:30 a.m., jury deliberations resumed.  

At 3:35 p.m., the jury sent word that they had, at last, reached a verdict.  Stella stood, and with Tom Hillier's arm around her, closed her eyes to hear her fate.  She was found guilty on all charges.  Hillier noticed that during the reading of the verdict, Laurel Holliday was crying and he immediately wanted to question the other jurors to see if she had been the holdout and if there was a potential juror misconduct issue.  Judge Dwyer, however, sided with Joanne Maida, refusing to violate the sanctity of the jury's deliberations and ordered that sentencing would take place on June 17. 

Stella, convicted (photo source)

The media spoke to jury foreman Murray Andrews, Sue's widower, Paul Webking, Sue's sister, Sarah, and Sue's daughter, Hayley, who cried upon hearing of the verdict.  Stella's former husband, Bob Strong, after watching the television, listening to what the FBI had to say, what his stepdaughter Cindy had to say, and reading the newspapers came to the conclusion that he didn't know who had killed Bruce Nickell and Sue Strong.

 

Laurel Holliday

On Wednesday, May 11, 1988, after hearing Stella's motion for an order granting permission to interview jurors on potential juror misconduct, Judge Dwyer agreed to question each juror under oath.  In the meantime, a reporter from the Seattle Times who had heard about Laurel Holliday's mysterious phone call, drove to the courthouse to see if he could find anything on Laurel Holliday.  A quick records search found that there was a civil suit with her name in which she had filed a lawsuit against Pepperidge Farms, stemming from an incident that had occurred on July 31, 1986.  Holliday claimed to have bitten into Goldfish crackers during a broker's open house and found the crackers to be hard and taste bitter, leaving a burning sensation in her mouth.  Spitting them out, she claimed to find a pill inside one of the crackers.  Panicked, she had called poison control and, as she stated under oath in her August 19, 1987 deposition, "I pretty much figured I was dead.  This was right after the cyanide poisonings in Auburn."  Although the pill in the cracker was identified as ibuprofen, Holliday neglected to inform the court that she had sued Pepperidge Farms and that she herself had worried she had been poisoned a month after the Auburn poisonings.   Later, Holliday, who had received a $500 out-of-court settlement, said she felt her case didn't apply to the Nickell case and her case was a manufacturer error, not product tampering.  The attorney for Pepperidge Farms had questioned the incident in totality, as a pill would not survive the steel rollers that cracker dough is pressed through during manufacturing.  The Nickell jury foreman, Murray Andrews, believed that Holliday had planned to write a book about her experience on the jury but belatedly realized that she would have to be part of the decision-making process and her complaints of harassment, as well as the supposed phone call, were nothing but stall tactics because she simply did not want to make a decision.

Laurel Holliday was questioned for more than a hour by Judge Dwyer and continued to insist that her Pepperidge Farms lawsuit was not similar to that of Stella Nickell's, that it would not have influenced her, and yes, she had spoken to literary agents and newspapers about writing her story as juror.  The remaining jurors were also questioned, all of them denying any knowledge of the phone call Holliday claimed to have gotten and all of them denying speaking to each other about where they stood - guilty or innocent - on Stella Nickell before deliberating.

A week later, Tom Hillier filed a 16-page brief seeking a new trial for Stella citing that Laurel Holliday had willfully concealed material information during jury selection.  His argument was so convincing that word around the courthouse was that if a mistrial was declared and a new trial granted that murder charges would be filed in King County and prosecutor Joanna Maida would this time go after the death penalty.  Judge Dwyer ended the speculation, however, by denying the motion and sentencing Stella to 90 years with parole a possibility after 30 years.   Tom Hillier immediately filed an appeal and Stella was sent to the Washington Correction Center for Women in Gig Harbor to begin serving her sentence. 

Stella incarcerated (photo source)

Afterword

Stella's daughter Cindy received some $250,000 of the $300,000 reward money and cut off all ties with her family and friends she'd had when Bruce died.   FBI special agents questioned how deeply involved she might have been in the plot to murder Bruce, as did true crime writer Gregg Olsen.  Cindy never saw her mother again after taking the stand in the Seattle courtroom and has never corresponded with her during Stella's incarceration.  In recent years, she told Olsen that she discovered the man Stella had told her was her father was not but thanks to DNA testing, she was able to locate and connect with several siblings, including a brother she has become close with.     

Paul Webking and Sue's daughters, Exa and Hayley, reached an out-of-court settlement with Bristol-Myers and received an undisclosed sum.  Both Exa and Hayley used some of their respective shares to pay for their education.  Hayley is married and the mother of an adult son.  She currently lives in New Mexico, as her mother once did, and stays in touch with author Gregg Olsen. 

In 2000, the USA Network had planned a movie about the case with Katey Sagal to play Stella but it was scrapped shortly before production began.  There were strong objections from advertisers, including Johnson & Johnson, who owned the Tylenol brand central to the 1982 poisonings, and network executives feared the movie might inspire a copycat or copycats.  

The appeal that Tom Hillier filed on Stella's behalf was rejected by the Court of Appeals in 1989.  Stella retained a new attorney, Carl Park Colbert, who, along with help from The Innocence Project and private investigators, filed a second appeal in 2001 based on alleged new evidence discovered that the FBI had withheld.   That appeal too was denied.   

Stella continued to assert her innocence for decades, including telling Gregg Olsen that "it is not in me to kill anyone."  She claimed to have been the victim of a plot or frame-up, implicating that her daughter Cindy was behind it.     

At her first parole hearing in 2018, in which both Hayley Snow Klein and Sue's sister Sarah drove to Dublin, California to watch, Stella claimed to be a good person and excellent inmate, as well as wholly innocent.   Her request for parole was denied.

A year later, on May 9, 2019, Stella was once again up for parole.  This time, however, she admitted that she tampered with the Excedrin bottles, intending to kill Bruce as she was a victim of domestic violence.  Hayley Snow Klein was incensed over what she considered to be Stella's half-assed confession and that she would not admit to having killed her mother.  She immediately fired off a letter to the parole board, reminding them of the nature of Stella's planned and premeditated crimes and the permanent damage they caused to the families of Bruce and Sue.  

Once again, parole was denied.

In May of 2022, Stella made a plea for compassionate release.  She was 78 years old, she said, with a myriad of health problems that left her without much time to live.  She claimed she had an arrangement lined up to reside with a friend in Las Vegas and would get a job.  She added that she had been a model prisoner and had lost out on more than 30 years of life with her grandchildren and other family members.   Never did she mention her victims or that she had lost out on life due to her own selfish actions.   As Hayley Snow Klein says, she is not remorseful and she is where she needs to be. 

In June of 2022, the request for compassionate release was denied.  

Stella remains incarcerated at Hazelton Federal Correctional Institution in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia as inmate number 17371-086.  She is up for another parole hearing this year (2024) and, with good behavior, will be eligible for release on July 10, 2040, when she will be 96 years old.  

She is the first person to be tried and convicted for committing murder using product tampering.  As she was convicted in a federal case, Washington State could still have the option to bring murder charges against her. 


     

Bruce's final resting place (photo source)

Sue's final resting place (photo source)

Sources:

Murderpedia (2024).  Stella Nickell.  

Olsen, Gregg.  American Mother.  Grand Central Publishing/Hachette Book Group, 2022.

United States v. Nickell, 883 F. 2d 824 (9th Cir. 1989). 

Wikipedia (2022).  Stella Nickell.

The Saga of Audrey Marie Hilley: The Black Widow of Alabama

 

Marie Hilley at the Atlanta airport, January 20, 1983 (photo source)

The End at the Beginning

Thursday, February 26, 1987 had been a nasty weather day in Anniston, Alabama.  It had started raining on Saturday the 21st, raining solidly through Tuesday, leaving everything soggy and bitterly cold.  The rain had picked up again that Thursday, accompanied by gusty winds that blew as hard as 17 miles per hour and with temperatures that hovered in the forties.  

Sue Craft was driving home, hoping to be safely inside on this gloomy day, when she spotted . . . something on her neighbor's patio.  It was crawling across the patio deck and it alarmed Sue enough that she called another neighbor, Janice Hinds.  Janice was horrified to discover that the something Sue had seen was in fact a woman, wearing dirty clothing soaked through from the rain.  She told Janice that her car had quit running a few miles away and she had alternately walked and crawled to where she was.  .  When asked her name, she either couldn't or wouldn't say but was in agreement with both Janice and Sue, who had come over to offer assistance, calling for the police and an ambulance.  In an abundance of caution, Janice and Sue left the woman on the patio but covered her with a plastic sheet and stayed with her until authorities could arrive. 

Neither of them had any idea that the hottest news story in town had not only just been resolved but would very soon add yet another mysterious layer to an already incomprehensible tale.

Frank and Marie Hilley (photo source)

An Unexpected Death

Frank Hilley was 45 years old in the spring of 1975.  A native of Alabama, he had served his country in the Navy before returning to Anniston to work at the Standard Foundry.  He had married Audrey Marie Frazier during one of his Navy leaves in 1950, while Marie was still a junior in high school.  The couple had two children, Mike and Carol, and seemed to lead a secure, happy life that was the essence of the American dream.  Frank was a reliable employee and a steady, easygoing man, at least up until 1974, when his previously robust health began to take a turn for the worse.

What started with unexplained and intermittent fevers in the fall of 1974 became stomach cramps, vomiting, severe diarrhea, sweats, chills and disorientation by the spring of 1975.  One evening, after Marie found Frank wandering aimlessly in the family's yard looking for the car and seeming to not recognize her, she had him admitted to the local hospital.

Doctors there believed he was suffering from infectious hepatitis and began treatment.  Despite the treatment, Frank would go from hallucinating, not even recognizing his own sister at one point, to being lucid and telling her that if something wasn't done, he wouldn't be long for this world.    

On Sunday, May 25, 1975 Frank Hilley's premonition proved correct and he died early that morning.  The burial policy he had taken out on himself for five thousand dollars only months before his untimely death paid for his burial at Forestlawn Gardens in Anniston.  His son Mike, a pastor, presided over the service and funeral.  

By all appearances, Marie was a grief-stricken widow but Frank's mother Carrie and his sister Freeda had concerns.  Frank was one of several people who died in Anniston that day and his death was considered a tragedy but not an intentional one.  At least not then. 

Frank had always been considerate and modest with finances.  He made sure that bills were paid on time and he wasn't one to want or need the newest and nicest item.  He had no idea that Marie had not only run up department store bills all over Anniston but had taken out a loan against their car and she was behind all on those debts.  He had made sure Marie was provided for in the event of his death and she received $30,000 in life insurance benefits (over $150,000 in 2021 money).  She went on a spending spree with her financial windfall, buying herself a new car, expensive clothing and jewelry, as well as furniture and housewares.  Even the food she purchased  was now costly, specialty items.  She gifted her son Mike and his wife Teri with clothing and appliances, gestures that left them feeling more embarrassed than grateful.  Marie's teenaged daughter Carol, who had always been very close with Frank and who had endured a tempestuous relationship with Marie practically all her life, was not left out - she was given a car, a bicycle, a stereo and new furniture for her bedroom.  Marie even purchased her mother Lucille, who had been living with the Hilleys since Marie's father died, a diamond ring.  

Frank, Marie, Mike and Carol Hilley (photo source)

Mike and Teri had moved back to Anniston following Frank's death and in with Marie, Lucille and Carol.  Later, Teri would remember her illness starting the day after her father-in-law died.  At the time, she attributed her nausea and loss of appetite to her early stages of pregnancy.  Cramps and pains in her legs and stomach, combined with vomiting, sent her to the hospital.  The doctor attending her worried that she had contracted hepatitis from Frank and wanted to give her a shot of gamma globulin for protection but felt her obstetrician from East Point, Georgia should be consulted first.  Marie volunteered to make the call for Teri and returned to say that he had approved the injection. 

Teri seemed to recover after receiving the injection and she was released from the hospital.  She made a trip to her obstetrician in East Point, Georgia for a routine examination and she mentioned having the injection.  The doctor was horrified, saying that he had instructed Marie to tell Teri's doctors not to give her the injection.  Teri figured it was a basic misunderstanding, given Marie's grief and suffering over Frank.      

Within a few days of returning to Alabama and Marie's home, Teri got sick once again.  This time, she began hemorrhaging.  She was rushed to the hospital but suffered a miscarriage and lost the baby.

She had barely recovered from that when the intense nausea reared up again and now, Teri had difficulty breathing.  Severe vomiting and pains in her abdomen overnight left her delirious by morning.  She was so weak and dehydrated by the time she arrived once again at the hospital, she needed intravenous feeding.  

In all, Teri would be admitted to the hospital four different times while living with Marie throughout  the summer and fall of 1975 and into the winter of 1975/1976.

The Fires and Break-Ins

Less than a year after Frank's death, the unexplained fires started.  Perhaps coincidentally,  the first one happened the night before Mike and Teri were due to move out of Marie's home and into their own apartment.  A neighbor spotted smoke coming from the Hilley residence and called the fire department.  Mike and Teri were at church, where Mike was preaching a Sunday evening service, and Carol was out with friends.  Neighbors were frantic that Marie's mother Lucille, very often bedridden, was trapped in the house.  As the firefighters were preparing to rush into the house and search for Lucille, Marie drove up with her mother, stating they had gone for a ride.  

The fire itself had done almost no damage but the thick smoke was another story.  The extensive damage meant that Marie, Carol and Lucille could not stay there, forcing the trio to move with Mike and Teri into their new apartment.  

The origin of the fire was not determined.  Marie blamed it on a heating and air conditioning unit that had been installed by the gas company and filed a lawsuit against them.  The suit was eventually dismissed.

The repairs to the Hilley home took nearly a month.  As Marie, Carol and Lucille were preparing to move back, a fire broke out in the apartment next door to Mike and Teri's.  Although the flames were confined and never breached the Hilley apartment, the smoke that infiltrated the entire building caused damage to their apartment.  Mike and Teri were forced to move back into Marie's house until they found another apartment that was close to Mike's church.

The origin of that fire, like the one a month earlier, was never determined. 

In March of 1976,  Marie reported a burglary in which jewelry, a hair dryer and two guns were stolen.  

Several days later, she returned home after dark and found that her kitchen light was being turned on and off.  She contacted police, who found no one in the home.  

A few weeks later, Marie called the police to report receiving nuisance phone calls and threatening notes.  The responding officer found her to be genuinely fearful and convinced that someone was out to get her.  She had no idea who could be harassing her or would send her notes in an attempt to get her to move.  The note was sent out to be processed for fingerprints but nothing ever turned up.     

Only a short time later, Marie called the Anniston Police Department to complain of gas fumes, which she said had been present for weeks.  An investigation by an officer found no leaks.  Marie's next door neighbor, Doris Ford, stated around the same time that the gas on her outdoor grill had been turned all the way up and the fumes could be smelled outside.  

A month later, a fire broke out in Marie's hall closet just before four in the morning.  There was little damage and police found no signs of a break-in.  

Two days later, Marie's neighbor Doris Ford returned home to discover there had been a fire in her hall closet that had, fortunately, burned itself out.  As at Marie's house, there was no sign of forced entry and nothing was missing.  Marie admitted she had a key that Doris had given her for emergencies but she said she had not been in the house and had seen nothing out of the ordinary.

In early January of 1977, Marie's mother Lucille died after suffering with cancer for several years.  Marie sold Lucille's house, which her mother had continued to own even after moving in with Marie, and pocketed the proceeds from the sale.  

Marie's calls to the police department continued after her mother's death.  Her reports were mainly of nuisance phone calls in which someone was trying to scare her.  After the police requested that the phone company put a trace on her line, the flowerpots at the Hilley home were turned upside down and food disappeared off the kitchen counter - but the phone calls ceased.  Doris Ford, Marie's next door neighbor, however, began getting phone calls of her own; thirty-two over that same month, according to her.  The police department asked the phone company to put a trace on the Ford telephone line and found that one call she received came from the company that Marie Hilley worked for.  Marie denied knowing anything about the call and once again, began to report nuisance calls ringing at her home.  

In  addition to the continuing nuisance calls, Marie said she was being followed by a strange car and/or a strange man, that the windshield of her car was broken out and even Carol's car was stolen (Carol would later confess to her brother Mike that she and her mother had driven the car to a remote part of town, put a rag in the gas tank and burned it for the insurance money).   

In the summer of 1978, Marie claimed her boss propositioned her, leading her to lose her job.  The firm, however, said that she had difficulty getting along with other employees.  It had been a pattern in Marie's life from the time she began working:  despite her efficiency and reliability, Marie was a chronic job hopper.   She would reportedly make friends quickly at work, impress everyone with her skills and then something would happen that would cause her to believe that people were turning against her or she was being hurt in some way, isolating her, and then she would leave.  For example, after losing her job with the gas company, Marie told her family that a female co-worker had turned against her and caused the other women to turn on her as well, leaving Marie's boss no choice but to fire her.  

Marie also reportedly had a pattern of her professional relationships with her male bosses becoming very personal.  During Frank's illness in 1974 or 1975, when he had come home from work early after getting sick, he had found Marie in bed with her boss.  

Even the police were fair game.  Marie had found one of the responding officers to her calls so attentive - and attractive - that she began to ask for him directly.  During one call in response to a prowler looking in her bedroom window, he and Marie became lovers.  Her calls to the police station continued and he believed many of her complaints were nonsensical ones used as a pretext to get him to her house. 

In the latter part of 1978, Marie sold her house in Alabama and she and Carol moved to Florida to be with Mike and Teri, where they had settled.  Marie was a new grandmother but she was oddly distant from her grandchild and spent most of her time in her bedroom, reading books on mysteries and disappearances.  Despite being healthy since leaving Alabama several years earlier, Teri once again fell ill.  Her doctor thought it was her kidneys and advised rest and a better diet.  

If Marie had thought Florida would provide her with a fresh start, it did not work out that way.  She and Carol soon returned to  Anniston.  In January and February of 1979,  Marie took out life insurance policies on herself ($25,000) and on Carol ($14,000).   She soon added a family group policy, which would bring the combined total to $50,000 for Marie, nearly $40,000 for Carol and $25,000 for Mike.  

Caught

As Marie had sold her home, she and Carol moved in with Frank's mother, Carrie, who was getting on in years and needed additional looking after.  Shortly thereafter, a fire broke out in the laundry room, started by Marie's sleeping bag on top of the washing machine.  None of the smoke detectors went off; Marie had taken the batteries out of all of them, claiming they had been beeping and disturbing her.   The damage to the home from the fire was minimal.     

As had happened first to Frank and then to Teri Hilley, Carrie Hilley began to suffer with stomach pains, nausea and vomiting.  While Carrie was still ill, Carol too began to suffer with similar symptoms, as well as tonsillitis and fever.  Doctors couldn't seem to pinpoint exactly what was wrong with her. 

Marie was not only telling Mike that strange men were calling to harass her but he was getting phone calls about debts that she had run up, either with him as co-signer or debts in which she was to have taken over for him.  Mike discovered that while his mother was living with him and his family,  she had stolen one of their credit cards and charged it up to its limit, resulting in a large outstanding debt and threatened legal action against him and Teri.  He traveled to Alabama to attempt to settle the matter, where, one afternoon, he too had stomach cramps, dizziness and was generally unwell, much as sister and grandmother.  

For the next several months, Carol suffered repeated bouts of nausea, vomiting, leg pain, cramps, tonsillitis and delirium.  She started a routine of being admitted to the hospital, improving while there and be released, only to return within a day or two with the same recurring symptoms.  Doctors were at a loss as to what plagued her and Carol herself found it hard to believe she would ever again be healthy.  Marie began to tell the doctors that her daughter suffered with depression, rapid mood swings and violent outbursts.  Carol had always been tiny, barely over five feet and no more than a hundred pounds but now she appeared emaciated and bony.  She no longer had feeling in her feet and legs, making it impossible to walk, and her hands were quickly becoming as useless.  Carol Hilley was on borrowed time when a seemingly innocuous event saved her life - and changed Marie's forever.  

Arrested

Marie had been playing dangerous financial games for years, borrowing money all over Anniston on Frank Hilley's good name and defaulting on the loans.  She had come into money when Frank died, she had inherited (and sold) her mother's property upon Lucille's death and had sold the family home in Anniston before the abbreviated relocation to Florida - and yet somehow all that money was gone.  It finally caught up with her when she wrote nearly $5,000 (close to $17,000 in 2021) worth of checks on a closed account.   Charges were pressed against her and she was arrested.

At that same time, one of Carol's doctors, having recently read about arsenic poisoning and the symptoms, did the one test that none of her other doctors had done:  he checked her fingernails and toenails and found telltale white striations on each of them.  

Marie denied poisoning her daughter.  She admitted to giving Carol one shot of anti-nausea medication she said she got from a doctor and the jars of baby food she brought to the hospital were just that -- baby food to help Carol to eat something.  She also denied any wrongdoing with Frank, although she admitted giving him and her mother Lucille morphine injections.  At that same time, Carrie Hilley, Frank's mother, was dying.  Her declining health was officially from cancer but Frank's sister Freeda, as well as the police, wondered if Marie had done anything to help speed it along.    

Frank Hilley's body was exhumed, followed by Lucille Frazier's.  Various liquids and prescription bottles that had been in Marie's possession were sent off to the lab to be tested.  A press conference was called:  the chief toxicologist from Montgomery had driven to Jacksonville State University, just north of Anniston, to announce that "significant amounts" of arsenic had been detected in Frank's body but he demurred on stating absolutely that the poison had caused Frank's death.  Traces of arsenic were discovered in Lucille Frazier's tissue but more detailed tests would be required.  

Marie, meanwhile, remained in jail with her bail set at $10,000 on the charge of attempted murder and $2,000 on each charge related to the bad checks she wrote.  Asked by Marie's attorney to help to raise funds for bail, her son Mike couldn't do it.  He believed she needed to remain in jail, so that what remained of his family would be safe.  

Escape

Marie was overheard at the jail talking to a cellmate in which she was quoted as saying that if she got out on bail, she was going to run.  The information was passed along to the district attorney and to a bondsman, along with a request that her bond provisions be revoked, but she was released anyhow after five local residents, one of them a former employer of Marie's, posted bond.  

On Sunday, November 18, 1979 Carrie Hilley died.  Physicians at Stringfellow Hospital where she died said that preliminary tests done before her death had shown traces of arsenic.  An autopsy was ordered.

Law enforcement had bigger problems, however.  Marie's attorneys had checked her into a Rodeway Inn in Birmingham under an assumed name, hoping to get her away from the growing media publicity.  On that same Sunday that Carrie Hilley died, Marie Hilley fled.  

There had been a note left behind and the room made it appear as though a kidnapping had taken place but police believed that Marie Hilley herself had written the note before she took off.  A BOLO (be on the lookout) was issued for her.

(photo source)

Several weeks later, the tests on the Hilley family members came in.  Carrie Hilley did indeed have arsenic in her body but the amounts were small and investigators had no way of knowing whether the poison had been swallowed, injected or absorbed.  Her autopsy revealed her death was caused by cancer.  Lucille Frazier, Marie's mother, had died from natural causes.  

Frank Hilley, however, would be another matter entirely.  His death had absolutely been caused by arsenic poisoning, which had been given in small doses to him over a period of time until the last dose, which was a massive one. 

On January 11, 1980 Marie was indicted for first-degree murder by the Calhoun County grand jury.  When the car that authorities suspected Marie had stolen to get away was discovered across state lines in Marietta, Georgia, the FBI got involved.    After being told by many people that Marie was scrupulous about her appearance, the agency circulated flyers to beauty parlors and salons throughout the country.  Agents trolled fancy clothing stores and boutiques in Georgia, Florida and the Carolinas with Marie's picture, hoping to find her or locate someone who had seen her.  Even churches were contacted as Marie had always been a faithful churchgoer.  

Despite leads, the trail went cold and Marie Hilley was classified a long-term fugitive.  

John and Robbi (photo source)

John and Robbi

John Homan would later tell different stories of how he met his wife Robbi Hannon.  To authorities, he would say they met  in February of 1980 in Fort Lauderdale.  To his brother, he claimed they met at a cocktail party in Palm Beach.  To a co-worker in New Hampshire, he said that Robbi had been working as a prostitute when they met in a bar.  However and whenever they met, their relationship had progressed at warp speed,

John was living in Fort Lauderdale, where he had set up his own boat business called Crown Marine.  He was relatively comfortably off, having received inheritance from his mother's trust.  He didn't have many friends but those he did have he was very loyal to.  He was a quiet, introverted man who was uncomfortable with conflict and anger.  He and his wife Linda had divorced in 1979 and he wasn't single a year before he met Robbi.  

Robbi Hannon, like Marie Hilley, had an incredible knack for telling people what they wanted to hear.  John quickly fell in love with Robbi and became steadfastly devoted to her.  He had struggled all his life with not being the son his father had pushed him to be - ambitious, driven and strong - but Robbi loved him exactly as he was.  In no time, John and Robbi were living together.     

It was John's younger brother, who had used his inheritance to purchase land in New Hampshire, and who had come to Fort Lauderdale for a visit that lit the spark in John and Robbi to leave Fort Lauderdale, which was undergoing a construction boom, for the quiet and sleepy New Hampshire. 

In August of 1980, they made the move north to Marlow, New Hampshire, where his brother had bought property.  The small town seemed to suit them, especially its proximity to Keene, a city of less than 25,000 people with a state college, auto dealerships and fast food restaurants that was twenty minutes from Marlow and with more work opportunities for both of them.  Perhaps coincidentally, Keene bore a strong resemblance to Anniston, Alabama with its old downtown struggling to stay afloat with the newer commercial strip.  

John found work as a machinist at Findings, Inc., a company that made small parts from precious metals for use in jewelry.  Although he had claimed to not be a tool and die maker, he brought in a model locomotive with tiny parts that he had machined from raw stock and was hired.  His supervisors and co-workers found that John was a reliable, dependable worker who was always on time and worked without fuss.  One of his supervisors would later say that John was one of the best machinists to ever work at Findings, Inc.

Robbi, with her experience in shorthand and typing, confident, well-spoken and with her melodic southern accent, quickly found employment at Central Screw Corporation, a company that manufactured screws and other fasteners.  What started as a temporary position became a permanent one as a customer service clerk, where she dealt with General Motors, Ford and Chrysler and knew not only Central Screw's more than a hundred different types of sheet-metal screws and fasteners but what the customer's needs and requirements were versus what was in stock.  

At her new job, Robbi quickly stood out, thanks not only to her southern accent but her carefully cultivated and expensive wardrobe. especially compared to the other women who dressed casually as they had little to no contact with the public.  She seemed to make friends at work quickly but without ever "belonging" to one particular work group and she appeared to enjoy flirting with and teasing her male coworkers.  Robbi shared her life story with many of her coworkers:  she had only lived the first few years of her life with her parents before she and her younger sister went sent to Tyler, Texas to live with their wealthy grandparents.  She had married her husband, a man by the name of Joseph Hannon, right after high school and they had been blissfully happy, living the best life and wanting for nothing - until he and their two children had been killed in a car accident.  This, she explained, is why she did not have a driver's license and John drove her everywhere; she simply could not bear to drive a car.  

John Homan appeared to be the perfect, attentive husband, from driving Robbi to and from work (coordinating with his own work schedule) to bringing her the paperback romance novels she enjoyed so much to drawing a bath for her and rubbing her back.    The two lived modestly but told friends they were expecting an inheritance from the estate of Robbi's first husband. 

As had happened in the life of Marie Hilley, Robbi Hannon Homan's work friendships began to break down and erode.  When she told her bosses at Central Screw only nine months into her employment that she was going to Texas for a while to finish settling her late husband's estate, more than a few of her coworkers were relieved to see her go.

Robbi left New Hampshire in August and by September, she was working as a typist for a Houston company called Gulf Coast Investors.  Robbi told her new acquaintances in Texas the same story about how her first husband Joseph Hannon and their two children had died in a car accident and that she was happily married to John Homan, who was in New Hampshire.  She told them, however, that she was in Texas to settle the estate of her wealthy sister and brother-in-law who had died a year or so earlier and named Robbi as their primary beneficiary.  According to Robbi, she and John were thinking of leaving New Hampshire.  Once she received her inheritance, she would finance a boat building business for John and she herself would like to have her own dress shop.  

The truth was that John wasn't certain that Robbi would return to New Hampshire.  They hadn't been getting along and her trip to Texas was in actuality a trial separation.

Robbi only remained in Texas until October, when she returned to New Hampshire and to John.  She was hired back with Central Screw and although her bosses were impressed with her work performance, as they had been only months earlier, she did not win any new friends.  She continued to tell her story of being raised by wealthy grandparents and living in the lap of luxury with her first husband and children but she had something new to add:   she was suffering from a blood disease with no cure and she was dying.  That was why, during her last stint with Central Screw, she had been stricken down several times with migraines that required her to leave work.   

In 1982, Robbi had also added a new family member, a twin sister by the name of Teri Martin.  According to Robbi, Teri had lived all over the U.S. and was married to a military man, although she was having marital problems and unsure of what to do next.

By September of 1982, Robbi's health had deteriorated so badly that after suggestions that she might travel to Germany to see a specialist, she informed her coworkers that once again, after nine months of work, she was leaving and heading to Texas.  This time though, she was going to be seeing doctors and receiving treatment.  She would stay with Teri and John would remain behind in New Hampshire, where he could continue working.

 

Robbi left New Hampshire for Dallas, Texas but only remained in Dallas for three days, before arriving in Pompano Beach, Florida on September 23, 1982.  She stayed at a Howard Johnson's Motor Lodge that was, coincidentally, only three miles from where Mike and Teri Hilley had lived years earlier.   

That same day, a bleached blonde by the name of Teri Martin applied for work at a local employment agency.

For the next nearly two months, Teri worked as a secretary before telling her boss that her twin sister Robbi had died and she would be going to New Hampshire to take care of things.  On Wednesday, November 10, 1982, she made a phone call to John Homan at Findings, Inc. to tell him that Robbi Hannon Homan was dead.  The following day, Thursday, November 11, she boarded a flight to Boston, where John Homan picked her up.  

Teri (photo source)

Teri

According to Teri, it was Robbi's wish that Teri and John, being her own only living relatives, should console each other over the loss of Robbi.  Robbi had left a letter to Teri expressing her wish that Teri and John look after each other, as well as her desire for no type of funeral or memorial service.  Her body was to be donated to the Texas Medical Research Center.  Teri, saying she was divorced and with her twin sister dead, said she had nothing to hold her in Dallas any longer.  

On Friday morning, November 12, John Homan and Teri Martin arrived at the office of the Keene Sentinel with information for Robbi's obituary.  The handwritten notes that Teri provided mentioned a third sister, a Jean Ann Trevor of White Plains, New York (contradictory to Robbi's letter claiming that John and Teri were her only living relatives).  Robbi's obituary, John and Teri were told, would run in Saturday's edition.

Besides her very blonde hair, Teri Martin was different from Robbi Homan in other ways.  She was slimmer and smaller in appearance, wearing tighter and more revealing clothing than Robbi had worn.  A chain smoker, she had a more gregarious and outgoing personality than Robbi had displayed and while Robbi had been an excellent homemaker, Teri preferred watching television and reading books.   

Despite the differences, a group of employees from Central Screw who were introduced to Teri that Friday, after Teri wanted to meet Robbi's friends and see where she had worked, had no doubt that Teri Martin and Robbi Homan were one and the same.  They were puzzled as to why that would be - and disgusted.  John too confused them.  He seemed legitimately grief-stricken, with dark circles under his eyes and on the verge of tears. 

Like Robbi, Teri was well-spoken and possessed excellent secretarial skills.  She was quickly placed as a temporary executive secretary at Book Press in Brattleboro, Vermont, twenty minutes from Keene and within two weeks her position was made permanent.  Like he had with Robbi, John settled into a routine with Teri that included breakfast at a restaurant in Marlow and a stop to pick up books to read.  She had apparently stepped into her late sister's shoes without so much as a blink.  Although John had made it known to his friends that he had given Teri the master bedroom while he slept on the couch, within a few weeks of her arrival he confided that they were sharing the bedroom.  

The group of friends at Central Screw remained interested in why Robbi would be masquerading as Teri.  Using the obituary that had been published in the paper, they discovered that the institute Robbi had supposedly left her body to did not exist.  Neither did the church in Tyler, Texas that Robbi was said to be a member of.  Calls to a reporter in Tyler, Texas unearthed that there had been no record of a Robbi Homan dying on November 10, 1982 or anytime around then.  Furthermore, no record could be found of the husband and children Robbi had said died in a car accident years earlier.  The search was expanded to the greater Dallas area, with the same result.

With so many people in a small town questioning the alleged death of Robbi Homan and the presence of Teri Martin, it was only a matter of time before the story was repeated to local law enforcement.  Senior Detective Bob Hardy had made his own calls to Texas, including to the police departments there, and had come up with zero on Robbi Homan.  A search for Jean Ann Trevor of White Plains, New York, the supposed third sister, also came up empty.  Thinking some kind of tax fraud was involved, Hardy contacted the New Hampshire office of the IRS.   

A  Tangled Web 

In the end, it was a woman by the name of Terry Lynn Clifton that led to the undoing.  Clifton was a fugitive wanted on federal drug charges and had a lengthy list of aliases.  The Vermont State Police, who had been added to the law enforcement group checking into Robbi Homan/Teri Martin, believed that Teri Martin, working in their state at Book Press, might actually be Terry Lynn Clifton.   Teri Martin was stopped as she left work on January 12, 1983 and with a "We don't think you are who you say you are," she was taken to the Brattleboro Police Department.

She quickly confessed.  If the police were expecting to have found Terry Lynn Clifton, they were in for a much bigger surprise.  After having her rights read to her, she admitted that she was not Teri Martin or Robbi Hannon Homan but Audrey Marie Hilley, wanted in Alabama on some check charges.  The cops were stunned when they discovered that not only did she indeed have two outstanding bad check charges but she was also wanted on charges of murder and attempted murder.  

"The police accused me of poisoning my daughter," she said in a matter of fact manner. "That's so ridiculous.  Why would I do that to my own daughter?"

Marie Hilley was returned to Alabama to stand trial for murder and attempted murder.  John Homan, who had been told of his wife's deception at the Brattleboro, Vermont police station, and who had believed that both Robbi and Teri had been real and Teri had been Robbi's twin sister, chose to stand by her and made the journey to Alabama.  

Marie in custody, March 3, 1983 (photo source)

While in custody at the Calhoun County Jail and awaiting trial, Marie allegedly told a cellmate by the name of Priscilla Lane that she had killed her first husband by poisoning, an act she had accomplished by placing a little arsenic at a time in Frank's food.   Lane testified against Marie as a prosecution witness, recounting their conversation.  

Marie took the stand during her trial only once, to rebut a statement she had given four years earlier about giving Carol injections, but otherwise did not give testimony to the jury.  Carol Hilley, now 23 years old, and still not weighing 100 pounds, had regained use of her arms and legs following extensive physical therapy although she still had days where it was difficult for her to button her shirt and pants or put earrings in.  Although she had accepted that her mother had tried to kill her, she still ached for her mother's affection and acceptance.  That, however, didn't stop her from testifying against Marie.

A packed courtroom for the trial of Marie Hilley (photo source)

The motive, prosecutors believed, was mainly financial.  Marie wanted, she needed, money and the things money could get:  material items and security.  The easiest way for her to get that money was through life insurance payouts.  They also speculated that Frank Hilley, after finding Marie in bed with her boss, had been planning to divorce her, something she could not abide by.  

Although no charges were brought, prosecutors also believed that Marie had poisoned her son Mike and his wife, Teri.  

The jury found Marie guilty of Frank's murder and guilty of the attempted murder of Carol.  She was given 20 years on the attempted murder conviction and sentenced to life in prison on the murder conviction.   

Marie en route to court on June 6, 1983 (photo source)

On June 9, 1983, she became prisoner 135272 at the Julia S. Tutwiler State Women's Prison in Wetumpka, a town nearly 100 miles south of Anniston and less than 20 miles from the state's capital city of Montgomery.  Within a month of her sentencing, Marie's lawyers filed a request asking the trial judge to overturn the verdict and grant her a new trial.  That was denied.  The attorneys filed a request with the appeals court, which would be denied in the spring of 1985.

In the fall of 1983, only months after arriving at Tutwiler, guards there were tipped off that she was planning an escape, with the informant saying that Marie spoke of nothing but escape.  The warden spoke to Marie directly, who convincingly said that she had been the victim of lies from another inmate.  Only a few months later, it was Marie who was informing on a fellow prisoner she said was planning an escape.  

In the spring of 1984, less than a year into her prison sentence, Marie's security classification was adjusted to that of a medium security prisoner.  Only a year later, she was classified as minimum security status, meaning she was eligible to leave the prison.  

Not surprisingly, this did not sit well with Alabamans, who worried not only that Marie was using her charms to get into the good graces of the prison and legal system but could soon return to their community.  This was not helped by the fact that she would be eligible for parole in 1990. 

Marie's first outing from the prison was a short one of several hours with eight other inmates, all of whom were accompanied by the warden, to a restaurant in Montgomery.  She assured the warden and anyone who would listen that she was most interested in rehabilitating her image and would do nothing to destroy the trust the warden had placed in her.  Barraging the warden with letters, she was soon given an eight-hour, unaccompanied pass.  

By January of 1987, Marie had four successful eight-hour leaves under her belt.  She was therefore qualified for the next step:  a three-day furlough.  She walked out of Tutwiler on Thursday, February 19, 1987, where John Homan was picking her up.  She had no plans to return.  

John drove them to Anniston and that night, Marie called the local sheriff, as required, to inform him she was in his area.  For the next two days, they kept a low profile, staying in John's hotel room and only going out for walks after dark.

Marie was due back at Tutwiler on Sunday, February 22 by four o'clock.  That morning she told John that she wanted to visit her parents' graves alone.  They agreed to meet at a Waffle House at ten o'clock, leaving the hotel together around nine.  Shortly after that, John was observed sitting alone at the Waffle House.

Before noon, the local sheriff received a phone call from an agitated John Homan.  He asked the sheriff to come to his room at the hotel, where he presented him with a handwritten note from Marie.  The note stated that Marie was going to leave, asked for an hour's grace period, as well as forgiveness, and then requested that John destroy the note.  

Deputies were dispatched to bus terminals, taxi companies and the airport but they found no sign of Marie.  

The district attorney was outraged that Marie Hilley, with a known record of being a runner and a clear flight risk, had been given a three-day pass without supervision.  He hinted of opening a grand jury investigation into the decision made by prison officials to allow her furlough.  The Alabama Commissioner of Prisons launched an internal investigation.   

John took a lie detector test and although the results were not publicly disclosed, authorities announced he was cooperating with them and not considered an accomplice.  He remained tightlipped with the press, stating he could not speak for his wife.

No one believed that Mike Hilley or Carol Hilley had any idea where their mother might be.

(Photo source)

Marie had been missing for four days - fleeing on a Sunday as she had done back in 1979 - when Sue Croft and Janice Hinds discovered the barely-alive woman on the patio.  Both ladies noted that the woman's speech was slurred and when she attempted to put her shoe back on her bare foot, she was unable to.  The very effort, in fact, caused to her sink to the ground.  

The first police officer to arrive believed that the stranger underneath the plastic sheet was drunk or perhaps even suffering from some type of diabetic coma.  He propped her up, awaiting the ambulance.  When the ambulance arrived, only minutes later, she was unconscious.  En route to and very nearly at the hospital, she suffered a heart attack.    

The responding police officer had noted that her clothing matched that of clothing described in the fugitive poster for Marie Hilley and notified his superiors.  They arrived at the hospital and confirmed that the dirty, motionless woman was indeed Marie Hilley.

Amazingly, Sue Croft and Janice Hinds had known Marie.  Sue had been a senior at Anniston High School back in 1950, when Marie was a junior.  Janice's husband had grown up across the street from Marie.  /Although both had followed the story of the poisonings and her flight from justice for years, neither of them had recognized the figure on the patio as Marie Hilley.  

Doctors found that she was suffering from hypothermia and exposure to the cold and wet February weather, which had dropped to well below freezing in the evenings.  Despite the efforts of the medical personnel, Marie was pronounced dead at 5:06 p.m..  She was 53 years old.  

The coroner concluded that Marie had been in the woods for 24 to 36 hours before she found, leaving the question of where she had been from Sunday, February 22 until Tuesday, February 24 or Wednesday, February 25.  He also described the progression of hypothermia and what happened to her:  once body temperature drops below 98.6 degrees, the body speeds up breathing and initiates shivering to generate heat.  If temperature continues to fall, blood vessels in the arms and legs shut down, redirecting blood to vital organs and causing the extremities to become colder.  Metabolism speeds up in an effort to create heat.  Once the body temperature drops to 94 degrees, breathing slows and becomes shallow.  Mental capacity dims, causing an individual to become confused and irrational.  At 90 degrees, the shivering will stop, the body temperature drops more rapidly and mental capacity deteriorates.  The heart then becomes affected and begins rapid, irregular vibrations that can lead to a heart attack.

Large bruises and scratches on Marie's knees and legs evidenced her falling to her knees after the blood vessels in her legs shut down, forcing her to crawl some distance.  

The irony of Marie's death, that this very controlling woman so concerned over her appearance and so anxious to escape her humble upbringing should be found not far from her birthplace, dirty and unkempt, was not lost on some.  

Whatever Marie Hilley had planned, and wherever she had been in the days before she was found, was a mystery that would die with her.  So too would any type of confession or apology to Mike and Carol or any explanation of exactly what drove her to do what she did.    

It was raining on the day that Audrey Marie Hilley's body was committed to the earth.  Presided over by her son Mike and attended by a small group that included her daughter Carol and John Homan, Marie was buried at Forestlawn Gardens next to Frank, the man she had murdered. 

John Homan, who had left his brother and his friends in New Hampshire to follow Marie to Alabama, who had believed in first Robbi Hannon and then Teri Martin, had found work at an Anniston motel following Marie's trial.  He remained in Anniston after Marie died, keeping a very low profile and not speaking of her or their relationship.  In October of 1989, while attempting to break up a fight at the motel he worked at, he was shot and killed. 

Mike and Carol went on with their lives without either parent and away from the media.

The many faces of Marie Hilley (photo source)

Sources:

Anniston Star (2012).  A Quarter Century Later, the Audrey Marie Hilley Criminal Saga is Still Bizarre

Associated Press News (1987).  Last Chapter of Black Widow Saga. 

Ginsburg, Philip E.  Poisoned Blood: A True Story of Murder, Passion and an Astonishing Hoax, Open Road Media, 2018. 

Hilley v. State, 484 So. 2d 476 (1985).  

Murderpedia (2021).  Audrey Marie Hilley.  

New York Daily News, (2021).  A Black Widow's Tangled Web. 

Orlando Sentinel (1987).  Black Widow's Quest for Good Life Ends in a Lonely Death