Seattle Woman Gets 90 Years for Killing 2 With Tampered Pills

The first person to be tried and convicted of causing deaths by lacing an over-the-counter painkiller with poison was sentenced today to 90 years in prison by a federal judge who said the crimes showed “exceptional callousness and cruelty.”

Stella Nickell declined a chance to speak and stood motionless with the same stoic expression she showed through most of her three-week trial this spring.

U.S. District Judge William Dwyer specified that Nickell serve a minimum of 30 years before she is even considered for parole.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Joanne Maida had sought a 230-year prison term for Nickell. Prosecutors charged that Nickell carried out an “unforgivable” plan not only to kill her husband but also causing another death in an attempt to make it look like the work of a random poisoner.

Nickell was convicted May 9 of five counts of product tampering in the first prosecution involving fatalities under federal anti-tampering laws enacted in the wake of the Chicago Tylenol poisoning deaths of seven people in 1982.

Nickell, 44, was convicted of lacing Extra-Strength Excedrin capsules with cyanide in a plot to kill her husband, Bruce, 52, so she could get out of an unhappy, debt-ridden marriage and collect $176,000 in life insurance benefits.

Authorities said she poisoned at least four other bottles of medication and placed them on store shelves in the suburban Auburn area to make her husband’s murder look like the work of the type of random killer who terrorized the Chicago area in 1982.

One of the poisoned bottles was bought by Sue Snow, 40, an Auburn bank manager, who died from cyanide poisoning on June 11, 1986.