HONG KONG: Defense lawyers for "Milkshake Murderer" Nancy Kissel, who is serving a life sentence for murder, closed their final appeal submissions yesterday, claiming hearsay testimony was unfairly admitted at her trial.

The city's only expatriate woman in jail for murder launched her final appeal Tuesday with her defense contending several errors were committed by the prosecution team and trial judge. These arguments included use of transcripts from a bail hearing and misdirection in the judges charge to the jury. In sum, the defense contended the errors had nullified Kissel's right to a fair trial.

The 45-year-old Michigan native has served roughly four years of her life sentence. She was found guilty at a 2005 trial of killing her husband, Merrill Lynch banker Robert Kissel.

The original trial court heard she used a lead statuette to bludgeon her husband to death after giving him a sedative-laced strawberry milkshake.

Her lawyers maintain she committed the homicide in self-defense under provocation and that she had suffered under years of physical and psychological abuse at the hands of her husband.

Addressing Chief Justice Andrew Li and four other Court of Final Appeal judges yesterday, senior defense counsel Gerard McCoy said testimony from Bryna O'Shea, formerly Kissel's confidante and later her husband's, describing the nature of the Kissels' marriage was unfairly introduced so as to imply Nancy Kissel's intent to kill her husband.

The original trial court heard from O'Shea that she received a phone call from Robert saying that he had discovered that his wife had been browsing websites with information pertaining to "drugs, death and something dark". O'Shea testified that Kissel said he was in fear of his life.

The deceased husband had spied on his wife's emails and hired a private investigator who ultimately uncovered her adultery.

McCoy contends O'Shea's testimonial hearsay was later used by the prosecution to "inflame, distract and undermine the fairness of the trial."

Submitting O'Shea's testimony had "blackened (Kissel's) character and was abused as circumstantial proof of conduct in a series of acts that culminated in the homicide," McCoy said. "The fact that the deceased had feared (Kissel) does not establish her intention to kill."

The prosecution's replies to the defense submissions were deferred until Monday and Wednesday with prosecutor and Senior Counsel Kevin Zervos saying more time is needed to review some 60 submissions entered by the defense.

(HK Edition 01/15/2010 page1)