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Nancy Grace

New Breaks in Kissel Murder

Aired August 10, 2006 - 20:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

NANCY GRACE, HOST: Tonight, new breaks occur in the case of mansions, murder and mystery, a multi-million-dollar murder mystery police can`t seem to crack, real estate mogul Andrew Kissel found murdered in his Connecticut mansion just before he pleads guilty to swindling millions. Now, throw in a pending divorce, a luxury lifestyle, plus drug allegations -- no wonder the cops are stumped.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We wonder how he got into that house. Andrew had to have opened the door and let him into the house.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hayley had filed for divorce, and that was going on. And then she found out some of the other activities that Andrew had been involved in, and of course, was doubly distressed at what he had done. Now, bear in mind that at period in time, she had not only her own two children but was also taking care of Robert and Nancy`s three children. So she had the responsibility for five children. And suddenly, she discovers that her husband is engaged in all of these outrageous frauds.

And I am sure that many a wife and many a husband has said, when they`ve discovered that their spouse has done something, Boy, I`d like to - - I hate him, or, I`d kill her, or, I`d hate her, or, I`d like to kill her, or, Wouldn`t it be nice if I smacked up their -- their little toys, like their Ferraris. I mean, it`s a clear venting of frustration and anger at what he had done and how he had left her with the five children.

So you know, it`s understandable that she would do it, and she did in it a, you know, private e-mail to Andrew`s sister. Nobody`s going to send e-mails to the sister if they had any serious thoughts of doing something. That would be the dumbest thing you could do. I don`t think anybody in a million years thinks that in any way ties in to what happened later.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Well, I`m not so sure about that! Good evening, everybody. I`m Nancy Grace. Thank you for being with us tonight.

What a story out of a posh enclave in Connecticut. Andrew Kissel was found stabbed to death 27 times, hands and feet bound, his head covered in a T-shirt, in the basement of a $14,000-a-month mansion.

Joining us right now, the senior writer for "New York" magazine, did an incredible story on this, Steve Fishman. Steve, in your mind, who are the likely suspects?

STEVE FISHMAN, "NEW YORK" MAGAZINE: Well, the trouble with Andrew Kissel is that he had so many enemies. Everybody disliked him. I mean, he was a totally corrupt and rally awful businessman. His wife hated him. She was divorcing him. He had -- his business partner hated him, and there had threats back and forth to kill one another. And the focus now has been on the people who were close to him and worked with him and actually liked him, but who the suspicion is participated in a suicide-by-murder plot.

GRACE: Wait, wait, wait. You think a guy who never did one thing for anybody else, ever -- and in fact, when he took his own brother, dead brother -- who, PS, brother murdered, too, over in Hong Kong by his wife via a poisonous milkshake -- he took the kids in and then charged the estate back something like $170,000 for taking care of the kids, 8,000 bucks a month. That`s quite a tab.

FISHMAN: It is quite a tab, but these were very wealthy kids. Each of the three kids was worth about $5 million, and anybody who gets the kids is going to get that money. There`s, like, an allowance of about $8,000, $10,000 a month. Andrew was a likely one to spend money. He goes to pick up the kids in a Marquis (ph) private jet and bills his brother`s estate for that, but you can`t quite fault him on wanting money to support those kids.

GRACE: Take a listen to crime writer who analyzed this case, Dominick Dunne.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DOMINICK DUNNE, CRIME WRITER: I don`t think that she is the killer because she never would have sent an e-mail saying she hated him so much that she would enjoy pummeling him to death.

I think if you are going to do that and have yourself killed for the insurance money, you get a guy to come in and shoot you in the back of the head. You don`t have somebody come in to stab you to death.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Back to writer Steve Fishman. Why are we all so anxious to clear the wife? I mean, take a look at these e-mails, Steve Fishman. I know you`ve seen them before. There was a lot of money on the line. And she was writing to her best friend, who also happened to be her then sister-in-law, "I hate your brother. He`s an awful and pathetic person. I just F-ing hate him, his `I am the king" attitude, his value system, lack thereof, his anger, his meanness. God, I hate your brother. He`ll never be a good, responsible person. He`s horrible, just horrible, and I hate his F-ing guts."

Now, catch this. Hold on. Before we clear Hayley -- "Do you know, last night in bed, I could actually see myself pummeling him to death and just enjoying the sensation of each and every shot. And this morning, as I pulled out of the garage to go to spin (ph) class" -- while the rest of us were at work, PS -- "all I wanted to do was crash into his two Ferraris."

Well, several things jump out at me, all right? First of all, she wants to pummel him. She wants to shoot him. And the guy`s got two Ferraris. I really don`t know where to start. But why does she get suddenly ruled out? Did she have an alibi, the wife?

FISHMAN: She doesn`t have an alibi, but in some ways, what happens is that the very aggressive, virulent, awful nature of these e-mails suggests that this is not somebody -- who, after all, is a smart person, she went to University of Pennsylvania, got an MBA from Columbia. This is not somebody`s going to signal that she`s going to kill her husband.

GRACE: Oh~! So all those degrees on her wall gives her an instant acquittal? Uh-uh. No!

FISHMAN: There is no other proof, at this point, linking her...

GRACE: Where was she was at the time of the killing?

FISHMAN: She is supposedly in a hotel. She moves out of this house, the $14,000-a-month house, on a Saturday. She left...

GRACE: That`s a shot of Hayley right there, a former world-class championship skier, gave birth to two or three kids?

FISHMAN: Two.

GRACE: ... by Andrew and -- continue.

FISHMAN: And she is -- she shows up on a Saturday. She`s made a deal -- because they`ve stopped paying the rent, she`s made a deal with the landlord, All right, we`re going to get out. Andrew doesn`t want to leave. He says he has no place to go. She says, OK, stay until Monday, and she goes back to her hotel, where apparently, the police have been able to verify...

GRACE: So she has just left? How far away was the hotel?

FISHMAN: It`s in the same town.

GRACE: OK. You know, she`s -- she`s bunked up in a hotel in the same town, and that`s her alibi? Let me guess. She went to sleep?

FISHMAN: I believe that`s the story.

GRACE: OK. Take a listen to what the divorce lawyer had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There were charges pending against him in Connecticut, federal charges, and there were state charges pending against him in New York. The charges in New York related to his ripping off a condo where he was the treasurer, and the charges in Connecticut were, basically, you know, fraudulent transactions and arranging for triple mortgages on the same piece of property, signing Hayley`s name to some of those, too.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did your client, Hayley Kissel, have any reason to murder her husband, Andrew?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not at all. I mean, just none. And she was finally going -- after going through this whole long, difficult period, she had a job. She was moving into a new home...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Joining us tonight, Andrew Kissel`s attorney, Philip Russell, a veteran trial lawyer. Philip, thank you for being with us.

PHILIP RUSSELL, KISSEL`S ATTORNEY: Hi.

GRACE: Let me ask you a couple of questions. Your client had been involved in so many, many scams. Now, I know the attorney-client privilege goes beyond death to the grave. But he was set to plead guilty to swindling a ton of money. How did the swindling start? And surprisingly, it wasn`t just business partners. It wasn`t just banks he ripped off but his own neighbors in his co-op.

RUSSELL: Well, the case began in Connecticut with a series of real estate financing transactions, where he got mortgages on property that had already been mortgaged. And the way that that was done, Nancy, was he forged the releases that were used to prove to the next bank that there were no mortgages against the property. And it sounds complicated, but he was able to mortgage the same property more than one time and use the money. He kept the interest payments up on all of the other properties as the thing progressed and wound up with a great deal of money.

GRACE: Now, here`s the funny thing, Philip. When I go to try to cash a check at the grocery store, I have to show a three kinds of ID and a credit card. How did he manage to fake out banks?

RUSSELL: Well, the banks all insisted on a thick stack of paperwork, which they would presumably review carefully. And a couple of the banks got loan packages from Mr. Kissel, and the loan packages they got for him were actually different. In other words, he would have one package that said this was his financial situation, have another one that said that was the financial...

GRACE: Isn`t it true...

RUSSELL: And they`d be sitting side by side.

GRACE: ... he had stolen a notary stamp and he was notarizing -- a fake notary stamp and was notarizing all these documents?

RUSSELL: Yes. He had a notary stamp, and he forged the name of the notary and created releases for all of the loans, which he stole the proceeds of.

GRACE: According to information that we have, Philip, your client ripped off his neighbors in his own co-op to the tune of $4 million. And it was so bad, his wife, Hayley, would have to sneak down 10 flights of stairs so the neighbors wouldn`t see her, she was so embarrassed. Did you know that?

RUSSELL: I don`t know anything about Mrs. Kissel going down stairs. I know there was an allegation against him that he took approximately $2.5 million, and that he made restitution before law enforcement became involved with the case.

GRACE: Wasn`t the restitution back over $4 million?

RUSSELL: I don`t know. I can`t confirm that number. I don`t think it was that dramatic a figure. He did pay back the original amount that was taken, and a premium, which went to the lawyers and the accountants who worked for the co-op board recovering the loss.

GRACE: Take a listen to what police had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We haven`t ruled anybody out, but I can`t speculate on any attachments or connections to organized crime.

This was not a random act, that we do believe that Mr. Kissel was the intentional target of this assault and that there is not someone out there in the community who may be randomly selecting residences to break into.

The manner and way in which this was carried out gives us a level of comfort in stating that it was Mr. Kissel that was the intended victim. The preliminary findings of the autopsy indicate that Mr. Kissel`s death was the result of multiple stab wounds.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Out to prosecutor Holly Hughes, a veteran trial lawyer, has handled her share of homicide cases. Holly, what jumps out at you about this crime scene?

HOLLY HUGHES, PROSECUTOR: What jumps out at me, Nancy, is, first of all, the brutality of it. And one of the reasons I don`t believe that this was a homicide by suicide for hire is because when you`re going to kill yourself, you don`t hire somebody to stab you four times in the back and leave you to bleed out. It`s vicious. It`s brutal. It`s personal. What we see a lot of time with knife killings is that it is a personal thing. And who knows how long that man laid on the floor with those horrible, vicious wounds before he actually bled out and expired.

GRACE: To Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst. According to Kissel`s own father, this would have been the first time he had ever done anything that was not self-serving, if he had arranged his own death. He was going to jail, to a federal pen. That`s not pretty. They don`t let you off with good time, Bethany.

BETHANY MARSHALL, PSYCHOTHERAPIST: Right. Right.

GRACE: He was looking at several years. His wife loathed him, hated him. His brother had been murdered. Nobody that has thought this thing through rally believes that in a final act of heroism, he would arrange to have himself killed to save all that money for the kids.

MARSHALL: No. I mean, look, if he`s a normal, everyday swindler, which it seems like he is, it`s really unlikely that he would have arranged his own death to look noble because, really, with these types of swindlers, they don`t experience a lot of anxiety about harming other people. They don`t experience a lot of anxiety about going to jail. And that`s why they repeat their crimes again and again, and that`s why the rate of suicide would be low before an event like this, because a sense of consequences would not be taken that seriously.

On the other hand this guy was a petrie dish full of pathology. According to one report, he had bipolar disorder, impulse control disorder...

GRACE: Oh, please!

MARSHALL: ... alcohol dependence. So the only way this could have happened is if he was in some kind of a hyper-manic state and it really threw his judgment off in some way.

GRACE: Let`s go out to Bill in South Carolina. Hi, Bill.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hi, Nancy. (INAUDIBLE) getting ready to plead guilty to several charges, which would have definitely diminished his net worth. So was he not worth more to his wife dead than alive?

GRACE: You know, I don`t know why everybody, Bill, is so willing to scratch her off the suspect list. Right now, in my mind, this thing is unsolved. Everybody`s a suspect, and nobody`s a suspect.

Is it largely because, Steve Fishman, they seem to think, why would she have written these e-mails that were so boldly talking about how she would like to kill him? I mean, to me that`s counterintuitive.

FISHMAN: Well, it is true, you know, Hayley had motive. She`s this champion skier. She might be physically able. She has cooperated with the police. The police kind of have moved on from her.

GRACE: No! Wait a minute!

FISHMAN: OK.

GRACE: Could Hayley really take a pair of these, flex ties, handcuffs, and wrestle this guy to the ground -- this was a big guy -- drag him down to the basement or get him in the basement to stab him? Hardened criminals can`t get out of these things. They have to be cut off. You really think Hayley could do that?

FISHMAN: I actually don`t. I don`t like Hayley as a suspect. I just think that she`s been -- she was too close to him over too long of a period of time. She was generous to him at the end. You know, she keeps him out of jail. He could have gone away for...

GRACE: She put up his million-dollar bond, right?

FISHMAN: Well, she puts up his bond. She allows him to live with her in this house, you know...

GRACE: Oh! And then moves out, coincidentally, the day before he gets whacked. OK, we`re talking mansions, murder, mystery and money, millions and millions of dollars.

But first, let`s go to tonight`s "Security Alert." Twenty-four men arrested in a foiled terror plot to blow up as many as 10 flights heading from the U.K. to the U.S.. Intelligence officials say they hoped to carry out the attacks just days from now. The plan, to board flights with liquid substances and electronic equipment designed to detonate mid-air. As thousands complain today about flight delays and having their carry-ons confiscated, we say thank you, thank you to law enforcement for a major blow against terrorism. We can only speculate how many lives would have been lost in yet another terror attack.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL CHERTOFF, SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY: We believe that the arrests in Britain have significantly disrupted this major threat, but we cannot assume that the threat has been completely thwarted or that we have fully identified and neutralized every member of this terrorist network.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hookers and dopers apparently have been coming in and out of the mansion.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I mean, that opens another door on possible killers. You know, he could have owed big bucks to a dope dealer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Sitting on a nest egg of millions of millions of dollars, why is it this guy, Andrew Kissel, decided to scam not only his neighbors in his co-op, his business partners and local banks for millions and millions more?

Here in the studio with me, court TV anchor, you know her well, Ashleigh Banfield. Ashleigh, I`m interested in the crime scene. I like to start at the crime scene to determine who committed the crime. What can you tell me?

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, COURT TV: Well, that`s the problem, there`s not a whole lot there, and that`s what`s making this so much more mysterious. Two places where you`d have to get entry to this mansion, the gated area before the driveway, which you either need a code or you have to know how to get through, and then the front door. And the gate was not breached. The door was open when the movers arrived to pick up the last of the furniture, the bedroom suite, which was all he pretty much had to sleep in that weekend, as he stayed in the mansion. And there was no sign of a struggle, nothing stolen. There was nothing to steal. He was slumped over in a chair, hands and feet bound. as you mentioned, in the flex cuffs, stabbed in the back, with his shirt over his head -- very, very violent. Obviously, as your...

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: Did he have on pants?

BANFIELD: To my knowledge, he had on pants. There was nothing sexual that was suggested in this particular crime. But the fact that there was nothing disturbed -- no defensive wounds...

GRACE: Wait. The reason I ask is because there was speculation that there had been dopers and hookers in the home that weekend. And I`m wondering -- you know, you bring dopers and hookers in the home, you don`t know what`s going to happen.

BANFIELD: No. You got that right. Certainly not in my house~! But I`ll tell you one thing, Hayley was very concerned about some of the company that this particular gentleman kept on his yacht and elsewhere, and that certainly led to acrimony in that marriage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GRACE: As investigators learn more about Kissel`s life, it becomes apparent there is no lack of potential suspects, people who claim they were double-crossed, swindled, cheated, people who could have powerful motives for wanting him dead. And still police don`t have a suspect. They have not made an arrest. They say they don`t even have any clues. You know what? I don`t believe it. You can`t have a multi-millionaire stabbed to death in handcuffs in the basement and not have a list of suspects.

Out to Doris in Indiana. Hi, Doris.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, Nancy. I love your show.

GRACE: Thank you, dear.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was wondering -- I was curious what the ages of the children were...

GRACE: Oh, good question.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... if they were at the hotel with her that night. And if not, where were they?

GRACE: Good question.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you.

GRACE: Steve?

FISHMAN: Yes, they were at the hotel. They`re younger kids. I don`t know the exact ages but in the 10-year-old range.

GRACE: I know what she`s getting at. Doris, I`m reading your mind. Could she, the wife, have left them alone? Were they of an age they could be left alone asleep, for her to double back and do this murder? And if this guy, according to associates, was using cocaine, was having hookers in and out of this mansion, if he was doped up, she could do anything. But how could she get him down to the basement?

To Philip Russell, Andrew Kissel`s lawyer. Your guy was a about to plead guilty and go to the pen.

RUSSELL: Yes.

GRACE: Was he singing on co-conspirators?

RUSSELL: No, he wasn`t cooperating with the authorities by giving testimony against anyone or incriminating any other people. He was not involved in that type of activity.

GRACE: You know what? I know you`re a veteran defense lawyer, but that doesn`t sound anything at all like the feds because they will squeeze you until you are dry. They get blood out a turnip. So if your guy knew anything, I don`t believe that they wouldn`t squeeze him.

RUSSELL: Well, I don`t know what to say, Nancy. He wasn`t talking. He wasn`t giving up other people.

GRACE: What was his deal?

RUSSELL: He was pleading guilty. He was owning up to what he had done. He was...

GRACE: How much jail time?

RUSSELL: It was probably going to be between five and ten years.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DOMINICK DUNNE, INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST: We wonder how he got into that house. Andrew had to have opened the door and let him into the house. I don`t think that she is the killer, because she never would have sent an e-mail saying she hated him so much that she would enjoy pummeling him to death.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Well, it`s been very rare that Dominick Dunne was wrong on a case. Welcome back, everybody.

A multimillionaire found stabbed to death and, interestingly, handcuffed, hand and foot, in his basement, just before he pled guilty to hard time in a federal penitentiary. And the divorce that was set to go forward, well, is it still going on?

Let`s go out to Howard Graber, Andrew Kissel`s divorce attorney. You spoke with him just before the murder, correct?

HOWARD GRABER, ANDREW KISSEL`S DIVORCE LAWYER: Correct, Nancy.

GRACE: Now, tell me about, where does Hayley stand at this juncture regarding all the money? I mean, the divorce was pending, but it wasn`t final, right?

GRABER: Correct. The divorce was in the pendente lite stage...

GRACE: Whoa, please. I`m impressed, but if you could explain that to our viewers.

GRABER: That`s Latin for pending litigation.

GRACE: Continue.

GRABER: So it was in the middle of the divorce process. Hayley had just filed a motion for exclusive possession of the residence, which I find interesting when you had mentioned that everybody`s acquitting Hayley already. She allegedly hated Andrew so much that she would spend thousands, maybe tens of thousands of dollars, in attorneys fees to seek to have Andrew removed from this residence that she would have had to have moved out from due to the eviction no more than four to seven days later.

So there was certainly some hatred there, at least on Hayley Kissel`s part. I did not find that Andrew exhibited that same hatred for his wife at the time, though.

GRACE: So why is it everyone is ruling her out automatically? He`s making a lot of sense.

FISHMAN: Well, he is making sense, but, you know, you have to go...

GRACE: But you just don`t like it?

FISHMAN: I don`t like it. I go to Dominick`s point. You know, I like his insight. Listen, you know, she`s hated this guy for a long time. I mean, they have had a bad marriage going back years. So if she`s going to kill him, she`s going to do it in a premeditated way.

GRACE: See that`s where you`re wrong. You`re thinking like a rational person. You`re deducing. You`re taking a look at the evidence and all of her motives. Killers are not thinking rationally. They don`t think like we think; they think that`s actually a good alternative.

FISHMAN: Well, maybe you`re right. But listen, you know, she needed somebody else to do this with her. You`re the one who brought up the brought that...

GRACE: Yes, I did.

FISHMAN: ... that she`s not going to wrestle him to the ground and flex cuff him.

GRACE: Back to Philip Russell, Andrew Kissel`s criminal lawyer, now, you know you got problems when you`ve got that many lawyers working for you. Remember Simpson coming in court with a fleet of like 10 lawyers trailing behind him? Here we`ve got Philip Russell, high-profile lawyer. Then you`ve got Howard Graber, his divorce lawyer, no stranger to a courtroom.

Now, what type of handcuffs were on this guy`s feet and hands? Were they these plastics or the other kinds?

GRABER: I believe those were the handcuffs that he had.

GRACE: And tell me, his height and his weight to the best of your knowledge?

GRABER: I would say he was approximately 5`11" or 6 feet, maybe 185, 190 pounds.

GRACE: But to Renee Rockwell, veteran defense attorney, back to the wife, Hayley, if this guy was high on cocaine -- from my understanding, powdered cocaine was his thing -- she could probably get him to do anything.

RENEE ROCKWELL, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: No, Nancy, she didn`t do it.

GRACE: Why?

ROCKWELL: I like the murder -- the suicide-murder mystery. That`s fascinating. You couldn`t even write a back like this. And everybody wants to say, "No, way, he could`ve gotten a hit man"...

GRACE: Because it doesn`t make any sense. That`s why.

ROCKWELL: Nancy, everybody says you wouldn`t hire a hit man to stab you and just let you bleed out and leave you for dead. Unfortunately, there are no rules with hit men. You order your own death, and you just take what you can get.

GRACE: Renee, I got a funny feeling that it`s not exactly the curb service that you`re talking about when you`re talking about a killer. If reports are true that this guy had hookers and dopers in his house, they could have just had a party that got out of control and he ends up dead. Yes, no, Anne Bremner?

ANNE BREMNER, TRIAL ATTORNEY: I look at the case, Nancy, as the Kissel of death. Where did it come from? Anywhere, the mob...

GRACE: OK, that was bad.

BREMNER: I know, but I had to say it, but the mob, the hookers, the dopers, everyone he swindled, his neighbors, his friends, his business associates, strangers in business, you know? Everybody. Who did not want to kill him, raise your hand? Everyone wanted to kill him that he knew, you know? Everyone`s a suspect. Nobody`s a suspect. Nancy, everyone`s a suspect, and everyone`s a suspect that knows this guy.

GRACE: Let`s go to the lines. Grace in Texas. Hi, what`s your question?

CALLER: Hi. I`d like to know if the sister and the wife still communicate.

GRACE: That`s a really good question. What`s your next one?

CALLER: And if either one of them has expressed who they think might have done this?

GRACE: Well, interestingly enough, it`s my understanding -- and Ashley Banfield with us tonight, Court TV anchor, is also a friend of the Kissel family. Let me get this straight. Hayley, the wife, knew the sister ahead of time.

BANFIELD: Introduced Andrew.

GRACE: OK, so they are friends way back, before she became -- oh, great. There we go. Thanks, Liz. It`s tricky.

BANFIELD: It`s tricky, but if you follow it...

GRACE: Andrew dead in the basement. Robert murdered in Hong Kong with a poisonous milkshake by his wife. She`s behind bars. She`s in the big dollhouse tonight. Jane, sister, who is friends with wife Hayley. OK, how did that happen? And are they still in touch? Isn`t that who Hayley is writing in his e-mails?

BANFIELD: Yes, there`s a great deal of trust that Hayley placed...

GRACE: OK, that`s freaky.

BANFIELD: ... in her sister-in-law at the time. And, of course, they had gone back a long time. They`d been friends for a long time. And like I said, she introduced her to her husband.

But I think the custody dealings with the children of Robert, who died in Hong Kong, really sort of drove a wedge through that relationship eventually. I think now it`s difficult to say if anybody in the family truly believed that Hayley was responsible for this. The police say at least, "Look, this was not an act of passion. This crime that we saw was not an act of passion that you normally would attribute to a spurned wife."

But at this point, at this point, it is not likely that Hayley and the rest of the family are on speaking terms.

GRACE: What about it, Steve Fishman? You would write your own sister-in-law about how much you hated her brother, how you dreamed of killing him? But yet, police seem to have ruled out Hayley as a suspect.

FISHMAN: Yes, you know, one of the things about this that`s frustrating is the police haven`t really moved the investigation forward.

GRACE: Not at all.

FISHMAN: So we`re kind of left to speculate. I mean, and as we all know, as this case continues, the leads go cold, there`s less and less chance most likely that the police are going to come up with an arrest. And after all, this is the local police department, not really skilled in high-profile murders.

Now, that said, you know, Hayley and Jane have the prior relationship. They love each other for a long time. Jane says to Hayley at one point, "You`re the sister I never had." So, you know, there are years and years of trust. Now, do you confide in your best friend and then one day wake up and say, "Whoops, my best friend is also the person I`m complaining about`s sister"? You know, there`s a certain amount of bad judgment in that.

GRACE: But didn`t the sister want the children from Hong Kong, and then Kissel sued her to get the children, and then charged all that money back to his dead brother`s estate for taking care of the children? I`ve never seen a family quite this screwed up.

FISHMAN: This is a highly dysfunctional family.

GRACE: That`s a good way to put it.

FISHMAN: And, you know, and it goes way back. I mean, one of the things the dynamics going on, is Andrew and his dad are estranged. Andrew`s brother and his dad were at some time estranged. Andrew ends up calling his sister and threatening her. Hayley and the father-in-law don`t call...

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: You know, it sounds like we need an alibi on every single family member for the night this guy was killed.

Out to Philip Russell, Andrew Kissel`s lawyer, I`m still thinking back to reports that, around the time of his death, there were prostitutes. And this is a guy with millions and millions of dollars.

Bethany, I`m going to come back to you as the shrink to figure this one out.

This multimillionaire had, what, 16 cars, Ferraris, Porsches, Mercedes, had to hire hookers for sex, and was using cocaine around the time of his death. Did your guy have a drug or alcohol problem?

RUSSELL You`ve asked me before, and you know that I won`t talk about it. What I will say is I don`t know anything about the hookers or the drugs around the time of his death. I do know that he was on an ankle bracelet with court supervision and he couldn`t go far...

GRACE: Had he been in rehab?

RUSSELL: ... and he was leaving peacefully with his family until about 24 hours before he got killed, so it`s kind of a stretch.

GRACE: Had he been in rehab?

RUSSELL: I`m not going to answer that. You`ve asked me before, and I won`t, but it`s kind of a stretch.

GRACE: Had he been in rehab, Ashley?

BANFIELD: I can tell you that court documents do list a lot of different conditions that Andrew had, including alcohol dependency, bipolar disorder, cocaine abuse, impulse control disorder, PTSD, anti-social personality disorder, and that`s court documents, so, yes.

(NEWSBREAK)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GRACE: Let`s go to "Headline Prime`s" Glenn Beck. Hi, Glenn.

GLENN BECK, HOST: Nancy, we have a lot of ground to cover tonight. This terrorist plan with the cops busted over in Britain is just the tip of the iceberg. You combine this story with a whole bunch of other things, like the Iranian fighters in Hezbollah, the eight missing Egyptians wandering around the country, and the two Muslim guys busted in Ohio, and you begin to see a much bigger picture.

As the president said today, we are at war. And we`re going to go over the different battle plans tonight. Warning: This is not for the weak of heart. We`ll see you back here in a few.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DUNNE: There is a fascination with people who have everything, everything.

GRACE: Murder in Greenwich is rare, but when it does happen, it`s big news. And this one is no exception.

DUNNE: He was a real chiseler.

GRACE: What do you mean by chiseler? I`ve never heard of that before.

DUNNE: Well, I love that word, and it`s a cheap word for a cheap guy with a cheap crime, anything for a buck. He was a strange man, a cold, strange man.

GRACE: Dominick Dunne, the crime scene suggests Andrew Kissel knew his killer.

DUNNE: You wonder how he got into that house. Andrew had to have opened the door and let him into the house, and so it`s quite possible that it was someone whom he knew.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Who killed Andrew Kissel? Why is a very powerful and wealthy family being protected? No answers yet. No suspects, and certainly no arrests.

One person that has been under police questioning, Carlos Trujillo. Now, Carlos Trujillo had certain dealings with Kissel prior to his death. And just a few days after Kissel`s death, found stabbed to death in the basement of his Connecticut mansion, Trujillo was pawning Kissel`s belongings.

Joining us tonight, Trujillo`s lawyer, Lindy Urso. Lindy, how did your guy get a hold of Kissel`s possessions and why?

LINDY URSO, CARLOS TRUJILLO`S ATTORNEY: Well, Nancy, it actually wasn`t after the death. What happened was, in the last weeks of Andrew`s life, he had no access to any bank accounts because of his legal troubles, so he was using various people as straw men to try to attain some cash. He asked Carlos to be basically the front man for some pawning of some jewelry. Kissel worked out these deals with the local jewelry store and the checks were made out to Carlos, all on the up and up.

GRACE: And your guy was the last one to see Kissel alive?

URSO: Well, unfortunately, he placed himself as the last known person to have seen Andrew alive. And let me just shed a little light for you, Nancy, on where the police investigation is going.

In the four-plus months basically since the murder, the police it appears absolutely have tunnel vision with respect to Carlos. As late as last week, the lead investigators on the case had immigration officials pick up Carlos` nephew and detain him. And luckily he got out on bond, and they`ve threatened to pick up his sister-in-law, his niece, and his brother-in-law if these people don`t give them information to incriminate Carlos.

So that`s exactly what`s going on with the police right now. That`s probably a big part of why there`s no break in this case at all.

GRACE: To P.I., private investigator Tom Shamshak, what should police be doing now? They seem to be spinning their wheels.

TOM SHAMSHAK, PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR, FORMER POLICE CHIEF: Well, Nancy, as you know, law enforcement is very reluctant to share any information. So the guests here tonight may not have any information beyond what`s out there in the public domain through the media.

I`d like to say that this altruistic theory of the suicide, that may have some merit. I think the results of the autopsy might suggest something there. If he was overdosed -- but look at what happened here.

Here`s a man seated. He was having a conversation, if you will, in a chair, and he was bound. And then he may have succumbed to drugs or he may have been tortured.

There was some money in that house, we`re told, $12,000 worth of jewelry. Where is that money? Did people in the street, the hookers, the druggers, were they aware that this money was in there? If he was having drugs supplied to him, what kind of people were bringing that stuff in there? Certainly not high-level people.

GRACE: Let`s go out to the lines. Let`s go to Diane in Massachusetts. Hi, Diane.

CALLER: Hi, Nancy. My question is, why aren`t the police pursuing the theory that the wife could have hired a hit man, considering she had the most to gain monetarily and, obviously, had access to the residence and to his lifestyle?

GRACE: Why not, Philip?

RUSSELL: It`s not accurate. Mrs. Kissel had very little to gain from the death of her husband, and he was going away. He was a problem that was solved.

GRACE: But wait a minute, Philip. If he died before he had to pay back all that money from all of his scamming, all that money would go to her and the children if they were still married.

RUSSELL: The money, the millions that we`ve been talking about didn`t really exist at the time of his death. He was defending a handful of lawsuits. There were court orders that locked up his assets. He couldn`t legally have 10 cents in his hand without it being subject to four different court orders. So there wasn`t a lot of net worth there...

GRACE: Steve Fishman?

RUSSELL: And in the months since his death, there hasn`t been anything that`s happened with it.

GRACE: How much money are we talking about that Hayley is set to get?

FISHMAN: Well, there`s been some speculation about what would happen with an insurance policy that Andrew supposedly had. And the number that`s tossed around is $15 million.

GRACE: OK.

FISHMAN: Whether that`s true or not...

GRACE: Enough said.

And back to you, Philip Russell. I`ve got the divorce filings. Actually, I`ve got the divorce lawyer here. I`ll go to him, Howard Graber. The divorce filings state Kissel, Andrew Kissel`s serious problems with alcohol abuse, has sought treatment at facilities in Rhinebeck, New York, and Greenwich, Connecticut, and had resumed drinking in front of the minor children.

And these filings are November 10, 2005, not even a year ago. So regarding alcohol and drug problems, you allege it in your divorce documents. I mean, it is alleged in the divorce documents.

GRABER: Well, those weren`t alleged by me, Nancy.

GRACE: Right.

GRABER: That was filed by Hayley`s attorneys.

GRACE: So what`s your response?

GRABER: Well, when Mr. Kissel came to my office, and I could give you the last time I saw him, which would have been the Friday before his murder, he did not appear to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

The only thing that I witnessed was that he seemed a bit nervous. I had attributed that basically to the fact that here was a gentleman who was well aware that he was about to go to jail for a good eight to 10 years.

GRACE: OK, so you deny these claims in the divorce documents.

To Bethany Marshall, a guy sitting on millions of dollars, Mercedes, Porsches, two Ferraris, why would you swindle your own neighbors to get even more money?

MARSHALL: Well, it could be just that it was the thrill of the chase. I mean, he really enjoyed ripping other people off. But also, if the bipolar impulse control, multiple substance abuse problems thing was true - - and it probably is, because it was in the court documents -- this is maybe somebody who was really interested in the pursuit of money and really got excited by these illicit activities.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DUNNE: Well, I mean, that opens another door on possible killers. You know, he could have owed big bucks to a dope dealer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Man, oh, Manischewitz, still no answers in a case out of Connecticut, a guy sitting on millions of dollars.

To Court TV anchor and friend of the Kissel family, Ashley Banfield, what about this business partner? Now, we have Philip Russell saying his guy, the dead guy, was not going to sing, was not cooperating with the feds, was going to do his time and come back home. But what about the outstanding state complaints about him stealing from the co-op? He had a business partner.

BANFIELD: He had a business partner, and I`m not so sure that we know he wasn`t going to sing about people in the federal case. And who knows if he wasn`t going to sing about people in the state case, the grand larceny case? Which, by all accounts, Andrew thought he settled when he paid out $4.7 million and it kind of came back to haunt him, because the state said, "No, this is criminal. We`re going to graft you for it." So maybe he was going to have some people sinking with him, and maybe those are the people that investigators are trying to focus on now, and there are many.

GRACE: And where are the children? There`s a lot of kids without dads.

BANFIELD: Five kids in this family without dads tonight, and that is where the tragedy is.

GRACE: Is it true that today Hayley Kissel`s lawyers dumped her, they`re tired of her complaining about the bill?

BANFIELD: Yes, well, local media reports are suggesting that...

(CROSSTALK)

BANFIELD: ... that there`s difficulties with the bill. And we can understand that, because she`s had to apply apparently for an allowance to try to continue her life.

GRACE: And fight for her kids.

BANFIELD: Hayley has her two daughters, Andrew`s two daughters. And the three children from Robby`s marriage, Robby the unfortunate victim of his wife`s killing in Hong Kong, they originally were with Andrew and Hayley. When that marriage started to go south, sister Jane on the West Coast took over those kids, and so they`re living hopefully as sheltered as they can, because they`ve had a lot of trouble with media prying into their lives. And this family is trying to protect these little kids so that they can have a normal life.

GRACE: I don`t know if a normal life is possible when one dad gets killed by a poisonous milkshake served by his wife and the other one is handcuffed and stabbed to death in the basement. We`re staying on it.

But let`s stop for a moment to remember -- we want to remember Army Specialist Michael Hermanson, 21, Fargo, North Dakota. A National Guardsman, Hermanson attended North Dakota State University, dreamed of working in criminal justice, leaving behind loving parents, a teenage sister, Lindsay. Michael Hermanson, American hero.

Thank you to all of our guests, especially to you, for being with us. Good night, friend.

END