Covers the trial between August 5th and August 19th.

Other Kissel related material can be found in the Kissel category.

Update August 5th

* ESWN: Nancy Kissel case part 37
* SCMP:

The last thing Nancy Kissel remembers about the day she allegedly bludgeoned her husband to death is him bloodied and bearing down on her with a baseball bat as she held a statue to her face, the Court of First Instance heard yesterday.

Minutes earlier, Robert Peter Kissel had told her he had filed for divorce, Kissel told the court.

The 41-year-old, trembling and weeping most of the time on her third day on the witness stand, said she could recall nothing more about events in and around the family's flat in Parkview, Tai Tam, on November 2, 2003, nor what happened afterwards - including a trip to Aberdeen to buy a rug from furniture store Tequila Kola and a series of activities the prosecution says she embarked on to cover up her husband's killing. Kissel has pleaded not guilty to murder.

She remembered making a milkshake with her children and a neighbour's daughter which the children then served to her husband, a top Merrill Lynch banker, and their neighbour Andrew Tanzer. The next recollection she had was of cleaning the kitchen while her husband was yelling at her.

Kissel, who is accused of drugging the deceased with a sedatives-laced milkshake before smashing in his skull with a heavy metal statue, said her husband had asked if she was listening, then told her: "I've filed for divorce. I am taking the kids."

I said: "What do you mean, that you are filing for divorce?"

She said he replied: "No, that's not what I said ... If you had listened, you would have heard what I said ... I have filed for divorce and I am taking the kids. That is a done deal."

He also said he had told his lawyers she was sick and unfit to take care of their children.

She recalled looking at her husband when he was standing at the doorway of the master bedroom with a baseball bat, which he told her was "for protection" in case she got "mad".

Demonstrating to the jurors with her hands, Kissel said the deceased started tapping the bat in his hand.

She paced back and forth in the hallway and "kept thinking about the bat", before picking up a metal statue from the dining room and walking back into the bedroom.

She said her husband smacked her face and grabbed her arm after she waved her finger in his face. She fell, dropping the statue.

"He pulled me into the room, pulled me onto the bed ... and started to have sex with me," she said. "I started kicking him. We ended up on the floor." Kissel said she reached for the statue on the floor and swung her arm back. "I didn't even look and I thought I hit something," she said. She turned around and saw her husband sitting near the closet, bleeding. "I tried to help him up and he wouldn't let me ... he pulled himself up ... touched his head and he saw it's bleeding." Beginning to tremble, she said he told her: "I am going to ****ing kill you." He kept hitting her knees with the bat and she swung back with the statue. "He kept saying: `I am going to kill you, you bitch'."

"I ended up on the floor and he moved on top with the bat ... in his hand ... He came down on me as I was holding the statue in front of my face," she said in a weak voice. Unable to carry on, Kissel sat, trembling and wordless, for almost a minute, the stares of all in the court fixed on her face. Finally, she said: "I can't remember."

"Can you tell me any more about this fight?" her counsel, Alexander King SC, asked. Kissel sat shaking for another half-minute, unable to give a reply.

"When was the last recollection of [what happened] between your husband and yourself in the bedroom on that day?" The defendant, trembling and shaking her head, replied: "I remember just being on the floor next to the bed."

"You know your husband had five injuries on his head, each of which could be fatal. Any recollection of that?" asked the counsel. "No," she replied.

"The master bedroom had been cleaned up in a number of ways. What recollections do you have of doing that?" asked Mr King. "I don't remember," she said. She also said she did not remember where her husband's body was on November 2, or if she had taken any of the sleeping pills or anti-depressants she had been prescribed.

The defendant was asked to identify a number of images taken from CCTV footage, which showed her numerous times in the lift and car park at Parkview starting from the early morning of Monday November 3, 2003. The photos also depicted her dragging a suitcase, and carrying a rug on her shoulder. "I don't remember Monday," she said. She said she recalled driving her car downhill at about 2am on Monday but had no idea where she went. She also remembered working that morning but could not recall sending the e-mails she had sent.

"When did you have your first realisation that your husband was dead?" asked Mr King. The defendant said "bits and pieces" only started coming back to her six months after she was admitted to Siu Lam Psychiatric Centre. "I started to remember things, images, and just pieces of things that didn't really make sense to me."

The case continues today before Mr Justice Michael Lunn.

Update August 6th

* ESWN has an excellent ongoing collection of links to local and international press coverage: Nancy Kissel case Part 38. Read the end of ESWN's report for some more detailed, albeit unpublished, reports from the trial.
* SCMP:

Nancy Kissel yesterday admitted she killed her husband after inflicting multiple injuries to his head with a metal ornament. But she could not recall why her father appeared at their luxury Parkview home, or her reporting to police that her husband had beaten her up - events that took place in the four days following the alleged murder.

Prosecutor Peter Chapman began his cross-examination of Kissel in the Court of First Instance by asking her: "Do you accept that you killed Robert Kissel?" She replied: "Yes." Mr Chapman asked if she agreed she had used the metal ornament - identified by her yesterday - to inflict the injuries on Robert Peter Kissel as shown on a diagram drawn by the prosecution's pathologist. "Yes," she said. The pathologist said earlier that he found five potentially fatal wounds on the right side of the deceased's brain.

Mr Chapman sought to cast doubt on Kissel's allegations that her husband had sexually and physically assaulted her since they arrived in Hong Kong in 1998. He asked if she had ever screamed out during her husband's episodes of sexual violence, which left her with broken ribs and bleeding from the anus. "I cried a lot. I may have [screamed]," she replied.

"Did anyone ever hear you in your household, Mrs Kissel, in those five years?" he asked. "I don't know... A lot of times, I just cried," she said, adding that her two Filipino maids, who lived in the flat, would be off-duty after 7pm. "Did you ever consider going ... to your friends to say I can't take it any more?" Mr Chapman asked. "No... People hear what they wanted to hear," she said. Mr Chapman asked if she had ever sought medical attention for the bleeding and injuries caused by anal sex allegedly forced on her by her husband. She said she had not because "it's humiliating".

Asked if her husband had used condoms during sex, she said no. Mr Chapman then asked if she knew whether Robert had slept with other women and had anal sex with them during his frequent business trips in Asia. "No," she replied. Reminding her that one of her close friends in New York had died of sexually transmitted Aids, Mr Chapman asked why she did not go for a check-up. She said they had a check for HIV when they married and she did not believe her husband would be an Aids carrier.

The prosecutor asked if Kissel had told a psychiatrist her husband was expelled from high school for using drugs. She said yes. Kissel said on Wednesday she had to pay for Robert's studies and cocaine when living in New York. But yesterday she said she did not know how much she had paid for the drug because she was paying for a variety of things.

Asked if she had seen Robert with a supply of cocaine in Hong Kong, the accused said: "I have never seen bags, mostly bottles." Mr Chapman asked which of the prosecution witnesses' evidence she disputed. "[There were] so many people saying things that I don't have a recollection of," she said. "I am not sure whether they were right or wrong."

She disagreed with Robert's sister, Jane Clayton, when she said he was a "loyal, protective" husband. She did not believe Conchita Macaraeg, the maid who worked for her family and travelled with them for years, knew nothing about her fight with Robert. But it was difficult to pinpoint her other disputes because there had been weeks of evidence, she said.

In his examination-in-chief yesterday morning, defence counsel Alexander King SC asked Kissel to identify the baseball bat she said her husband kept in the bedroom. She stepped over to see the bat and returned to her seat trembling. She said he also had another similar bat in a closet. Kissel told the court she remembered one of the figurines flew off the base of the metal ornament during her struggle with her husband on November 2.

"What caused it to fly off?" Mr Chapman asked. "The bat ... when it was swung," she said. She said earlier that her husband was beating her with the bat while she tried to defend herself with the ornament in the bedroom, but that she could not remember what happened afterwards. Mr King told the accused she had earlier admitted putting sleeping pills in her husband's whisky bottle when they were staying at their holiday home in Vermont in the summer of 2003. She said she wanted to calm him down after seeing him hurt their eldest daughter, Elaine.

"Did you ever do the same thing in Hong Kong?" he asked. Kissel said she tried drugging a whisky bottle with sleeping pills again after returning from a trip to New York with her husband. But she got scared when she saw the pill settle at the bottom of the bottle in the "very bright" cabinet of the living room. She threw the bottle away and went to a supermarket, Great, to buy another bottle to replace it. "I never did it again. I never thought about it," she said.

Mr King asked what she could say about the prosecution's allegations that she drugged a milkshake with a cocktail of sedatives before serving it to the deceased and another Parkview resident, Andrew Tanzer. Kissel said on Wednesday that her two children and Mr Tanzer's daughter had helped her prepare the milkshake.

"It's a milkshake that I made for my children and someone else's children. I wouldn't harm my own children. I wouldn't harm someone else's children... I made the milkshake for my children in the afternoon. That's what I remembered," she said. Mr King asked if she had any recollection of visiting doctor Annabelle Dytham in a Wan Chai clinic on the morning of November 6, 2003. "I don't remember," she replied.

Mr King asked if she remembered reporting to the police on November 6 about her husband's physical assault and handing over to officers a medical report from Dr Dytham on her multiple injuries - evidence given by prosecution witnesses. "I don't ... I don't know that," she replied.

Kissel was also shown CCTV stills of herself and her father, Ira Keeshin, in the lift of her Parkview block on November 5. "Do you know why he came to Hong Kong?" Mr King asked. "I remember speaking to him on the phone and not very clear the conversation I had with him. He said he was coming out to be with me," she said. But she did not know when he arrived in Hong Kong and could not recall where they went on that day.

Update August 9th

* ESWN: Nancy Kissel part 39
* The Standard: I still love him, says Kissel.
* SCMP:

Nancy Kissel cried out "I still love my husband" in court yesterday after a prosecutor argued she was seeking to paint Robert Peter Kissel as an abusive husband and father.
Prosecutor Peter Chapman also cast doubts on her claims of memory loss surrounding November 2, 2003, the date she is alleged to have bludgeoned her banker husband to death in the bedroom of their Parkview flat. He said Kissel's own lawyer had told the court she had no psychiatric problem or suicidal history in applying for bail last year.

Kissel, 41, said yesterday she had never approached anyone - including her maids, good friends, parents at Hong Kong International School or the rabbi of United Jewish Congregation - to talk about her husband's sexual and physical assaults before her visits to a marriage counsellor, a general practitioner and a psychiatrist in the latter half of 2003. She said she told the doctors of the assaults but did not know if she had told them about the anal sex she alleged her husband had forced on her.

"Who do you think was appropriate [to approach]?" asked Mr Chapman. "I hadn't thought about approaching anyone," she said.

"Because it's not happening, Mrs Kissel?" said Mr Chapman, who argued there was no witness to support her allegations of abuse by her husband. "Because it's something I chose to accept for a number of years ... It was something I was very ashamed of," she said. "Something I am still ashamed of."

Kissel, who also worked as a freelance photographer taking pictures for families, was asked if she had any photographic record of her injuries. She said she was not in possession of her photos.

Mr Chapman asked Kissel, who earlier recalled two incidents when her two daughters were disciplined by their father with force, if she was trying to "paint a picture of Robert Kissel as abusive to his children".

Kissel, who said the violence was isolated incidents that had terrified her, burst into tears. "I didn't try to paint a picture of him ... I still love him. Things happened. I stayed with him. I loved him, and I am not sitting here to paint a bad picture about him, because he's my husband," she said.

Mr Justice Michael Lunn ordered a break for Kissel to compose herself. Remaining motionless in the witness box for five seconds, she then looked at the judge and said in tears: "He's my husband ... It's so hard." She continued crying while returning to the dock.

Mr Chapman also challenged Kissel, who has pleaded not guilty to one count of murder, on the absence of any mention of "amnesia" or "memory loss" in her medical reports in Siu Lam Psychiatric Centre and her refusal to have Henry Yuen, the chief of service at the centre's Department of Forensic Science, who treated her between late-2003 and late-2004, as her expert witness.

Mr Chapman, who read out transcripts of Kissel's bail application last November, said her lawyer at that time, John Griffiths SC, told the court all the medical reports said she was "acting, behaving and sounding perfectly normal". Her friends who visited her at Siu Lam said "she's perfectly normal as she was before". She was subsequently granted bail.

Dr Yuen's report, dated November 19, 2003, a day after Kissel was sent to custody in Siu Lam Psychiatric Centre, said Kissel "attended psychiatric services" and "never had suicidal history". Kissel told the court last week she had attempted suicide by switching on her car engine in Vermont and had searched the internet for drugs that cause a heart attack.

"Was that true?" Mr Chapman asked about the report. "It's referring to my session in Siu Lam. When the [psychiatrist] would ask me specifically if I had any suicidal thoughts while I was in prison," Kissel replied.

"But you've only been there for a day," Mr Chapman said. "I don't know if I said that or not after being there for one day," she replied.

Mr Chapman said the report also stated Kissel's "consciousness level: alert; mood: neutral; attitude: co-operative; speech: relevant and coherent; suicidal idea: deny." Another report, dated May 2004, said she was "not morbidly depressed" and had "good reality testing".

The prosecutor asked if the findings were the reason why she did not consent to Dr Yuen being her expert witness in court. But Kissel said it was the psychiatrist himself who had reservations on whether he would be of help.

Kissel, a prominent parent at the Hong Kong International School, said she "wore a lot of make-up" and "put on a good face" as a disguise as her husband's alleged violence escalated in 2002. "I talked to people how great my life was," she said. "I never once complained to anybody. I never ever showed anything that's going on in my life ... I worked very hard on it in front of my children."

Update August 10th

* ESWN Kissel case part 40 - includes translations of Chinese press coverage.
* The Standard: Kissel lover viewed her as a 'goldmine'.
* SCMP:

Nancy Kissel "shopped around for drugs" and made numerous phone calls to her lover in Vermont shortly before she killed her husband, prosecutor Peter Chapman told the Court of First Instance yesterday.
He suggested her lover, who lived in a trailer park, had treated her as a "potential gold mine".

Mr Chapman argued in his cross-examination of Kissel, 41, that she had known by September 2003 that a divorce with her banker husband, Robert Peter Kissel, was "a real possibility". But Kissel said that was just something she burst out with when they were arguing during a session with a marriage counsellor. Kissel admitted Robert phoned her during her stay in Vermont with her children in the summer of 2003 to tell her he knew of her affair with TV repairman Michael Del Priore.

Mr Chapman asked if she was concerned about the evidence her husband had about her adultery and how she would fare in a divorce. "No doubt your thoughts turned to money? Another issue may have been child custody?" he asked. But Kissel said her focus had always been on her children's wellbeing and life in Hong Kong. She said she did not know in October that Robert had discovered she had a "secret mobile phone", nor that he had spoken to his siblings, private investigators, friends and solicitors about divorce.

Referring to phone bills, Mr Chapman pointed out her calls with her lover grew more intense in September and October - 52 calls in September, 41 in the first half of October and 65 in the second half, with conversations as long as four hours. The phone calls lasted until November 1, stopped on November 2 and began again afterwards.

Mr Chapman said: "You represented a potential gold mine to him, didn't you?"

Kissel replied: "No, not at all. He had an understanding of what my life was about ... the struggle of accepting who I was. People assume people with money [are] so happy with their life ... I am tired of it."

Mr Chapman said: "This man called you back, spending hours on the telephone, and hundreds and hundreds of US dollars, which a resident of a trailer park couldn't afford? I suggest, Mrs Kissel, he considered it a good investment ... in you?"

Kissel replied: "He's someone I spoke to on a daily basis, yes ... He's someone I was able to talk to without judgment."

Mr Chapman pointed out there were seven calls between Kissel and Mr Del Priore on October 23 alone, when she said she visited doctor Annabelle Dytham to talk about her husband's alleged sexual and physical assault.

Mr Chapman: "By the time you went to Dr Dytham on October 23, you were well aware that divorce was on the cards?"

Kissel: "No. He was very clear ... with me that divorce was not a solution." She said earlier she was prescribed 10 tablets of Rohypnol on that visit.

The court heard Kissel went to the clinic on October 28 and was prescribed 20 tablets of the painkiller dextropropoxythene. On October 30, she said she consulted a psychiatrist, identified as Dr Fong, and was prescribed Lorivan, Ambien and amitriptyline. Those three drugs, Rohypnol and Axotal were found in the stomach and liver of the deceased.

Mr Chapman: "Did you tell Dr Fong that `I am taking Rohypnol?'"

Kissel: "I don't remember."

Mr Chapman: "You were shopping for drugs, didn't you?"

Kissel: "No."

Mr Chapman pointed out that the phone records showed she had called her lover before and after her three clinical visits. But she said she had not told him about the visits. Kissel said she was given instructions by Dr Fong on how to take the drugs together, but she said she did not remember the instructions.

"Robert Kissel appeared to be taking them all together with two as an added bonus, didn't he?" asked Mr Chapman.

"I don't know," she replied.

Mr Chapman asked how she justified her evidence that she attempted suicide but on the same day wrote to friends about plans, including going for tea or lunch at the Mandarin Oriental.

Realizing that the knowledge of her affair with an electrician living in a trailer park would disadvantage her in divorce proceedings, accused murderer, Nancy Kissel went on a ``shopping spree for drugs'' the week before her banker husband Robert Kissel was murdered, the prosecution suggested in the High Court, Tuesday.
At the same time, the lover, Michael Del Priore, considered the accused a ``goldmine'' and was willing to invest time and money on long-distance calls, which increased in frequency in the months leading to the alleged murder and intensified on significant dates, such as the day the accused was prescribed Rohypnol, the court heard.
Senior Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions, Peter Chapman, also suggested that it was ``nonsense'' that the accused had felt so lonely that she searched for ``medication causing heart attack'' on the internet to commit suicide, because e-mail records suggest at the time she had plenty of social functions with her female friends to go to.
She was also ``intimately familiar with sleeping pills and painkillers'' by this time, said Chapman, and could have just taken any one of the bottles she said was lying around the house to kill herself. Regarding the accused's testimony that she searched for Rohypnol on October 23, 2003, because she was prescribed it and had not heard of it before, Chapman commented: ``So Dr [Annabel] Dythin is the sort of doctor who doesn't tell her patient what she's prescribing is she?''
Kissel replied she wanted to find out more about the drug. She said she never thought of leaving her husband, was visiting alternative doctors, not shopping for drugs, and was spending more time on the phone to Del Priore because the intensity of Robert's abuse was increasing.
Throughout the trial, the prosecution has suggested that Nancy Kissel was the primary beneficiary of the deceased's life insurance policies. His sister, Jane Clayton, the first prosecution witness, estimated his estate to be worth US$18 million, including stocks, cash, real estate and life insurance.
Tuesday, Chapman continued with his third day of cross-examination. He suggested that by August, the accused had no intention to salvage the marriage.
``Michael Del Priore was the man you loved. He was the man in your life,'' said Chapman.
Kissel replied that he was the person she had become very close with since they shared a lot and that ``he continued to give support.''
``Del Priore lived in a trailer park right?'' asked Chapman. ``No,'' she answered.
``In a stationary mobile home?'' suggested Chapman. ``I believe something like that,'' she replied.
``And you represented a potential goldmine to him didn't you Mrs Kissel?'' said the prosecutor.
``No, he had an understanding of what my life was about,'' she said
Kissel said he did not judge her by what she possessed and accepted her as a person.
Chapman pointed out that in the month of September, 2003, Kissel made 52 calls to Del Priore and then 106 calls in October. On the day she was prescribed Rohypnol, a drug found in the stomach of the deceased, she made seven calls to Del Priore before and after her meeting with the doctor.
At the end of August, two days before her husband returned home from New York from back surgery, the accused had searched for sleeping pills, ``drug overdose'' and ``medication causing heart attack.'' That day, she had spoken to Del Priore for over three hours.
The accused said she never talked about receiving the drugs, nor her thoughts of suicide to Del Priore.
Chapman noted that the ``pattern'' was she would only call for a few seconds, and then receive a call back from Del Priore, but the accused said she would not pay for the return call.
``This man called you back, spending hours on the telephone, spending hundreds and hundreds of US dollars, which a resident at a trailer park can ill-afford,'' said Chapman.
``He worked,'' she replied.
``I suggest to you, he considered that a good investment,'' said Chapman.
Prosecution witnesses have testified that they thought the accused realized her husband had discovered her secret mobile phone which she used to contact Del Priore and that he was preparing divorce papers.
The accused said Tuesday, she did not know he knew of the secret mobile phone at the time.
``So he didn't come and confront you and beat you up? That would seem a bit out of character wouldn't it?'' asked Chapman.
Nancy replied, ``yes, it would seem so'' and did not know why he didn't confront her.
By the end of October, ``you had 10 tablets of Rohypnol provided on the 23rd and 20 tablets of Dextropropoxythene provided on the 28th -- that's 10 pretty good nights of sleep and plenty of painkillers,'' said Chapman.
``Then on 30th October, off you go to Dr Fung and you end up with Lorivan, Amitryptaline and some more Stilnox,'' he noted.
Nancy agreed, but said she switched to Dr Fung, because he was a psychiatrist, and more suitable than the previous doctor.
``Three days after that,'' said Chapman, ``those three drugs end up in Robert Kissel's stomach, Mrs Kissel, along with the Rohypnol.
``In relation to those four drugs. How were you supposed to take them?'' he asked.
``As directed,'' she replied.
``All together?'' Chapman asked.
She said she was not sure, but would have taken them according to instructions.
``Robert Kissel seemed to have taken them all together on 2nd November with two as an added bonus, didn't he?'' asked Chapman.
``I don't know,'' she replied.
Nancy Kissel is accused of serving her Merrill Lynch banker husband a pink milkshake laced with sedatives, which left him unconscious at the foot of the bed as she bludgeoned him to death with the heavy metal ornament on November 2, 2003.
The decomposing body of Robert Kissel, a former high-flying banker with Merrill Lynch, was found wrapped in a rug, locked in a storeroom at their Parkview residential complex in the early hours of the November 7.
Kissel testified last week that she thought he was going to kill her that night during which they had a furious argument about divorce, resulting his attempt to have sex with her.
In resisting the sex, she knocked him on the head, which resulted in him swinging a baseball bat at her while repeatedly saying, ``I'm going to kill you, you bitch.''
Last week she admitted that she inflicted the fatal wounds with the metal ornament, but said she could not remember any further details about the fight, and her consequent actions. She denies the murder charge and is out on bail.
Tuesday, Chapman suggested that the accused returned to Hong Kong on July 30 from Vermont, only to go back to New York on August 3 with her husband because she would have the opportunity to make a sneak visit to Del Priore in Central Park.
Kissel said she did meet him then and there for half an hour, but the purpose of that trip was to support her husband through back surgery.
The accused said that in this period, the ``anal sex, cocaine use and painkillers'' continued.
Chapman said that the banker's doctor in Adventist Hospital gave the impression, ``he was a cripple, barely able to walk, destined for New York to have back surgery.''
``That's what painkillers are for,'' said the accused. She said, ``he still drank, he took drugs. He was a very capable person of getting things he wanted from me.''
Chapman pointed out that the deceased had by September, known web pages for drugs had been visited, half-jokingly expressed concerns for his life to his confidante, wondered to his private investigator whether his whisky was being tampered with, and did not trust his wife -- ``that's something that would put a stop to his drinking isn't it?'' he asked.
She said he continued drinking.
The prosecutor also noted she had written in her computer diary, ``he wants kissing, sex, sex, sex'' and that when she refused, he would ``throw a fit, opened his book, and stick his nose in the book.''
``Was that an accurate description of your sex life?'' he asked. She said she couldn't understand the kissing, given his forceful sodomy.
According to Nancy's testimony, ``Robert would not take no for an answer and would extract sex through violence that's not what it says here is it?'' said Chapman. ``Sex doesn't fix things,'' she replied and that the sex didn't correlate with him reading the book.
Earlier, the prosecutor noted that in the literature from her computer diary, there was no mention of cocaine or forceful sodomy.

Update August 11th

* ESWN: Kissel case part 41 including a translation of Ming Pao's coverage.
* The Standard: Kissel told 'plain, simple lies'.
* SCMP:

Nancy Kissel and her husband had a terrible argument at home which caused them to miss a private session with former US president George Bush before a banquet, the Court of First Instance heard yesterday.
She testified that, when her husband told her he was furious they had missed the event, she went over to the former president, who was at the next table, tapped him on the shoulder and said: "My husband was a great fans of yours. Would you mind if he talks to you?"

The court was shown a photo the couple had taken with Mr Bush.

The defendant, who has told of being sexually and physically assaulted night after night by Robert Peter Kissel, described the incident while being questioned about why she always wore a "happy, smiling, unmarked" face at public gatherings with her husband in the two months before she allegedly murdered him.

Prosecutor Peter Chapman asked Kissel if she sustained injuries from those assaults in September and October 2003, when, he said, she was often "out and about in public". Kissel, 41, who denies her husband's murder, said: "It's possible that something was visible. It's possible that I tried my best sometimes with cosmetics and things like tanning cream."

The prosecutor challenged the defendant on the significantly different accounts she gave two doctors of her husband's assault on her on November 2, 2003, the day of his death. He said that, two days after that, she told Annabelle Dytham that her husband, drunk, had demanded sex but she had refused. The doctor's report said they were running around the bedroom before the deceased grabbed and kicked her. She defended herself with a fork. The report, a copy of which was sent to the police when she reported the assault on November 6, also recorded a long list of injuries on her body.

But the defendant told a psychiatrist in January this year that her husband was beating her with a baseball bat while she was defending herself with a metal ornament.

"On November 4, 2003, you gave an explanation to Dr Dytham and there was no suggestion that you had a problem recalling events?" asked the prosecutor. But the defendant, who said earlier she had lost much of her memory of events on November 2, said she could not remember the visit.

"Your claim here of memory loss is ... a lie, isn't Mrs Kissel?" he asked. "I was not aware at that time that I had memory loss," she said.

Mr Chapman suggested Kissel had practised "three levels of deception" on Dr Dytham, the police and her father, Ira Keeshin, who flew to Hong Kong from the US shortly after the alleged murder. He argued that the accused only told her father about the killing when the police went to the family's apartment in Parkview, Tai Tam, on November 6, which explained why he cried out, "Oh, my God. I don't believe it" when officers asked for the keys to a storeroom where, the court has heard, the body of the top Merrill Lynch banker was found rolled up in an old carpet. "I don't know," Kissel said. "There are things that I don't understand. That's a part of my life that was taken away from me."

"The person who had his life taken away by you was Mr Kissel," said Mr Chapman.

The prosecutor also argued that Kissel had served the deceased a drugged milkshake.

"By November 2003, there was absolutely no way Robert Kissel was going to take a drink from you, Mrs Kissel," he said. Earlier evidence suggested that the deceased told his friends his suspicions that the defendant was drugging his whisky. "He continued eating with me. He continued drinking his scotch," she answered.

The visit of Andrew Tanzer, another Parkview resident, and his daughter that afternoon had suddenly presented an opportunity for Kissel, he said. "You didn't bring the milkshake to the men, you asked the girls to do it ... because you knew Robert Kissel would never take it from you," he said.

Kissel said she made the milkshake for the children.

She was also asked why, when the deceased armed himself with a baseball bat after having told her he would divorce her and take the children, her "weapon of choice" was a dining room ornament. "In the kitchen was a far superior array of defensive weapons - Connie and Min," said Mr Chapman, referring to her domestic helpers.

"How did you get the better of Mr Kissel using the ornament?" he asked. She said she could not recall the number of blows her statue warded off. "You were able to deliver those five accurate, fatal blows because Robert Kissel was unable to defend himself. You had rendered him defenceless by drugging him," he said. "No, no," she replied.

Update August 12th

* ESWN: Nancy Kissel part 42
* The Standard: Calls to lover as Kissel covered up.
* SCMP:

Nancy Kissel called her Vermont lover in the early morning after she allegedly murdered her husband and spoke to him many times over the next few days when she embarked on a series of activities to cover up the killing, the Court of First Instance heard yesterday.
Prosecutor Peter Chapman said bills for Kissel's "secret mobile phone" showed she had spoken for 24 minutes to Michael Del Priore, a TV repairman living in a trailer park in Vermont, at 7.41am on November 3, 2003. "By that time, you are unlikely to need a sympathetic ear about an abusive husband?" he asked Kissel.

She said she had often spoken to Mr Del Priore about different things, not only about her marriage. "During this call, did you tell Michael you had solved your problem?" Mr Chapman asked. "I don't remember," said Kissel, who had earlier told the court she had lost her memory of many events surrounding November 2.

Evidence given earlier indicated Kissel and her lover spoke almost daily in September and October, sometimes many times a day, with calls lasting for hours. The bills show that at about 9.30am on November 3, Kissel was speaking to Mr Del Priore for 23 minutes, at a time when CCTV stills at Parkview indicated she was out shopping. Kissel said she could not recall the conversation but she spoke to him a lot when shopping. Mr Chapman said there was a third phone call at 6.20pm.

On November 4, Kissel spoke to Mr Del Priore once before and five times after her visit to doctor Annabelle Dytham between 9am and 10am, when she told the doctor of her husband's sexual and physical assaults in their bedroom two days earlier. The doctor's report said she was "tearful", "slow to move" and had "total body pain".

Mr Chapman said the accused went on "three separate shopping expeditions" on November 4, with CCTV stills showing her carrying back shopping bags, a rug and a suitcase. But Kissel said she had never stopped any activities because of her husband's assaults. "Your body has become on auto-pilot... I do it ... for my children," she said, adding that she sometimes had to buy new sheets to replace those bloodstained from anal sex her husband forced on her.

Mr Chapman said the long-distance calls continued until November 6, the day before Kissel's arrest. Throughout that period, he said she had made arrangements for a storeroom - where the deceased's body was found wrapped in an old carpet - to be cleaned and sent her two maids on shopping trips.

"While all of this is going on, you were continuing to speak to Michael Del Priore?" he said.

Kissel, shown the bills, said: "It appears to be ... three months' continuation of phone calls. Yes." She said later that she had not contacted him after November 2003.

Mr Chapman: "After the five years of horror you had endured in the hands of Robert Kissel, what was left in your relationship apart from money?"

Kissel: "It's the graduation of things that's developed ... turning into something that was horrible. It's a lot of acceptance I've chosen to do."

However, Desmond Fung, a psychiatrist who saw Kissel on August 29 and October 30, said when testifying after the defendant yesterday that her account of severe distress sounded plausible.

"How did she present herself?" asked Alexander King SC, for the defence.

"She's describing everything in ... sequence. I did not detect evidence that she's making up a story," the psychiatrist said.

On her first visit, Kissel told him about her relationship and their fights. She said she could only sleep three to four hours a day. Dr Fung prescribed her 10 tablets of Stilnox or Ambien to help her sleep.

On her second visit, she told Dr Fung the pills were not effective and her marriage had deteriorated. He said he prescribed three types of sleeping pills and anti-depressants - Stilnox, Lorivan and amitriptyline, a combination to treat tenacious sleeping problems.

At times in tears, Kissel told Dr Fung her husband was "extremely powerful", "someone who had brought Merrill Lynch to Asia". But he was a "five-minute father" who was never around.

In cross-examination, Mr Chapman suggested Kissel and her husband had never had the August 27 joint session with a psychologist she told Dr Fung about during her first visit. "Would that surprise you?" he asked. Dr Fung agreed and said he was not aware of that.

ESWN has also posted the regular update schedule of various news services:
[Administrative Note] If you are a regular visitor on account of the Nancy Kissel case, then here is the schedule on regular weekdays when the court is in session:
- At some time during the early evening, Bloomberg, AP and/or Reuters will issue their brief reports for the day at the court.
- At some time after midnight, The Hong Kong Standard will post Albert Wong's report(s) online (see the entire archive)
- Early in the morning, South China Morning Post will post Polly Hui's report(s) online (see the entire archive; subscription required)
- Early in the morning, Made In China will link to all the local Hong Kong Chinese-language new items for the five major newspapers (Oriental Daily, The Sun, MingPao, Sing Tao, Sing Pao; but Apple Daily is shielded behind subscription) online. Yahoo! News is slightly slower. The ESWN blog will try to translate those reports as quickly as possible (dependiing on our entertainment duties on the previous night!).
This has been a public service announcement from your favorite website.

Update August 13th

* The Standard: Kissel 'pain' disproportionate to injury: doctor.
* SCMP:

A doctor yesterday described bruises and swelling on the body of Nancy Anne Kissel two days after she is alleged to have murdered her husband, but she said the patient's "subjective thinking" of her pain was "disproportionate" to her actual injuries.
Doctor Annabelle Dytham said the defendant was in "total body pain" and had restricted movement when she saw her in a Wan Chai clinic on November 4, 2003..

"I felt a little frustrated that everywhere I touched, Nancy was painful, [even] in places with no physical injuries," the doctor, who flew from Singapore to give evidence for the defence, said during cross-examination by prosecutor Peter Chapman.

"I am not used to dealing with psychosomatic pain - patients who have pain where there is no actual physical injury."

Kissel, 41, is accused of bludgeoning her husband, Merill Lynch banker Robert Peter Kissel, to death in their Parkview flat on November 2, 2003. She has pleaded not guilty to murder.

Dr Dytham, who had treated Kissel a few times since early 2002, earlier told defence counsel Alexander King SC Kissel had called the clinic at about 8.30am that morning and asked to see her at 9am.

She said that when Kissel arrived at her practice, she walked in a "hunched-over fashion" and started to cry after sitting down. Describing Kissel as "always well-dressed", she said the patient, wearing a pair of dark glasses, white top and black pants, was "not dressed to her usual standard".

Kissel said her husband had attempted to have sex with her in the bedroom but she had declined.

The doctor said Kissel told her the banker had used his "fists and feet only" to inflict injuries on her, and she had defended herself with a fork held the wrong way around.

A physical examination found Kissel had slightly swollen and cracked lips, swollen fingers and puncture wounds on the inner crease of her right hand - which she believed went along with the story of the defence with a fork.

She was bruised from the right to the elbow with finger marks. Her left arm and shoulders were painful to touch but had no bruising and had full-range movement. Kissel also complained of pain in her ribs, collar bones and chest as well as decreased range of movement of her spine and upper thigh. There were bruises - including one 15cm by 7.5cm on her shin - and four markings on her legs. The doctor suspected Kissel had broken ribs and sent her for an X-ray, the results of which were negative.

In cross-examination, Mr Chapman showed closed-circuit television stills indicating Kissel went on several shopping trips and returned home with a suitcase, rug and shopping bags on November 3.

He asked the doctor if the images surprised her.

"I can't see the speed in which Nancy's moving [in the stills] ... I don't know how heavy the suitcase was. There's no facial expression. People are known to be able to struggle through all sorts of injuries," she said.

"I can say I am a little surprised. However, if Nancy had come to me to report injuries on November 4, I could understand a possible exaggeration of the pain given that she had been assaulted and she might want to make a court case out of it."

The doctor recalled Kissel received a phone call in the middle of the consultation and said to the caller "I am with Annabelle at the moment". She heard a younger male's voice on the other end.

Kissel told her it was a good friend from the United States who had given good support. Phone records revealed earlier indicated Kissel had several phone conversations that day with TV repairman Michael Del Priore, her lover in Vermont, including one during her visit to Dr Dytham.

Mr Chapman asked if she had advised Kissel to report to the police. "There was no mention of rape. So, I didn't go down that channel," she said. But she had given a copy of her medical notes to Kissel, thinking they might be of use if she decided to go to the police or ended up in a divorce case.

Kissel handed the notes to officers when she reported the alleged assault by her husband to the police on November 6.

"During her course of description of events, did she mention to you that Robert Kissel had used a weapon to assault her on Sunday?" Mr Chapman asked.

Dr Dytham replied no.

The doctor said she had no problem understanding anything Kissel had said and that she did not believe the patient had difficulties in recollecting what had occurred two days before.

In a consultation on October 23, Kissel had complained to the doctor of suffering from insomnia and marital problems after she commented on how well she looked, Dr Dytham said.

Kissel also told her that she had been assaulted by her husband since late 2002. The doctor's notes recorded "alleged assault" and "subsequent violations" by the deceased as well as Kissel's "low libido".

But she said she had not complained of injuries, anal sex or rape. "At no time did I think she was dangerous to herself or anyone else," Dr Dytham said.

Mr Chapman told Dr Dytham that computer records had shown the accused was making arrangements for breast-lift surgery in the US 45 minutes after the visit to her clinic.

Dr Dytham prescribed Kissel 10 tablets of Rohypnol after she complained Stilnox did not help her sleep. But she said she was not in the habit of prescribing the drug to her patients because it was a strong hypnotic that could cause black-outs in users who drank.

* ESWN points to a New York Times article outlining the problems facing the Kissel children.
* Phil links to another article on Andrew Kissel.

Update August 16th

* The Standard: Accused's pain 'not exaggerated'
* SCMP:

Nowhere on Nancy Kissel's body did doctor Annabelle Dytham, who examined Kissel two days after she killed her husband, see anything to suggest she had received "serious forceful blows" from an object such as a baseball bat, the Court of First Instance heard yesterday.
But Dr Dytham said Kissel may not have been exaggerating the pain she was suffering from an alleged assault by her husband - contradicting her testimony on Friday that she may have overstated it. The doctor made the statement yesterday after defence counsel told her of tests that suggested Kissel had musculo-skeletal injuries.

During cross-examination by prosecutor Peter Chapman, Dr Dytham was asked to view and touch the baseball bat that Kissel, 41, claims Robert Peter Kissel used to beat her in their bedroom on November 2, 2003, the day she is accused of murdering her husband. Mr Chapman asked Dr Dytham what injuries she would expect to see if a man had used the bat to land forceful blows on a woman. She said bruises, possible bone fractures and - if hit on the head - possible loss of consciousness.

"In relations to injuries you had noted in your medical notes, were they consistent with an assault by Robert Kissel, threatening to kill Nancy Kissel by the use of a baseball bat?" Mr Chapman asked. The list of Kissel's injuries recorded by Dr Dytham on November 4 included swollen fingers, puncture wounds to the right hand, pain in the ribs, chest and shoulders, and leg bruises and markings. X-rays showed no fractures.

"The injuries suggested there was an assault. Whether the bat was used forcibly or whether the bat was used, I am unable to comment," Dr Dytham said. "As far as I can see, there's no area that implies serious forceful blows."...Kissel went to see Dr Dytham "in total body pain" on the morning of November 4, alleging her husband had used his feet and fists to attack her, but she did not mention a baseball bat during the visit.

Dr Dytham was asked to study photos of the deceased wrapped in the carpet and weigh the new rug the accused carried home on November 3. She was asked if she was surprised by Kissel's ability to roll up her husband and carry the new carpet with her injuries.

"Nancy was very distressed when I saw her. If it now seems that she's admitted she had killed her husband, then I could imagine how frantic she must have been and desperate to destroy or remove any evidence under those circumstances," Dr Dytham said. "Given how she presented herself to me, I am surprised. Given how she was exaggerating her injuries, then I am not surprised."

In re-examination, defence counsel Alexander King SC told Dr Dytham two blood tests, which detect injuries to skeletal muscles, conducted after Kissel's arrest on November 7 recorded CK levels of 358 and 450 per litre. The normal CK level was 24 to 180, he said. Referring to the findings, Mr King asked: "Would that suggest to you that the pain may not have been exaggerated?" The witness said: "Yes. I cannot comment on the subjective level of pain with the level of CK. But yes, you are right."

Mr King asked: "If someone was holding the ornament to protect herself from the blows from a bat and the bat came into contact with the ornament, would the shock transfer itself to the joints of the elbows and shoulders?" Dr Dytham said this was possible and that there could be injuries to the ribs even without a fracture.

"You were aware when Nancy Kissel came to see you, she had been in the room with Robert Kissel's body for one or two nights?" Mr King asked. Dr Dytham said she had not been aware that was so.

Update August 17th

* The Standard: Accused's father tells of his shock.
* SCMP:

Nancy Kissel's father jumped onto a plane to Hong Kong in fear for his daughter and grandchildren after she told him that she had been beaten up "pretty badly" by her husband, the Court of First Instance heard yesterday. Ira Keeshin, when asked by defence counsel Alexander King SC to recall events on November 3, 2003, a day after his daughter killed Robert Peter Kissel, took in several deep breaths and said: "There are waves of emotions. I can't stop it. I got a phone call from Nancy about 7pm Hong Kong time ... She said: Dad, I've been beaten up pretty badly." She also told him her husband had left home after the assault.

Kissel, 41, has admitted killing Robert Peter Kissel with a metal ornament on November 2, 2003, but has pleaded not guilty to murder.

Mr Keeshin said his son from the second of his three marriages, Brooks Keeshin, a medical doctor involved in shelters for battered women, urged him to take a flight from Chicago to Hong Kong. He said his son, who also gave evidence yesterday, said to him: "Dad, this is a defining moment in your relationship with Nancy. When men beat up their wives, sometimes they come back to kill her and their children."

Mr Keeshin said: "I told her to double bolt the doors. I couldn't conceive anything else other than what he and Nancy told me." Mr Keeshin, who landed in Hong Kong on November 5, said his daughter looked "terrible, beat up", with a cracked lip, a bruised hand and ribs strapped with a Velcro belt, when he arrived at her apartment in Parkview, Tai Tam.

He recalled Kissel shaking when he took her to Aberdeen police station on November 6. She was "spacey and erratic" and told him she could not recall events of the previous day. Mr Keeshin, who was staying at Parkview hotel at the time, said he received a call from Kissel at about 11pm on the 6th, telling him officers had gone to her flat and asking him to go over.

He said the head officer told him in the flat that they had a search warrant. "He said: `We're pretty sure we know where your son-in-law was.' He said he needs the keys to the storeroom. It's a huge shock, even imaging what had happened," he said. He recalled saying "goddamnit" when Kissel said she had lost the keys. But the keys were eventually given to the officers.

When some officers had left to search the storeroom, where the body was eventually found, Mr Keeshin asked for an ambulance for his daughter. "She was shaking pretty violently, the dog was barking, Reis [Kissel's youngest child] was wet. I got to change his diaper," he said.

Leaving Parkview for Ruttonjee Hospital with Kissel in the ambulance, Mr Keeshin recalled: "I looked out through the back window and saw a parade of cops. I thought, who could this be at 1am? And there was the press. I remember Nancy screaming when they went into the custodial ward... I broke down. It was very, very sad." When asked by Mr King about his impression of his son-in-law when he married his daughter in 1989, he said: "Good guy. He used me like his father, which I thought a lot of."

Robert had appointed him guardian of his children in his will. Mr Keeshin had never seen or detected the senior Merrill Lynch banker using illegal drugs, but added he had never lived with him. Mr Keeshin said he considered the couple's move to Hong Kong a "great success story". When he heard his daughter left Robert on a Canadian skiing trip after a fight in 2002, it was "the first time I began to realise that everything wasn't so glorious in terms of relationship".

In cross-examination, Mr Keeshin told prosecutor Peter Chapman his first wife, Kissel's mother, did not have a drinking problem or depression. He also said he had no tendency towards violence

Update August 18th

* The Standard: Defendant's friends recall various instances of abuse.
* SCMP:

Nancy Kissel shocked her friend when she asked how her husband was, shortly after she was arrested for killing him, the Court of First Instance heard yesterday. Geertruida Samra said Kissel did not seem to know during their conversation at the Siu Lam Psychiatric Centre that Robert Peter Kissel was already dead. The defence witness, described as one of Kissel's best friends in Hong Kong, recalled seeing Kissel step into the visitors' room assisted by a warden because she could hardly walk by herself.

The accused asked her friend: "Trudy, how's Rob?" Shocked, she replied: "Honey, Rob's gone. You know that right?" Kissel replied: "I don't know, I can't remember much."

Ms Samra said that they did not say much about events surrounding November 2, 2003, the day Kissel allegedly bludgeoned her husband to death after serving him a drugged milkshake. "It's not something that you bring up ... I never thought I should be so curious ... I trust her. I trust that, in my opinion, whatever happened was never meant to be," the witness told defence counsel Alexander King, SC...Ms Samra said Kissel had told her on the telephone on November 2 that she could not attend Ms Samra's birthday lunch on November 6 because "something terrible has happened to Rob". Ms Samra, who also lives in Parkview, said Kissel turned down her offer to go to her apartment to help out.

The witness, one of three people who stood surety for Kissel, said the accused had been vice-president of the Parent Faculty Organisation of the Hong Kong International School in 2001 when she was president. She said Kissel was a "sociable, giving" person who dedicated her life to her children. She recalled seeing her friend injured on three occasions, including once with a black eye. Earlier, in cross-examination by prosecutor Peter Chapman, Kissel's father, Ira Keeshin, said he had come to Hong Kong after a call from Kissel in November to tell him that she had been badly beaten by her husband.

Mr Keeshin said his daughter had told him during the family's visit to the Whistler ski resort in Vancouver in December 2002 that her husband had slammed her into a wall during a fight. But Mr Chapman showed him his statement to the police which said he had heard about this assault only during a November 3, 2003, phone call from his daughter. "I must have my time mixed up. The statement must be more accurate," he said.

He told Mr Chapman that Kissel had not told him she had arranged for her husband's body to be taken to a storeroom. He also said he could not recall if he had made inquiries about Robert Kissel's whereabouts after he had been missing for days. "I wasn't investigating anything, I was handling things, which I ended up doing the rest of the week," he said.

Contrary to police officers' accounts, he said he had not had a private conversation with his daughter before putting his hands up to his head saying: "Oh my God, I don't believe it" when the officers went to the Parkview flat to investigate on November 7. He said he had made the remark because he had realised what had happened after an inspector asked his daughter for storeroom keys and told him they were pretty sure they knew where the deceased was.

"What did you realise?" asked Mr Chapman.

"That Rob was dead. Why would he be in a storage room? You just don't have somebody in a storage room at 11pm," he said.

Nancy Nassberg, another friend of the defendant who testified yesterday, recalled her maid asking Kissel why she was wearing sunglasses indoors over a dinner in February 1999. The defendant lowered her glasses to the tip of her nose, showing bruising around her right eye, and said "rough sex" before changing the subject.

Update August 18th

* The Standard: Kissel 'very kind, pleasant and always helpful to kids'
* SCMP:

Nancy Kissel did not tell her best friends in her luxury Parkview estate about alleged physical and sexual assaults by her husband because the expatriate community there was "very gossipy", the Court of First Instance heard yesterday. As the defence case entered its third week, Kissel's friends testified one by one, describing her as a devoted mother of three who spent a lot of time doing volunteer work for the Hong Kong International School to be near her children.

In cross-examination yesterday, Geertruida Samra, one of Kissel's best friends and also a Parkview resident, told prosecutor Peter Chapman that Kissel had never told her she was seeing a doctor, Annabelle Dytham, and psychiatrist, Desmond Fung, between August and October 2003. Nor did she know Kissel was prescribed hypnotics and painkillers - Rohypnol, Lorivan, amitriptyline and Stilnox - during those visits.

"I know she had sleeping problems, but didn't know she went to see any doctor," she said, adding later that she saw her often looking tired when sending her children to the school bus. Ms Samra said Kissel never told her she had attempted suicide and had developed a sexual relationship with TV repairman Michael Del Priore during her stay in Vermont in the summer of 2003.

The witness, who had worked with Kissel - as president and vice-president respectively of the Parent Faculty Organisation (PFO) in Hong Kong International School - for two years, was also not aware that she had obtained a second mobile phone to call her lover and had the bills sent to the PFO office. Mr Chapman asked why she was not told of Kissel's assaults despite her close and enduring relationship with Kissel.

"I never pry about people's business. You never know what goes on behind closed doors," Ms Samra said. "I wish she had told me. But the expatriate community in Parkview was very gossipy. I think Nancy kept it within herself to protect herself and her family." Asked if she was concerned for Kissel's mental wellbeing when she was released on bail in November last year, Ms Samra - who with a few friends took turns staying with Kissel for some time after her release - said Kissel had calmed down considerably with the help of medication. She said the accused had lost a lot of weight.

Another witness, Mary Lamb, told defence counsel Alexander King SC she saw Kissel with a black eye in late October 2003 when she picked up her daughter after a play date with the witness' daughter. "I assumed she did have an argument with her husband but I decided I had not known her long enough to ask."

Marcia Barhan, who has taught music at Hong Kong International School for 11 years, said Kissel served on most committees in the school and was the school photographer. "She's one of the most outstanding parents in my entire career," she said. She also showed jurors a T-shirt, bag and CD-album Kissel helped design for the school.

Mr Chapman asked Ms Barhan how Kissel dressed. She said Kissel was conservative in her selection of clothes and wore tinted or black sunglasses indoors almost all the time. "I didn't think it was strange, though, being an artistic person that she is," she said.

Update August 19th

* The Standard: Kissel 'very kind, pleasant and always helpful to kids'
* SCMP:

Nancy Kissel did not tell her best friends in her luxury Parkview estate about alleged physical and sexual assaults by her husband because the expatriate community there was "very gossipy", the Court of First Instance heard yesterday. As the defence case entered its third week, Kissel's friends testified one by one, describing her as a devoted mother of three who spent a lot of time doing volunteer work for the Hong Kong International School to be near her children.

In cross-examination yesterday, Geertruida Samra, one of Kissel's best friends and also a Parkview resident, told prosecutor Peter Chapman that Kissel had never told her she was seeing a doctor, Annabelle Dytham, and psychiatrist, Desmond Fung, between August and October 2003. Nor did she know Kissel was prescribed hypnotics and painkillers - Rohypnol, Lorivan, amitriptyline and Stilnox - during those visits.

"I know she had sleeping problems, but didn't know she went to see any doctor," she said, adding later that she saw her often looking tired when sending her children to the school bus. Ms Samra said Kissel never told her she had attempted suicide and had developed a sexual relationship with TV repairman Michael Del Priore during her stay in Vermont in the summer of 2003.

The witness, who had worked with Kissel - as president and vice-president respectively of the Parent Faculty Organisation (PFO) in Hong Kong International School - for two years, was also not aware that she had obtained a second mobile phone to call her lover and had the bills sent to the PFO office. Mr Chapman asked why she was not told of Kissel's assaults despite her close and enduring relationship with Kissel.

"I never pry about people's business. You never know what goes on behind closed doors," Ms Samra said. "I wish she had told me. But the expatriate community in Parkview was very gossipy. I think Nancy kept it within herself to protect herself and her family." Asked if she was concerned for Kissel's mental wellbeing when she was released on bail in November last year, Ms Samra - who with a few friends took turns staying with Kissel for some time after her release - said Kissel had calmed down considerably with the help of medication. She said the accused had lost a lot of weight.

Another witness, Mary Lamb, told defence counsel Alexander King SC she saw Kissel with a black eye in late October 2003 when she picked up her daughter after a play date with the witness' daughter. "I assumed she did have an argument with her husband but I decided I had not known her long enough to ask."

Marcia Barhan, who has taught music at Hong Kong International School for 11 years, said Kissel served on most committees in the school and was the school photographer. "She's one of the most outstanding parents in my entire career," she said. She also showed jurors a T-shirt, bag and CD-album Kissel helped design for the school.

Mr Chapman asked Ms Barhan how Kissel dressed. She said Kissel was conservative in her selection of clothes and wore tinted or black sunglasses indoors almost all the time. "I didn't think it was strange, though, being an artistic person that she is," she said.