Dial 'M' for Milkshake

Having a prolonged spell of writer's bloc at the moment - so thought I'd update you with a case that has held Hong Kong's expat community spellbound for the past few months.

On the night of November 2nd 2003, "wealthy" Merrill Lynch banker Robert Kissel was clubbed to death by his wife Nancy in their exclusive Hong Kong home...she was subsequently charged with murder.

Playing to a packed courthouse in Central, prosecutors argued that Nancy Kissel had planned to kill her husband in advance, had searched the internet extensively to research potential poisons (hey, isn't Google fabulous) and had placed a sedative in his milkshake (which was also drunk by a neighbour who has testified to being left with a feeling akin to amnesia)...then, while he was lying unconscious, she mercilessly beat him to death in cold blood. Her credibility is not, it has to be said, helped by internet records allegedly demonstrating the incriminating searches and by the fact that she was having an affair with a TV repairman in the States.

Her defence counsel, however, countered with a very different version of events, painting Nancy as the victim of a long campaign of physical and sexual abuse by an obsessive banker who - above all - was paranoid about the effect a divorce would have on his career (interesting, given how female employees seem to be viewed in the City - coming from LSE I know a fair few investment bankers !). On the night in question - Nancy alleges - her husband Robert threatened her with a baseball bad and tried to force anal sex on her. Not to be outdone by the government's own evidence of incriminating internet searches, her defence team submitted evidence that Robert Kissel had been heavily into bisexual (and at times homosexual) porn.

So all the classic elements of a classy whodunnit - intrigue, money, sex and of course a murderous milkshake.

The judge in the case - Michael Lunn (a 'gwaillo' - or expat - its surprising the number of expats still occupy high-up places in HK's government) is expected to finish his summing up tomorrow, thus leaving the jury to decide between two seemingly deeply unloveable characters. Her apparent inability to provide any explanation for the effects of the milkshake on their neighbour or the fact that the deceased's stomach contained an extensive cocktail of sedatives would seem to seal her fate.

Thankfully Hong Kong does not have the death penalty (unlike across the border where justice consists of a one way ticket to a sports stadium and an invoice for the ammunition)...so the maximum the fragrant Nancy faces is a life sentence - ample time to instruct a bevy of lawyers in an endless number of appeals. If she's acquitted, she will be in heavy demand for daytime TV and the print media.

Either way, I doubt we've heard the last of this saga...