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Stella Nickell’s Background

Stella Nickell was born Stella Maudine Stephenson in Colton, Oregon, on August 7th, 1943. She got pregnant with her daughter, Cynthia, when she was 16 years old. Soon after that, she moved to California, got married, and had another child. Legal trouble soon infiltrated her life. She caught a fraud case in 1968. Three years later, she was charged with beating Cynthia with a curtain rod. A forgery charge soon followed.

Her punishments for these actions were unsubstantial. She got 6 months in jail for fraud and counseling for beating her daughter.

Stella Maudine met Bruce Nickell in 1974. At that time, he was working as a heavy equipment operator, and in his spare time, he liked to drink and party, which matched Stella’s lifestyle. After two years of getting to know each other, they married in 1976.

As the year passed, Bruce decided it was time to cut out the drinking, and he went to rehab. Bored, Stella got an aquarium. Stella wasn’t a fan of his decision, and that played a role in the deterioration of their relationship.

Murder of Bruce Nickell

By 1986, the couple was living in Auburn, Washington, and according to Stella, on June 5th, Bruce came home from work and took four Extra-Strength Excedrin capsules for a headache. He collapsed soon after. Stella called 911, and he was taken by ambulance to the Harborview Medical Center, where he passed away.

He was 52 years old, and his death was ruled to be from natural causes, with emphysema being cited by the attending physician. They were oblivious to the fact that his death was really a homicide. Stella poisoned Bruce with cyanide and killed him so that she could collect $176,000 in insurance proceeds, which is the equivalent of $521,807 in 2026.

Murder of Susan Snow

Exactly one week after Bruce died, 40-year-old Susan Snow, who also lived in Auburn, took two Extra-Strength Excedrin Capsules for a headache. Her husband also took two capsules from the same bottle before he went to work. Shortly after taking the capsules, Snow’s 15-year-old daughter found her collapsed in the bathroom and called for help. Snow was taken to Harborview Medical Center, where she passed away later that day.

During her autopsy, the Assistant Medical Examiner smelled bitter almonds, and she suspected cyanide poisoning. Further testing confirmed her suspicions. Investigators searched the Snow household, and eventually they concluded that the bottle of Extra-Strength Excedrin had been tampered with, and three capsules in the bottle were laced with cyanide.

Publicity, Product Recall, And Investigation

The story was big news, and fear began to spread. When another tainted bottle was found on the shelves at a store in Kent, Washington, the manufacturers of Excedrin, Bristol-Myers, recalled all their Extra-Strength Excedrin products in Washington. They also put up a $300,000 reward for anyone who could help them capture the culprit.

The production plant in Morrisville, North Carolina, was inspected, and no cyanide was found. That meant someone was tampering with the bottles and putting them back on the shelf.

The FBI determined that the contaminated capsules contained a green substance, which was determined to be an algaecide used in home aquariums.

Stella went to the police on June 19th, 1986, saying that her husband had recently died after taking Extra-Strength Excedrin. She gave them two Excedrin bottles that she said she bought at two different stores and two different times. She asked them to take another look into his death and determine if he also died from Cyanide. They soon determined that her husband’s cause of death was cyanide poisoning, and both the bottles she gave them were also tainted with cyanide.

Stella thought this information would give her leverage to win her wrongful death lawsuit against Bristol-Myers and make millions, but all it did was make her a murder suspect. Authorities asked Stella to take a lie detector test, but she refused. As they processed her story, they found it unbelievable that she went to two different stores at different times and just happened to purchase a contaminated bottle twice. Only five contaminated bottles were found, and she had two of them.

As the investigation progressed, detectives learned the signatures on Bruce’s life insurance forms were forged. They also learned that $100,000 of the insurance money she was expecting would only be paid in the case of an accidental death, giving her a motive to kill more people.

Detectives also learned about her aquarium and her use of the same algaecide brand found in the capsules. As the evidence was piling up against her, Stella finally consented to a polygraph, which she failed. Her daughter, Cynthia, coming forward was the nail in the coffin. Cynthia told authorities that her mother had talked about wanting Bruce dead and even admitted to trying to kill him with foxglove. Cynthia also said her mother talked to her about what they could do with the insurance money.

Arrest, Prosecution, and Aftermath

Even though authorities could tie Stella to any direct cyanide purchases, they had a ton of circumstantial evidence and arrested her on federal product tampering charges on Dec 9th, 1987. She was convicted at her May 1988 trial on all charges.

She was sentenced to two 90-year terms for the product tampering resulting in death and three 10-year terms for the product tampering. All sentences were set to run concurrently. Stella became eligible for parole in 2018, but she remains locked up. She is serving out her days at Federal Correctional Institution Hazelton in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia. Her release date is set for February 14th, 2043, when she’d be 99 years old.