Real Crime Stories/Paranormal Hauntings

The Seattle Excedrin Poisonings

A murder by cyanide was sensational news in Washington. When another tainted bottle from the same lot was found in a grocery store in nearby Kent, the manufacturers of Excedrin, Bristol-Myers, responded to the discovery with a heavily publicized recall of all Excedrin products in the Seattle area, and a group of drug companies came together to offer a $300,000 reward for the capture of the person responsible.

In response to the publicity, Nickell came forward on June 19. She told police that her husband had recently died suddenly, after taking pills from a 40-capsule bottle of Excedrin with the same lot number as the one that had killed Snow. Tests by the FDA confirmed the presence of cyanide in her husband's remains and in two Excedrin bottles Nickell had turned over to police.

Initial suspicions were directed at Bristol-Myers. Both Webking and Nickell filed wrongful death lawsuits against the company, and the FDA inspected the Morrisville, North Carolina plant where the tainted lot had been packaged, but found no traces of cyanide to explain its presence in the Washington bottles. On June 18, Bristol-Myers recalled all Excedrin capsules in the US, pulling them from store shelves and warning consumers to not use any they may already have bought; two days later the company announced a recall of all of their non-prescription capsule products. On June 24, a cyanide-contaminated bottle of Anacin-3 was found at the same store where Snow had bought her contaminated Excedrin. On June 27, Washington State put into an effect a 90-day ban on the sale of non-prescription medication in capsules.

Examination of the contaminated bottles by the FBI Crime Lab found that, in addition to containing cyanide powder, the poisoned capsules also contained flecks of an unknown green substance. Further tests showed that the substance was an algaecide used in home aquariums, sold under the brand name Algae Destroyer.

Focusing the investigation

With contamination of the Excedrin at the source having been ruled out, investigators began to focus their investigation on the end-users of the product. The FBI began an investigation into possible product tampering having been the source of the poison. At the time, Excedrin was packaged in plastic bottles with the mouth of the bottle sealed with foil and the lid secured to the bottle with plastic wrap.

Both Webking and Nickell were asked to take polygraph examinations. Webking did so, but Nickell, who had started drinking heavily, declined. A lawyer representing Nickell told reporters that she was too "shaken up" to be subjected to the examination. Investigators' suspicions began to turn to Nickell when they discovered that she claimed that the two contaminated Excedrin bottles that she had turned over to police had been purchased at different times and different locations. A total of five bottles had been found to be contaminated in the entire country, and it was regarded as suspicious that Nickell would happen to have acquired two of them purely by chance.

With investigatory focus turned to Nickell, detectives uncovered more circumstantial evidence pointing to her as the culprit. Nickell had taken out a total of about $76,000 in insurance coverage on her husband's life, with an additional payout of $100,000 if his death was accidental. She was also known to have, even before Snow's death, repeatedly disputed doctors' ruling that her husband had died of natural causes. Further FBI investigation showed that Bruce's purported signatures on at least two of the insurance policies in his name had been forged. Investigators were also able to verify that Nickell had purchased Algae Destroyer from a local fish store; it was speculated that the algaecide had become mixed with the cyanide when Nickell used the same container to crush both substances without washing it in between uses.

Nickell finally consented to a polygraph examination in November 1986. She failed and investigators narrowed their focus to her even further. Concrete evidence proving that Nickell had ever purchased or used cyanide was lacking, and despite their relative certainty that Nickell had orchestrated the poisonings as either an elaborate cover-up for an insurance-motivated murder of her husband - or as a desperate attempt to force her husband's death to be ruled an accident to increase her insurance payout - they were unable to build a strong case supporting arrest.