Nancy Kissel Loses Appeal Against 'Milkshake Murder' of Merrill Lynch Banker Husband

A woman found guilty of killing her husband - a banker at Merrill Lynch - has lost an appeal to contest the verdict of a retrial which convicted her a second time.

Nancy Kissel, who is currently serving a life sentence in Hong Kong for the murder of her husband Robert Kissel in 2005, was denied the right to appeal the jury's verdict at her 2011 retrial.

The 49-year-old mother of three was found guilty of first drugging her husband with a milkshake and then bludgeoning him to death.

"We are satisfied that the murder conviction against the applicant is neither unsafe nor unsatisfactory," the city's Court of Appeal ruled today.

Hong Kong's highest court ordered a new trial in 2010 after it emerged that poor evidence and improper questioning might have prejudiced the original proceedings.

According to a 64-page ruling from the three-judge panel, the jury was aware of all the evidence yet clearly rejected the case put forward by the defence and accepted the killing as a planned murder.

Prosecutors rejected Kissel's offer to plead guilty to the crime on condition she received the lesser charge of manslaughter.

Kissel had said she was in a state of depression, that she was suffering from battered woman syndrome and was provoked by her husband before she killed him.

Prosecutors pointed out that she was the main beneficiary of her husband's $18m (£10.9m, €13.2m) estate, and that she was having an affair at the time of the murder.

Robert Kissel worked for Merrill Lynch and was reported missing by a fellow employee after his murder.

He was found in a sleeping bag inside a family storeroom four days after he was killed.

Kissel's lawyer Colin Cohen stated that she will likely seek a Court of Final Appeal hearing.