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Wife testifies in HK `milkshake murder'

An American woman on trial in Hong Kong for allegedly killing her banker husband said yesterday that the man was an abusive cocaine user and that she sought refuge in an affair just months before his death in 2003.

The widely watched trial, which began about two months ago, entered a new phase as the accused, Nancy Ann Kissel, took the stand to testify in the bizarre case known as the "milkshake murder."

Kissel is accused of giving her husband Robert Kissel a strawberry milkshake laced with the potent date-rape drug Rohypnol before beating him to death with a metal ornament in their Hong Kong luxury apartment on Nov. 2, 2003.

Kissel, who has pleaded innocent, took the stand for the first time on Monday and described her husband -- an investment banker at Merrill Lynch -- as a violent man.

She said yesterday that her husband knocked her off the top of a staircase after an argument while on vacation in Canada and was rough during sexual intercourse, often wanting to perform sodomy on her.

She also alleged that he violently shook the couple's daughter once. She said he was so upset by the incident that she put sleeping pills into her husband's drinks to calm him down.

Kissel, 41, characterized her husband as detached and leading an extreme lifestyle that involved long hours, drinking and cocaine.

The defendant said she found refuge during her summers alone with the children in the US, where she had an affair with an electrician.
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