Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple or Spotify.
After losing two husbands within five years, many people viewed Stacey Castor as an incredibly resilient woman who carried on despite the horrific tragedies she’d faced. On top of the untimely deaths of her husbands, she was also faced with a third blow after her daughter tried to commit suicide. However, eventually investigators began to wade through a sticky web of lies & the truth proved to be far uglier than anyone could have imagined.
It all began in 1990 when after three years of dating, Stacey married her first husband, Michael Wallace, on April 7, 1990. After a small ceremony at home, the couple began to build their life together in Weedsport, New York & welcomed two daughters, Ashley & Bree. While Michael worked as a mechanic, Stacey worked as an ambulance dispatcher.
Stacey described Mike as being larger than life, someone who was always the life of the party & if you needed something that Mike had, he would give it to you without a second thought. Sadly, their marriage was not a happy one & they both went on to stray in their relationship. Stacey attributed many of their issues to the fact that Michael struggled with a drug & alcohol addiction. Adding to their troubles, they worked opposite shifts & rarely saw one another, Stacey working during the day & Michael in the evening; they were like ships passing in the night & rarely had a moment to connect.
Michael suddenly began feeling ill right around Christmas of 1999; he was extremely fatigued, sleeping a lot & having a hard time walking & talking. According to Ashley, who was 11-years-old at the time, there was one occasion when her dad suddenly sat up from where he was sleeping on the couch, vomited across the coffee table, laid back down & went to sleep as if nothing happened. When he eventually sought medical treatment, his doctor believed he may have had an inner ear disorder.
After the Wallace family rang in the New Year of 2000, Ashley came home from school to find her father lying on the couch, making what she described as funny faces. She called her mom to tell her she was safely home, as she always did, & then headed off to pick her sister up from school.
By the time Stacey came home from work that day, she found her 38-year-old husband unresponsive on the sofa. She dialed 911 & Michael was transported to the hospital. Sadly, Michael died at the hospital & doctors speculated that he may have suffered a heart attack. Despite being a previously healthy, not yet 40-year-old man, Stacey decided to take the doctor’s words & opted against an autopsy.
According to a friend of Stacey’s, at the time of Michael’s death, she had been contemplating divorce, but wanted to wait until after the holidays to take action. With Michael gone, she went on to collect $55,000 in life insurance.
About three & a half years later, Stacey married her second husband, David Castor, who she met in 2001 after David hired her to work as a secretary at his heating & air conditioning company. The two were married on August 16, 2003.
According to Stacey, her new husband was a hard worker who was very conscientious & had a love for the outdoors. He loved spending time on his snowmobiles, four-wheelers as well as his boat & she felt he was a support, strength & security in her life.
Being a second marriage for each, the two came together to form a blended family; Stacey had Ashley & Bree while David had a grown son, David Jr, from a previous marriage. According to Stacey, her girls weren’t very happy about her new marriage since they didn’t want their father replaced. She felt that David was clashing with her daughters, expecting them to do everything that he said without question, but over time, Ashley & Bree began to warm toward their step-father. Tension remained within the household, though, since Stacey didn’t agree with how David spent his money.
On Monday, August 22, 2005, less than a week after the couple celebrated their 2nd anniversary, Stacey placed a 911 call & told the dispatcher that her husband hadn’t shown up for work that day & she didn’t know what was going on. She explained that she was concerned because she last spoke with him on Sunday at 5 am when he locked her out of their bedroom during the entirety of that weekend & hoped that officers could go to their house to do a welfare check.
Stacey later admitted that they’d gotten into an argument because David wanted to take a two-week vacation at the end of August, while Stacey didn’t want to leave Bree behind & Ashley couldn’t go because she had to work. She said that their argument began on Friday & carried on over the course of seven hours until David got upset, took a bottle of Southern Comfort & locked himself in the bedroom & refused to come out.
Police responded to the Castor home & found Stacey outside, looking visibly upset. She expressed her concern for her husband’s safety & mental wellbeing & told the officers that he kept a gun under their bed & she feared he could have committed suicide.
Stacey said that when David first locked himself in the bedroom, she assumed he got drunk & was just sleeping it off. When she put her ear to the door, all was quiet on the other side other than the occasional sounds of David snoring.
Police approached the bedroom door & after their knocks went unanswered, they kicked the door in. As they entered the room, they found 48-year-old David lying naked, facedown & unresponsive in the couple’s vomit-coated bed.
There were two glasses on the nightstand next to the bed; one was half-full with a green liquid while the other had some remnants of juice. Under the bed, investigators found a bottle of antifreeze on its side with the top off which was the source of the green liquid in the cup that was half-full. There was also a bottle of apricot brandy & a bottle of diet cranberry juice on the bedside table. There was no suicide note to be found & rather than suicide from a gunshot wound as Stacey initially feared, David appeared to have died from an apparent suicide via antifreeze ingestion.
When officers came out of the bedroom, Stacey asked them if her husband was okay, but it was too late & paramedics could do nothing to save David.
Stacey explained that David had been recently struggling with depression after he lost his father a few months earlier. She believed that he drank heavily that weekend & committed suicide as a result of his worsening depression & grief. The medical examiner went on to confirm that David’s cause of death was suicide from antifreeze poisoning & the case seemed closed.
However, when word of David’s sudden death began to spread amongst David’s family & friends, they did not believe that he committed suicide. Janice Poissant-Farmer, David’s ex-wife, reached out to detectives to voice her concerns. Many wondered why a man who was a hunter who kept a gun under his bed, would have chosen a long, excruciating death by poison as a way to end his life.
As investigators began digging, they discovered that David Castor’s will left everything to Stacey & her two daughters & nothing to his son, David Castor Jr. which was an immediate red flag to everyone who knew David. The man owned a home, a business, campers, snow mobiles & with the nearly $50k Stacey received, she immediately got to spending. She started with home renovations which gave family members the feeling that she was trying to erase David from their lives.
When investigators wanted to speak with Stacey’s first husband, shortly after David’s death, they learned that Michael Wallace was also dead. Ironically, he was buried directly next to where David was just laid to rest. They were left to wonder, was Stacey a young woman who was a victim of terrible luck or was something much darker at play?
As suspicions began to rise, officers couldn’t help but recall finding a turkey baster in the kitchen garbage can of the Castor home when Michael’s body was discovered. The baster smelled of alcohol & when tested, was found to contain antifreeze as well as David’s DNA at the tip & contained no fingerprints. Detectives questioned if maybe he used it to ingest the antifreeze farther down his throat since it tasted bad, however, they also knew that as little as two shots of the poisonous substance could kill a human & due to its sweet taste, could be easily disguised in a drink.
The glass of antifreeze found at David’s bedside contained three fingerprints, all of which belonged to Stacey. The fingerprints were placed on the glass in a way that suggested she held it from the bottom. Had she innocently taken the glass out of the dishwasher & put it back in the cabinet that way or had she held it to David’s mouth, encouraging him to drink the poisonous liquid?
With the evidence from the Castor home, paired with the fact that Stacey’s first husband also died suddenly only five years earlier, the case went from a suicide to a homicide. However, in order to bring charges against her, they would need more solid evidence.
This was the point that investigators began looking into Michael Wallace’s death & learned that Stacey had declined an autopsy despite the fact that her husband had been only 38-years-old. Detectives also learned that in the months before his death, he told his doctor that he had the sensation of being intoxicated despite the fact that he hadn’t consumed any alcohol, a classic symptom of antifreeze poisoning.
Antifreeze is an essential fluid for a car, right up there with gasoline & oil. It protects the engine from overheating while protecting the cooling system from freezing in the winter. Its most active ingredient also happens to be the poisonous ingredient, ethylene glycol.
Initial symptoms of consumption are subtle & similar to the intoxicated feeling of alcohol/ethanol consumption as the central nervous system begins to slow. Chemically, it’s not far from alcohol, however, the human body reacts to the two different substances very differently. In small amounts, the body metabolizes alcohol which is expelled without damaging the cells.
On the other hand, antifreeze is quickly absorbed into the body where it crystallizes & the true damage begins as quickly as within 30 minutes of ingestion. The crystals can collect in your kidneys & affect kidney function while ethylene glycol forms acidic chemicals in the body which throws off the body’s natural acid/base balance & thus affects the nervous system, lungs & heart.
According to the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, as little as two ounces of antifreeze can kill a dog, one teaspoon can kill a cat & two tablespoons are hazardous to a child. Those who ingest a significant quantity of antifreeze can die within 24-72 hours. Most commonly, death is preceded by kidney failure. Because it’s absorbed & chemically converted relatively quickly, antifreeze ingestion can be difficult to detect. It’s also colorless & odorless & can be slipped into an unknowing victim’s beverage.
When detectives obtained & reviewed a copy of 38-year-old Michael Wallace’s medical records, they learned that he had a normal heart & no past medical history other than a hernia. This is despite the fact that Stacey tried to paint a picture of a man riddled with illness.
Based on David Castor’s death, paired with the fact that Michael had been ill in the weeks before his death with classic symptoms of antifreeze poisoning, iInvestigators did not believe that he died of a heart attack as doctor’s initially theorized. In September 2007, more than 7.5 years after his sudden death, they received a court’s permission to exhume his body in order to take a closer look at the circumstances surrounding his death, something that Stacey, at the time, was initially not aware of.
After Michael’s casket was unearthed from the ground, it was transferred via ambulance to the medical examiner’s office for an autopsy.
Sergeant Michael Norton recalls receiving a phone call a few days later from the medical examiner regarding the results of Michael’s autopsy. The medical examiner dropped a bombshell & confirmed what had been theorizing; the man’s body was loaded with crystals, something that is characteristic of antifreeze poisoning. Since they never go away, the crystals remained in Michael’s organs despite the passage of so many years.
This was the moment that detectives were sure that rather than Stacey being an unfortunate, grieving two-time widower, they were dealing with a double homicide & that Stacey Castor had likely poisoned both of her husbands to death. Rather than proceeding with a messy divorce as their marriages began to crumble, she chose murder.
With the results of Michael’s autopsy, detectives obtained a warrant to wiretap Stacey’s phones & set up cameras outside her home in order to monitor her comings & goings.
When Stacey was interviewed for a second time as a result of their investigation, the detectives noted her nervousness & the fact that she was pacing around, surprised that they were there. She was asked about the two glasses found at David’s bedside on the nightstand; the glass closest to the side of the bed contained a green liquid. Stacey told the detectives that at some point, she poured her husband some cranberry juice & they asked if she remembered which glass she used. This was the moment that Stacey made a terrible mistake. After she was handed a photo of the glasses, she responded, Well, when I poured the antifree… I mean, the cranberry juice, you’re confusing me. She quickly realized her mistake, so she stopped talking & requested an attorney.
As the detective picked up the folder that held the photo of the glasses, Stacey noticed the photo of the turkey baster & asked what it was & why it was there. The detective responded, Don’t worry about it, the interview’s over.
In the meantime, authorities went to visit 20-year-old Ashley Wallace at college where she had just started attending after graduating high school, to let her know that investigators believed her mother was responsible for her father’s death. When they left, she immediately called her mom to tell her about their visit, something that Ashley was horrified by & absolutely did not believe.
During their conversation, since Ashley was so upset, Stacey suggested they meet up to have a drink together so they could unwind & talk, saying, We’ve had a rough week. Let’s get drunk. Since Ashley wasn’t yet 21, her mom had never suggested something like this before & she quickly agreed.
Ashley recalls her mom handing her the plastic cup that contained the first drink she mixed up for her & the next thing she knew, she woke up in her bedroom. Figuring she’d passed out from a night of drinking & feeling a little hungover, she got up & went to school. When she was back home after classes, despite the fact that it wasn’t yet noon, her mom suggested they have drinks together again.
The following morning, Stacey’s younger daughter Bree went into Ashley’s room & found her sister unresponsive on her bed with her eyes wide open. Despite the fact that she wasn’t responding, Bree said that her sister looked scared. She ran screaming into her mom’s bedroom & Stacey dialed 911.
Stacey yelled to the dispatcher that she needed an ambulance & elaborated, My daughter had taken some pills. It sounds like there’s something in her throat. She went on to tell the dispatcher that Ashley had consumed an entire bottle of vodka & quite a few doses of medications.
This was the third time in eight years that Stacey called 911 for help. She explained that Ashley was conscious, making noises, but breathing abnormally & starting to vomit.
While Bree was in her sister’s room & her mom was on the phone, she found a piece of paper that looked like a suicide note in a typed letter. As detective Valerie Brogan arrived at the house, Ashley was being removed on a stretcher & the sergeant handed her the letter. As she read through the letter, she realized she was reading both a confession & a suicide note all in one.
The typed letter was more than 750 words long & Ashley wrote that she not only poisoned her dad, Michael Wallace, with antifreeze, but also rat poison. She did what she did because she wanted to be sure he couldn’t be mean to her mom or her anymore. After his death, they had been happy for a while until her mom met & married David. The letter indicated that he never loved any of them, but poisoning David had been much harder since her mom was always there. According to Ashley’s letter, on the Friday before he died, her mom went to the post office so she took her opportunity to mix antifreeze in a glass with soda & gave it to her stepdad.
The letter indicated that with Michael, his death was much quicker & happened in a day or so after Ashley mixed antifreeze with Gatorade. After David locked himself in the bedroom, Ashley got into the room using a key while her mom was asleep on the couch. She tried to get him to drink more antifreeze. The letter lacked any punctuation & was peppered with child-like grammatical errors. Throughout the note, Ashley referred to her mom as mommy & wrote how sorry she was, how she didn’t want her mom to be punished for what she did as she expressed how much she loved her.
As Ashley arrived at the hospital, doctors found her in a catatonic state, her heartbeat was extremely irregular & staff feared she might die. However, several hours later, Ashley began to regain consciousness & as she became more responsive, Sergeant Norton asked her if she tried to kill herself. However, Ashley was completely confused & had no clue that any of this had taken place; the last thing she recalled was laying down to take a nap.
Before she laid down, Ashley remembered her mom saying that she might not be around to celebrate her 21st birthday, so they should have a drink together now. Stacey handed her daughter a cup & as Ashley took a sip, she complained that it tasted terrible, while Stacey told her she probably just poured in too much vodka. She got her a straw, told her to keep stirring it & to put it toward the back of her throat & to just drink it. She recalled feeling very tired after the drink so she went to lay down. That’s the last thing Ashley remembered before waking up in the ICU.
According to the doctors, the young girl had been only minutes from death, but she miraculously survived. When investigators asked her about the typed suicide/confession note, she had absolutely no idea what they were talking about & was adamant that she had not killed her father, her stepdad nor had she tried to kill herself. She told them, You need to talk to my mom for answers. This was the moment when Ashley was positive that her mom was responsible for all of it, including her own attempted murder in hopes of shifting the blame for her dad & stepfather’s murders.
A search of Stacey’s home computer proved this was where Ashley’s phony confession had been typed which was both written & printed during a time that Ashley was away at school.
Investigators fully believed that Stacey was responsible for killing both of her husbands, but never fathomed she would go as far as to try to murder & frame her own daughter.
As one of the detectives read through the letter, something jumped out. During their interview with Stacey, she referred to antifreeze as antifree which is exactly how it was spelled four times in the suicide/confession note that was found in Ashley’s room.
While she was smoking a cigarette outside at the hospital, Stacey was arrested & charged with second-degree murder in the death of her second husband, David Castor, & the attempted murder of her daughter as well as for forging David’s will.
Throughout it all, Stacey maintained her innocence, emphatic that she would die for her children, My kids were my life. I could never do that to Ashley. Meanwhile, she became known in the press as The Black Widow.
During the trial, Stacey’s discrepancies & lies were brought to light. She initially told detectives that she never checked on David before she called 911 for a welfare check. However, she told the first officer at the scene that she called 911 after going to the house & being unable to get a response from him. She also indicated that she called home every 30-45 minutes that morning after David failed to show up for work, while phone records prove she only called once that day at 12:54 pm.
She told the detective that she heard her husband fall to the bedroom floor while she was in the living room & claimed that she immediately called a friend to help her get him back to bed on Saturday, two days before his death. However, she told another detective that she was trying to help David back to bed when he fell & she ended up leaving him on the floor alone in the house for more than two hours before she got help from a friend named Michael Coleman.
Michael testified that when he came to help Stacey get David back to bed, he seemed intoxicated, but he suspected there was something more going on since his condition seemed so terrible. He questioned if Stacey should call an ambulance for David, but she wanted to allow him to sleep it off.
When she’d been asked why only her fingerprints had been found on the glass at the bedside that contained antifreeze, she stopped her interview.
Stacey maintained in court that it was Ashley who had murdered both her own father as well as her stepfather. This would mean that Ashley would have murdered her father at the tender age of eleven. According to Stacey, if you listen to the news or read the paper, you would know that kids do horrific things like that every single day.
During the trial, the jury listened to the testimony of more than fifty witnesses, including Ashley, while prosecutors argued that Stacey’s motive was collecting her husband’s life insurance policies. During Ashley’s tearful testimony, Stacey showed zero emotion.
Meanwhile, the defense tried to paint a picture of a jealous daughter who wanted her father dead because he was closer to her little sister. The jury heard about Ashley’s two prior suicide attempts which she wrote about in a letter to her boyfriend.
Stacey herself took the stand, testifying in her defense. She calmly spoke about the most terrifying moment of her life when she walked into Ashley’s room & found her daughter unresponsive. When she was cross examined, a phone call was referenced during the time in which Stacey’s house was wiretapped. While Stacey was talking, the clicking of a keyboard could be heard in the background which directly corresponded with the time that Ashley’s suicide note was created, a time when Ashley wasn’t even home.
As the trial came to an end, the jury deliberated over the course of three days. On February 5, 2009, Stacey Castor was found guilty & convicted of the second-degree murder of David Castor & the attempted murder of her daughter, Ashley Wallace as well as for forging David’s will. She was given the maximum sentence of 51 & ⅓ years to life in prison.
Because she would be spending the rest of her life behind bars, authorities chose not to pursue charges for Michael Wallace’s murder although the findings from his exhumed body was presented as supporting evidence during the trial.
During her sentencing, Ashley spoke of how she both loves & hates her mother who was once her best friend & through it all, Stacey sat without emotion. Ashley later indicated that she was very much relieved that her mother got what she deserved & that she would be unable to hurt anyone else. Both she & Bree cut all ties with their mom.
Seven years into her sentence, on June 11, 2016, 48-year-old Stacey Castor was found dead in her cell at the women’s maximum security prison in Bedford Hills, New York. An autopsy determined she died of a heart attack & no foul play was suspected.
Until the day that she died, Stacey maintained her innocence, adamant that her daughter Ashley was responsible, something Stacey’s mom, Judie Eaton, also believes, despite the fact that not one single piece of evidence tied Ashley to the murders.
Stacey Castor isn’t the first husband killer to be dubbed Black Widow, named after the venomous spider that eats their mates, however, she proved to be a special kind of evil who was willing to go as far as killing her own child & framing her for the murders she committed herself.
Had Bree not walked into her sister’s room that morning & found her nearly unresponsive in bed, Ashley would have died & Stacey could have gotten away with three murders. Thankfully her life was saved & the truth was exposed. Her calculated lies, deception & forged evidence painted a picture of a woman driven by greed with no regard for those who loved her, including her own daughter.
References:
- Mount Sinai: Ethylene glycol poisoning
- Springfield News-Leader: How does antifreeze kill? How quickly?
- Syracuse.com: Mispronunciation called key in Stacey Castor murder trial
- ABC News: ‘Black Widow’ to appeal guilty verdict
- ABC News: How detectives caught a ‘black widow’ in her deadly web of lies
- Oxygen True Crime: Cemetary secret helped convict ‘Black Widow’ husband poisoner who tried to frame her daughter
- Oprah Daily: What happened to Stacey Castor? A new Lifetime Movie depicts her disturbing crimes
- Jennychem: What is antifreeze made of? Antifreeze ingredients list
