The Black Widow: Stacey Castor

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In this episode, we will look into the twisted tale of a woman who got away with her first murder, almost got away with her second, and failed to complete her third.  This woman from the outside looked like an unlucky mother of two whose two husbands died far too young and whose daughter tried to commit suicide.  Betrayal, deception, and ultimately murder were the hallmarks of the Black Widow’s calling card.  

911

On Monday, August 22, 2005, Stacey Castor called 911, telling the dispatcher that her husband David didn’t show up for work that morning and she didn’t know what was going on.  When asked by the dispatcher if her husband had ever talked about hurting or harming himself, Stacey said they had argued Friday night and he told her to take her kids and get out. Then he told her if she left he would make her sorry.  

Officer Robert Willoughby with the Onondaga County Sheriff’s Office arrived at the Castor’s Liverpool New York residence.  He banged on the couple’s bedroom door after finding it locked.  Getting no answer he kicked open the door and observed David lying on his stomach across the bed.  He was naked and unmoving.  Stacey called out from the hallway asking if he was okay.  Officer Willoughby replied, “No he is not.”  David Castor was dead at the age of 48.  

Paramedics who had entered the room but soon left.  Stacey started screaming at them to go back saying that “he’s not dead.”  Stacey was beside herself struggling with her emotions on the front lawn when Detective Dominick Spinelli arrived. Stacey told the detective that she was worried that David might have committed suicide given that he had a shotgun that he kept in their bedroom.  She claimed that David has been depressed lately due to the passing of his father.  

Nightstand

When Detective Spinelli entered the bedroom he noticed that on one of the nightstands, there was a short glass filled half full of a green substance.  Another glass held the remnants of what looked like juice.  There was also an apricot brandy bottle and a diet cranberry juice bottle on the nightstand.  The most interesting find that could explain what the green substance was was an empty bottle of anti-freeze lying under the bed.  It was found on the side with its top off.  Everything in the bedroom was photographed and collected for processing at the crime lab.

If the anti-freeze bottle stood out to the police it was what was found next by Officer Willoughby in the kitchen that shocked them.  Willoughby had been talking to another officer in the kitchen when he noticed a turkey baster lying on top of the kitchen trash can.  Carefully picking it up he noticed several green droplets on the inside of it.  Next, he pulled off the rubber ball end, put it up to his nose, and smelled alcohol.

Her second husband

David Castor met Stacey Wallace in 2001.  He was divorced from his first wife, Janice Poissant.  David and Janice had one child, David Jr.  David owned and operated his own heating and air conditioning business.  This was a second chance at love for both Stacey and David.  Stacey lost her first husband, Michael Wallace, in 2000.  On August 16, 2003, David and Stacey married.  By this time Stacey was working as David’s office manager.  

Their marriage seemed to be going well.  They enjoyed all of the toys David had collected such as motorcycles, ATVs, and a boat.  The only sticking point was the tense relationship between David and Stacey’s two girls, Ashley (15) and Bree (12).  David had told Ashley that when he and her mother got married he did not want to be their father as he had already raised his child.  However, the kids and David butted heads when he would tell them what to do.  

Now David was dead. Did David kill himself?  Had he been so depressed over the death of his father that he killed himself in one of the most painful ways?  David Castor died from ingesting ethylene glycol the poisonous compound found in anti-freeze.  

Not adding up

Detective Spinelli wasn’t convinced David died by suicide.  Ethylene glycol is a painful way to die.  According to the National Capital Poison Center, antifreeze brands taste bitter but the ethylene glycol is sweet.  So it’s often masked by mixing it with juices, alcohol, or soft drinks. For several hours after someone ingests anti-freeze they may feel fine but the body is busy breaking down the ethylene glycol into several substances that affect the nervous system, kidneys, and blood chemistry. After more hours pass the individual may feel groggy and experience stomach distress.  As more time passes without help a person may slip into a coma. Organ damage can occur within 24 to 72 hours.  During this time the kidneys may stop working  It only takes one to two shots glasses of anti-freeze to kill a grown man. 

Then there is the fact that it’s very rare for someone to commit suicide naked.  

Lab technicians found fingerprints on the underside of one of the glasses left on the nightstand.  Three fingerprints in areas as if someone picked up the glass from the bottom like taking it out of a dishwasher. These fingerprints belonged to Stacey Castor.  What also stood out to detectives was the type of drinks found on the nightstand; apricot brandy and diet cranberry juice.  These were more in line with what a woman would choose to drink.  

Then there was what Stacey told detectives that led to David locking himself in the bedroom.  Stacey claimed that the couple had gotten into an argument over David wanting to go on an extended vacation to celebrate their anniversary.  David would always close his business up for two weeks in August but this time he wanted just the two of them to go away.  Stacey didn’t want to be gone so long as Bree was only fourteen at this time. This led to their argument with David becoming so upset that he grabbed a bottle of Southern Comfort, locked himself in the bedroom, and didn’t come out all weekend.  

At first, Stacey tells detectives she feels David committed suicide due to his depression over losing his father, then she says he locked himself in the bedroom and killed himself over their argument. There was no Southern Comfort on the nightstand only apricot brandy and if he had a shotgun why use anti-freeze?  And where does the turkey baster come in?  There were no fingerprints found on the turkey baster but David’s DNA was found on the tip. 

The will

In questioning David’s ex-wife, Janice Poissant Farmer, she told the detective that David would not have taken his own life.  Although David and his son, David Jr. were not as close as they once were it was a shock to all that David had left everything to Stacey and her two daughters in his will.  Janice stated that she didn’t feel David would not have left anything for his son.  Something wasn’t right.  

David Jr. would challenge the will but ended up withdrawing his challenge upon finding out that Lynn & Paul Pulaski had gone to the Surrogate’s Court and signed affidavits verifying that they had witnessed David Castor sign the most recent will.  We are going to put a pin in that and come back to it.

Stacey’s first husband

Detective Spinelli wanted to talk with Stacey’s first husband but found out he was five years too late.  Michael Wallace passed away on January 11, 2000, from a heart attack, or was it?  Michael Wallace was thirty-eight years old when he died after a short illness that started around Christmas 1999.  Stacey and Michael Wallace had met when she was 17-years-old.  In an interview Stacey had given to David Muir in an episode of 20/20 she said that when she met him it was love at first sight.  She and Michael dated for three years before marrying on April 7, 1990, in a small ceremony in her parent’s home.  

Michael worked second shifts as a mechanic and Stacey at an ambulance dispatch center.  The young couple had their first daughter, Ashley in 1988 followed by Bree in 1991.  According to Stacey, Michael doted on his youngest daughter, calling her his princess. Not wanting Ashley to feel left out she says she cultivated their relationship as not only mother and daughter but they became best friends. 

With young kids and working different shifts, the family had very little time to spend together.  This started to put a strain on the Wallace marriage.  Stacey confided in a friend around Thanksgiving 1999 that she was thinking about getting a divorce.  Her friend gave her the name of a divorce attorney but Stacey didn’t think it was a good time with the holidays coming up and Michael battling a mystery illness.

Medical mystery

Michael had been spending a lot of time in bed, having difficulty talking. Family members encouraged him to see a doctor.  He may have been planning to but he died before he could do so.  On January 11, 2000, Ashley, who was eleven-years-old, had come home from school.  She saw her dad lying on the couch.  She would tell doctors that her dad made funny faces and then put his arm straight into the air and then it fell back down to his side.  She thought he had gone back to sleep and left to go and pick up her sister from school to walk her home.  

Later that day, Michael was rushed to the local hospital.  Physicians tried to revive him but were unable to.  Doctors told Stacey that Michael had died of a heart attack.  Family members wanted an autopsy to answer the question of how a healthy thirty-eight with no history of heart problems slowly dies from one over a couple of weeks.  However, Stacey declined the autopsy saying what the doctors told her was good enough.

Insurance

Stacey collected $55,034.72 from Michael’s life insurance policy which she paid for Michael’s funeral expenses including burial plots for them both side-by-side including a double-sided headstone.  Then she took the girls to Disney World to help them adjust to life without their father and after that life went on with just the three girls until Stacey met David Castor.

Detective Spanelli got ahold of Michael’s medical records and had questions as to how he died.  After looking at them Detective Spinelli felt there was another reason for Michael’s death and went to work getting a court order to exhume his body.  At the grave site, Detective Spanelli was in for another surprise because right beside Micahel’s grave site with a space in-between for Stacey was David Castor’s grave.  Michael’s body was exhumed in September 2007.  

Results

On September 5th days later the results were in.  Michael’s body was full of tiny crystals the telltale sign of ethanol glycol poisoning.  On September 7th Stacey was brought in for a second interview with Detective Spanelli and Detective Valarie Brogan.  Detective Spanelli started by asking Stacey, “There were two glasses on the nightstand; you say you poured him cranberry juice at one point, right?”  Yes, was Stacey’s reply.  Detective Spinelli, “I’m going to show you a picture of two glasses you remember which glass  it was you poured the cranberry juice in.”  Stacey looked at the picture and said, “Well when I pour the antifree, I ah.”  She suddenly stopped and corrected herself and said “Cranberry juice.”  Detective Spanelli pressed, “But you said anti-freeze.”  

Stacey immediately stopped the interview insisting the detectives were trying to frame her.  When Detective Spinelli took the photos to put them back in the folder Stacey saw a picture of the turkey baster lying in the kitchen trashcan.  She questioned the detective as to why he had that photo.  The detectives reply, “Don’t worry about it, the interview is over.”  

Wire taps

The investigation’s next step was to wiretap Stacey’s phone lines.  Those taps caught Stacey telling friends and anyone who would listen that she was scared because she didn’t kill David.  Stacey started to get worried when she found out that Michael’s body was exhumed and was told about anti-freeze being found in his remains.  She was caught on a recording telling someone, “I don’t believe for one second they found antifree in Michael’s body.”  

Detectives decided to visit Ashley at her school on the first day of college classes on September 12, 2007.  They informed her that her father did not die of a heart attack, but he had been poisoned with anti-freeze.  Ashley became very upset being confronted and told this information.  She turned to the one person she had been able to count on her whole life, her mom.  She called Stacey telling her what the detectives had told her.  Stacey then suggested that they get together at the house and get drunk since it has been a rough week.  This was on September 13th.  

In later interviews, Ashley would say that her mother never invited her over to drink before, and being a teenage girl being given permission to drink she didn’t want to turn that down.   Stacey mixed up a 12 oz drink in a plastic cup for Ashley. Ashley drank it all and soon became lethargic.  She went to her bedroom and soon passed out.  The next morning she woke up hungover and headed off to school.

Celebrating

Stacey calls Ashley, the next day, September 14th, inviting Ashley to get together and drink again, but this time drinking the hard stuff. Stacey told Ashley she wouldn’t be around for her 21st birthday so she wanted to celebrate with her now.   Ashley pointed out that it wasn’t even noon yet.  Stacey told her “Oh, it will be noon by the time we’re drinking.”  Once again Stacey mixed up Ashley’s drink and handed it to her.  Ashley took a drink and immediately put it down as it didn’t taste very good.  Stacey got her a straw and told her to put the straw to the back of her throat and drink it down.  She did.

The next morning Bree went into Ashley’s room only to find her making incoherent sounds and looking in distress.  Ashley’s eyes are wide open but not looking at anything, that far-off stare.  Bree woke Stacey up begging her to call 911.  So for the second time in less than two years, Stacey Castor called 911. Stacey told the 911 operator that her daughter had taken some pills and was not breathing normally.   Stacey told her that she drank an entire bottle of Vodka.  Again she told the 911 dispatcher that Ashley had consumed alcohol with a mixture of prescription drugs.  

While on the phone with 911, Bree spots a piece of paper in Ashley’s room.  She reads the note and hands it to her mother.  Stacey tells the 911 dispatcher that Ashley left a note, “Oh my God, this is not happening!”  Ashley is rushed to the hospital and is catatonic upon arrival.  Her heart rate was fluctuating between 170 to 190 beats per minute.  According to Dr. Daniel Olsson with SUNY Upstate Medical University Hospital.  Her vitals were plummeting and doctors were concerned that she wasn’t going to make it.  Dr. Olsson would later tell detectives that if Ashley had not been found and gotten help when she did she would have died at home.  She was within fifteen minutes of death.  

Aftermath

Several hours passed when Ashley finally regained consciousness.  When she is stable detectives talk to her about what is the last thing she remembers and about her suicide note.  A note in which she took responsibility for killing her father and David Castor.  Ashley was shocked.  She had no idea what detectives were talking about.  She told them about Stacey mixing her drink, drinking it then waking up in the hospital with no memory of how that happened.  She told detectives that she didn’t try to kill herself nor did she leave a suicide note and she had nothing to do with her father’s or David’s deaths.  

Detective Spinelli read over the 750-word typewritten note, even the signature was typed, and a few things jumped out to him. One is the word anti-freeze.  It was misspelled in several places written out anti-free, the same way that Stacey pronounced anti-freeze when he had interviewed her. Ashley realized almost immediately that her mother tried to kill her and set up as a murderer.  Detectives would not allow Stacey to be alone with Ashley as they were concerned that Stacey was desperate if she was willing to kill her daughter.  

Arrested

Stacey was smoking a cigarette outside the hospital when she was placed under arrest for the murder of David Castor and the attempted murder of Ashley Wallace.  Not everyone believed that Stacey could be guilty of having killed David and trying to set up Ashley.  Her main supporter, is her mother, Judie Eaton.  She believed that her granddaughter was the guilty party. That was the defense strategy once Stacey’s trial began on January 12, 2009. 

Stacey was indicted for second-degree murder for David’s death and a second-degree attempted murder charge for Ashley.  Chuck Keller was Stacey’s attorney and his defense focused on Ashely being jealous of her little sister when it came to their father’s affections and not liking the way David bossed her and her sister around. They pointed out in testimony that Ashley had written a boyfriend when she was a teenager and that she had thoughts of killing herself after they had broken up.  

Cross-examination

The prosecution led by District Attorney Bill Fitzpatrick focused on the DNA, fingerprint, linguistic analysis, and computer evidence.  Their first witness was Ashley.  She testified what she witnessed the last day her father was alive.  She told the jury about the first round of drinking with her mom and the second time about how her mother told her to use the straw to drink it down.  Detectives and prosecutors felt the first time was a dry run.  When asked why she continued to drink the nasty concoction Ashley replied that she trusted her mom.  Prosecutors believed that once Ashley passed out Stacey then used a teaspoon to continue to feed her a mixture of vodka and prescription drugs over seventeen hours.  

The suicide note was read on the stand by Ashley.  She denied murdering her father and stepfather.  She cried while testifying and denied writing the note or trying to end her life.  While Ashley was appropriately emotional the same could not be said for her mother.  Stacey Castor sat at the defense table throughout her trial, stone-faced.  She would not even look at Ashley while she was on the stand.

Fifty witnesses testified but none more shocking than Stacey Castor herself.  Stacey denied killing Michael or David.  She also denied trying to poison her daughter.  Prosecutor before Stacey’s testimony laid out the case that David Castor had been poisoned over four days using the turkey baster to slip him a diet of anti-freeze.  

On cross-examination, DA Fitzpatrick didn’t hold back.  He played one of the wiretap tapes for the jury.  You could hear Stacey on the phone talking to a friend while she was typing away on the computer keyboard.  DA Fitzpatrick also provided the jury with evidence that while talking and typing this corresponded with the time the suicide note was being written.  Ashley was not home at that time.  Forensic technicians also found segments of two practice letters on the home computer.  The motive for David’s murder is money. After his death, Stacey inherited over $300,000, his business and property.  

Fate

At the end of the trial testimony the jury of ten women and two men went into deliberations.  It would be four days later on February 5, 2009, that Stacey Castor would learn her fate.  Stacey ever stoic listened as she was found guilty on count one of the second-degree murder of David Castor.  Guilty of the second-degree attempted murder of Ashley Wallace.  After the trial was over some of the jurors shared that they did not believe Stacey’s testimony.  They focused on the timeline of events and the opportunities that she had to poison David and Ashley.  

At Stacey’s sentencing hearing on March 5, 2009, Ashley read her victim impact statement. Ashley asked her mother what gave her the right to play God and ruin so many people’s lives.  She tells Stacey that she never knew what hate was but she did now.  She tells her mom that even though she did hate her she loved her at the same time.  It bothers her and she is so confused as to why her best friend took that all away.  She tells her mother that she didn’t get a chance to say goodbye and that this will be the last time.  As horrible as it makes her feel; goodbye Mom.  

Stacey Castor is sentenced to fifty-one years in prison.  She would never see or talk to her daughters ever again.  Stacey or the Black Widow as she became known died of a heart attack seven years later in the Bedford Hill maximum security prison for women in Westchester County.  She was forty-eight years old.

The will

During the investigation into David’s death, detectives uncovered evidence that David’s will was forged and fraudulent.  In 2009, David Jr. sued to reclaim his father’s estate.  He sued Stacey along with Lynn and Paul Pulaski.  Those same Pulaskis who were witnesses to David signing and verified what they witnessed in the Surrogate’s Court.  It turns out the Pulaski’s had signed the “will” a month after David Castor died and then backdated it to make it appear that they had witnessed in August 2003.    

State Supreme Court Justice Anthony Paris didn’t hold back his feelings when it came to Lynn and Paul Pulaski.  He told the defendants that they were not innocent pawns and knew what they were doing had “bore false witness to both the will and attestation clause without hesitancy or reservation.”  He went on to say that they only “came clean” after the district attorney investigators came knocking.  The Pulaskis were given immunity in Stacey’s trial to give pertinent testimony.  

Judge Paris awarded David Jr. the money he would have been entitled to in addition to $250,000 in punitive damages in December 2011.  In total, the judgment was $377,118.65 to be paid by Stacey Castor and the Pulaskis.  However, in 2014, the New York State Appeals Court overturned Judge Paris’s decision.  They ruled that the public administrator of the estate and not David Jr. needed to be the one to bring court action as David Jr. had no legal right to try to recover any money or property.  The law in New York state at least at the time did not allow someone to be compensated for losing out due to a fraudulent will.  

The court gave six months for the appropriate party to bring an action against David Castor’s estate.   I was unable to find if the public administrator filed anything to contest the will.  

Another murder

In 2010, District Attorney Bill Fitzpatrick confirmed that his office was investigating the death of Stacey’s father, Jerry Daniels who died on February 27, 2002.  This concern was brought to Fitzpatrick’s office by the relatives of Michael Wallace.  Daniels had been hospitalized for a lung ailment and was due to be released for continued improvement.  However, the day after Stacey visited bringing with her an open can of soda for her father to drink, he suddenly died.  Daniel’s remains were cremated. Stacey the executor of his estate.  

He was buried in a plot next to both of her dead husbands.  Family members refer to it as Stacey’s monument of death or shrine of evil.  That was until 2016 when the New York State Supreme Court ruled that David Jr. could move his father’s remains to a different cemetery and destroy his original headstone.  

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