- In 2009, Stacey Castor was convicted of fatally poisoning her husband, David Castor, with antifreeze.
- Castor is suspected to have killed her first husband, Michael Wallace, using the same method, and she attempted to poison her older daughter, Ashley Wallace, with crushed pills and vodka.
- The new Lifetime movie Poisoned Love: The Stacey Castor Story premieres on February 1 at 8 p.m. ET and stars Nia Vardalos (My Big Fat Greek Wedding) as Castor.
Like the Golden State Killer and the BTK Killer, Stacey Castor is among the rank of criminals better identified by her nickname. They call her the Black Widow. And on February 1, Lifetime will air Poisoned Love: The Stacey Castor Story, a fictionalized account of the spine-chilling deeds that made Castor notorious.
In 2009, Castor was convicted of murdering her second husband, David Castor, attempting to murder her daughter, Ashley Wallace, and trying to forge her second husband's will, which left his $300,000 estate to her. Castor was sentenced to 51 years in prison—and that's just the start of the story.
Starring My Big Fat Greek Wedding's Nia Vardalos as Castor, Poisoned Love is a testament to appearances being deceiving—because for a while there, Castor had everyone in her Weedsport, New York community fooled of her innocence, including her two daughters.
Poisoned Love is part of Lifetime's winter 2020 "Ripped From the Headlines" slate, a set of five movies that reenact recent and shocking true crimes, like the Kamiyah Mobley kidnapping case. Here's what you need to know about Castor, who maintained her innocence until her death in 2016.
Who is Stacey Castor?
To her Weedsport, New York community, Castor was an incredibly resilient single mom who endured the following: the sudden death of her first husband, Michael Wallace, in 2000; the loss of her second husband, David Castor (Mike Dupod in Poisoned Love), in 2005; and the attempted suicide of her daughter, Ashley Wallace (played by Chanelle Peloso), in 2007.
In reality, Castor had orchestrated their poisonings. Castor poisoned both of her husbands with antifreeze, and tried to kill her daughter with a mix of vodka and crushed pills. Thankfully, Ashley was rushed to the hospital and survived.
Even learning the gruesome facts of Castor's deeds, it's entirely possible to be fooled by Castor in Poisoned Love—and that's entirely thanks to the clever casting of Nia Vardalos. Almost two decades after her indie movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding became a sensation, Vardalos remains surrounded by an orb of indisputable affection. She's the perfect person to play Castor, a woman who wielded her likability as a weapon and a shield.
"You know that likable thing you do? Do that!" Vardalos recalled director Jim Donovan telling her, during an interview with Build. Vardalos was instructed to play the character as if she were innocent—and it works.
How did Stacey Castor get caught?
Castor almost got away with it. At first, David Castor's death in 2005 was deemed a suicide. In an interview with police, Castor claimed David had been depressed due to the recent loss of his father, according to ABC News.
But Detective Dominick Spinelli of the Onondaga County Sheriff’s department was doubtful of this story for a number of reasons. First of all, detectives found Castor's fingerprints and traces of antifreeze on a turkey baster in the trash can.
Then, Spinelli saw similarities between David's death and Wallace's, Castor's first husband. Back in 2000, doctors determined Wallace had died of a heart attack. But after police exhumed Wallace's body in September 2007, an autopsy found traces of antifreeze crystals in his body.
“I knew at that point we had a double homicide and Stacey Castor probably killed both her husbands,” Spinelli told ABC News. Ingesting, it should be noted, leads to a "slow and agonizing and horrific" death, according to prosector for another antifreeze poisoning case (that one involved a spiked margarita).
Two days after Wallace's body was exhumed, Castor was brought in for questioning.
Sensing the walls closing in on her, Castor tried to frame her elder daughter, Ashley, according to prosectors. During an "early" celebration of Ashley's 21st birthday, Castor gave her a cocktail of vodka spiked with pills. The next morning, Bree Wallace found her older sister passed out next to a 750-word letter confessing to the murders of Michael and David.
On the morning of September 14, 2007, Ashley was rushed to the hospital and was "15 minutes from death," according to Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick, in an interview with ABC News. When Ashley woke up, she denied being involved with the murders. Spinelli believed her, too, because the letter misspelled antifreeze as "antifree," a mistake Castor always made when the saying word.
Castor was arrested at the hospital.
On February 5, 2009, Castor was found guilty of second degree murder, attempted second degree murder, and forging her second husband's will. She was not charged in Wallace's killing, but Wallace's exhumed body was presented as evidence during the trial. Prosecutors argued that Castor was looking to collect her husbands' life insurance policies.
However, Castor maintained her innocence until her death in 2016. “I did not kill Michael Wallace, I did not kill David Castor, and I did not try to kill my daughter, period," Castor told ABC 20/20's David Muir in 2009. "And I will never say that I did, ever.” She insinuated Ashley was guilty.
How did Stacey Castor die?
Poisoned Love concludes with Castor's conviction. She's sentenced to prison, and her two daughters renounce their ties with her.
In June 2016, seven years into her 51-year sentence, Castor was found dead in her prison cell in Bedford Hills, New York. According to District Attorney Fitzpatrick, Castor died of a heart attack, and no foul play was suspected. She was 48.
Castor never saw her daughters again.
Why was Castor dubbed the Black Widow?
Castor is hardly the first criminal to be dubbed "Black Widow." Named for the gnarly species of venomous spiders that eat their mates (yep!), the term "black widow" is used to describe women who kill their husbands or lovers.
Discounting cold-blooded killers or women out for financial gain, many "black widows" are driven to murder after enduring abuse from their partners.
"When women kill their male partners it is almost always done in self-defense or in defense of her children. She’s determined that either he must die or she must die. Very rare is it the case that women engage in psychological terrorism of their partners," Todd Shackelford, a psychology professor at Oakland University, said in an interview with Lifetime.
Poisoned Love suggests that David was a controlling spouse, though this may be a fictional embellishment. Tune in to Lifetime on Saturday, February 1 at 8 p.m. ET to be fooled.
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