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Solving a Crime with Science: A True Story
On the morning ofJune 11, 1986, Sue Snow woke up with a headache. She took two Extra. Strength Exccdrin capsules and within minutes she collapsed to the floor. She was rushed to a hospital, but died hours later.
Doctors were unable to explain Sue's death. They asked the hospital laboratory to do some tests to establish the cause. One test detected cyanide, a poison that can rapidly kill a person who swallows even a small amount, The hospital immediately called the police. They began their investigation by interviewing members of Sue's family.
Mrs. Snow's daughter recalled that her mother had a headache the morning she died and that she had taken two Extra-Strength Excedrin capsules. When a police laboratory subsequently tested the capsules remaining in the Excedrin bottle, the capsules were found to contain cyanide. The police consulted the manufacturers of Excedrin. The drug company used its authority to have stores immediately remove all bottles of Extra-Strength Excedrin from their shelves. The police crime laboratory tested capsules from these thousands of bottles and found two that also contained cyanide. These bottles came from stores in two nearby towns. Police visited the two sites but learned nothing. Through the media, they warned people about the poisoned medicine and asked them to phone if they had any useful information.
Six days after Sue Snow's death, a woman named Stella Nickell phoned the police to report that her husband, Bruce, had died suddenly on June 5 after taking Extra-Strength Excedrin capsules. When the police searched Stella Nickell's house, they found two bottles of poisoned Extra-Strength Excedrin capsules.
A police detective thought something was very odd. The crime laboratory had tested over 740,000 Extra-Strength Excedrin capsules and found poisoned capsules in only five bottles; two from sites in nearby towns, one in Sue Snow's house and two in Stella Nickell's house. Mrs. Nickell claimed that she had bought her two bottles at two different stores on two different days. Contrary to what she claimed, the detective thought that it would be nearly impossible for one person to coincidentally buy two of the five poisoned bottles.
Could Stella Nickell have poisoned the capsules that killed her husband and Sue Snow? It didn't seem likely. She was a grandmother and worked as an airport security guard. Friends and family said that she and her husband seemed happy. Then detectives learned that Stella and her husband were deeply in debt. They also learned that Bruce Nickell had a life insurance policy that would pay Stella $31000 when he died, but would pay her $176,000 if his death were accidental. The detectives knew that money can be a strong motive for murder. They concluded that Stella had put cyanide in five Exccdrin bottles. She kept two and placed three others in nearby stores. Sue Snow bought one of chose bottles. Stella probably hoped that a careless drug company or a crazed person would be blamed If people died from the poisoned capsules. Stella probably thought she had created a clever scheme to make her husband's death seem accidental so she could collect $176,000.Although the detectives felt certain that Stella had poisoned the Excedrin, technically they were unable to link her to the poison. They wondered how she had learned about cyanide. At a public library near Stella's house, a librarian told detectives that Stella had borrowed several books about poison. One was named Human Poisoning. A crime laboratory examined these books and found 84 instances of Stella's fingerprints, most of them on pages about cyanide.

When confronted with the specific evidence agains her Stella admitted that she had put poison in the Exccdrin capsules. A jury panel found her guilty of murder, and a judge sentenced her to 99 years in prison. Logical thinking, persistent detective work, and science worked together to help the police solve the Crime.