NANCY KISSEL, the “milkshake murderess”, began a life sentence last night after a Hong Kong jury found the American housewife guilty of battering her wealthy banker husband to death in their bedroom in a case that has transfixed the former British colony.

For 65 days, in what has been one of Hong Kong’s longest and highest-profile murder trials, the seven members of the jury had listened to testimony about alleged abusive sex, adultery, cocaine and money in a hearing that gave a rare glimpse into the private lives of the rich expatriate community.

Mrs Kissel, dressed in the black that she had chosen to wear throughout the trial, sat expressionless as the jury pronounced its verdict on the November 2003 death of her husband, Robert.

The judge swiftly handed down the mandatory sentence of life in prison for the 41-year-old mother of three.

Mrs Kissel had admitted killing her 40-year-old husband, who worked for the American investment bank Merrill Lynch, in the luxury flat that they shared with their children and two maids.

But she had denied murdering him, saying that he had abused her and had demanded anal sex, and that she had fought back when he attacked her with a baseball bat.

The jury deliberated for eight hours and its verdict was unanimous. The jurors had heard the prosecutor accuse Mrs Kissel of spiking a strawberry milkshake with a cocktail of sedatives, including Rohyp- nol, and offering it to her husband and a neighbour who was visiting the family with his daughter in their Parkview apartment complex on the leafy hills overlooking the harbour.

They had heard Mrs Kissel — a prominent member of the Jewish community in Hong Kong — described as a cold-blooded killer who murdered her husband as he prepared to divorce her and seek custody of their children.

And they had heard Mrs Kissel break down in tears after she stunned the courtroom by admitting that she had killed her husband. She repeatedly insisted during her testimony: “I still love my husband.”

The couple married in America in 1989 and arrived in Hong Kong in 1997. But a relationship described by one friend as “the best marriage in the Universe” had begun to unravel many months before Mrs Kissel beat her husband to death.

Mr Kissel was furious when he learnt that his wife had begun an affair with a television repairman who lived in a trailer park near their holiday home in Vermont. Mrs Kissel, her children and a maid had returned to the United States in early 2003 to escape the Sars oubreak in Asia. Mr Kissel had employed a private detective to carry out surveillance of the house for 11 days in June and July 2003 because of his suspicions.

Two months before his death, Mr Kissel had become even more suspicious of his wife and her intentions. He told the private detective that he believed that she was spiking his whisky because his evening drink did not taste normal and made him feel woozy and disorientated. The private detective had advised his client to contact the police, but Mr Kissel said that he felt guilty about his suspicions and never acted on them.

In the end it was a milkshake, and not a whisky, that left him incapacitated in the couple’s bedroom on November 2, 2003.

The prosecutor described how that night Mrs Kissel used a lead ornament to deliver five fatal blows to her husband’s head, severely fracturing his skull and spattering blood across their bed and over the television screen. For two days she slept with her husband’s dead body. She also called his mobile phone after telling friends and family that he had gone away.

Her maid remembered that she had been told not to go into the master bedroom and had been sent on unusual errands, including buying a nylon rope and clearing out a storeroom.

Mrs Kissel herself went on a buying spree, spending several thousand pounds on carpets and furniture.

Three days after the killing, she ordered the maid to call in workmen to move several objects, including a rolled-up carpet and her husband’s golf clubs, to a nearby storeroom that she had rented.

The couple’s four-year-old son held open the door for the workmen and commented on the “smelly” carpet. The workmen said that it smelt “fishy”. Inside the carpet was her husband’s corpse. Police found the body two days later after he had been reported missing.

The trial has made headlines daily in the English and Chinese language media in Hong Kong, where people were gripped by the details of life among wealthy foreigners who live in large, expensive homes paid for by their employers in one of the most crowded cities in the world.

Mrs Kissel’s mother, Jean McGlothlin, said after the verdict: “Right now, I’m just going to try and get by. Feet on the ground again.”

The victim’s father, William Kissel, expressed delight. He said: “That’s justice. All the allegations made in the court [about Robert] are false, untrue. And Robert, I pray, can now rest in peace and his children can go on with their lives in peace knowing their father loved them and they are his dear children.”

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