ABC
Who Is Stacey Castor? Get to Know the True Crime Story Behind Lifetime’s New ‘Poisoned Love’ Movie
Ready for Poisoned Love: The Stacey Castor Story? Lifetime’s latest ripped-from-the-headlines movie takes on the true crime case of Stacey Castor, a woman who was convicted of one murder, attempted another and may have gotten away with a third. On Saturday, February 1, at 8 p.m., the new Nia Vardalos flick hits TV screens. But what’s the real deal? Keep scrolling to get to know the true story behind the movie.
Who is Stacey Castor?
Castor, who died in 2016 at the age of 48, was an American woman found guilty of murdering her husband David Castor and attempting to murder her daughter, Ashley Wallace. As police investigated the crimes, they also suspected that she murdered her first husband, Michael Wallace. The gruesome tale earned her the nickname “The Black Widow” in the news.
How did she kill her husbands?
In August 2005, Castor called emergency services to report that her husband David had locked himself in his bedroom and that she was worried for his safety. When they broke down the door, they found that he was dead inside after ingesting antifreeze. Though it initially appeared that he had committed suicide, police later came to the conclusion that his wife had killed him. While investigating David’s death, they took a second look at Wallace’s death.
When Wallace passed in 2000, doctors initially believed he suffered a heart attack after months of sickness. “He was having a hard time walking, and he was having a hard time talking,” Castor’s older daughter, Ashley Wallace, told ABC News’ 20/20. “One time, he sat up, and he just vomited across the coffee table and laid back down went back to sleep like nothing ever happened.” After Castor’s second husband died, however, investigators exhumed Wallace’s body and discovered that he had actually died of antifreeze poisoning as well.
What happened to Stacey Castor’s daughter?
As police were investigating both deaths in September 2007, the family suffered another emergency. After detectives visited Ashley at college to tell her they suspected her father was also poisoned, she came home to visit and share a drink with her mom. Castor’s younger daughter, Bree Wallace, found her older sister unresponsive, and she and her mom called 911. Castor told authorities that her daughter had taken pills and left behind a suicide note confessing to both murders.
However, Ashley denied taking pills, insisting she only had the drink her mother gave her. Detectives also believed the contents of the note pointed to the real killer. “They showed me a copy of the suicide note that Ashley had left, and as I reviewed it, one of the things that jumped out at me and was unbelievable was: I had interviewed Stacey, and during my interview with her, she called antifreeze, ‘antifree,'” lead investigator Detective Dominick Spinelli told 20/20. The note also called it “antifree” instead of “antifreeze.”
How long did Stacey Castor spend in prison?
Castor was arrested in 2007 and found guilty in February 2009 on charges of second-degree murder in David’s death and attempted second-degree murder in Ashley’s overdose. She was sentenced to 25 years to life for the murder and an additional 25 years for the attempted murder. She was also given up to four more years for forging David’s will in order to exclude his son from his first marriage. However, Castor didn’t end up serving even half of her sentence. In June 2016, she was found dead in her cell after suffering a heart attack.
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