Son had shake Kissel allegedly drugged
Accused says daughter and friend helped make drink her husband Robert Kissel was served on the day he died
Nancy Kissel's son drank some of the milkshake that prosecutors say she laced with sedatives and gave to her husband before bludgeoning him to death, the Court of First Instance heard yesterday.
Kissel also told the jury that the boy, four-year-old Reis, sister June, six, and neighbour Andrew Tanzer's daughter Leah, six, had helped her prepare the drink in the kitchen of their Parkview flat on the afternoon of November 2, 2003, the day prosecutors say Kissel's husband, senior Merrill Lynch banker Robert Peter Kissel, was murdered.
Kissel, 41, has pleaded not guilty to his murder.
'June and Leah wanted to have some ice cream. We all went to the kitchen ...We started taking out ... six to seven containers from the freezer. But there was just a little bit left in each, not enough to give them all an equal portion. So we dumped them all in the blender to make milkshake,' Kissel testified.
Earlier, Mr Tanzer, a prosecution witness, testified that he had met the Kissel family for the first time that morning when attending a United Jewish Congregation service and that later he had taken his daughter to play with June in the Kissels' flat.
Mr Tanzer, who was served the milkshake - which he said Kissel told him had been made to her 'secret recipe' - passed out when he returned home half an hour after drinking it, the court has heard.
Kissel said yesterday she and the two girls chopped bananas and Reis, who also wanted to help, smashed cookies. She said June had some black or red food colouring left over from a Halloween party and wanted to put it into the shake to make it look more 'scary' and 'Halloweeny'.
The accused recalled her husband coming into the kitchen a couple of times when they were preparing the milkshake , once to get a glass of water. The second time, he 'rolled his eyes at the chaos going on in the kitchen'. She said the girls wanted their fathers to have some milkshake as well. 'The girls took out the milkshakes for their father. The kids then took theirs,' she said.
Kissel, who at times was speaking almost in a whisper and who wept for much of her third day on the witness stand, was asked repeatedly by Mr Justice Michael Lunn and by her own counsel, Alexander King SC, to raise her voice. It was unclear from her testimony whether the girls drank any of the shake.
Kissel said she remembered her husband and her son returning to the kitchen later.
The deceased picked up the blender and drank the remaining milkshake and Reis, who took the blender from his father, also drank some, she said.
Prosecutor Peter Chapman alleges that the accused drugged the milkshake with a 'cocktail of sedatives' before dealing a series of fatal blows to her husband's head with a metal statue. The court has heard from forensic experts that four hypnotics, including Rohypnol, and an anti-depressant were found in the deceased's stomach and liver.
Mr King did not ask Kissel whether she had drugged the milkshake.
The case continues today.
