Stacey Castor murdered two husbands with antifreeze

I use a signal on this site when an episode includes graphic imagery. The photo of the death scene used throughout this episode, with David Castor's legs off the edge of the bed and visible blood and vomitus, is pretty gruesome. But I held off on using the graphic imagery flag in this case. There are scenes in previous episodes, many of them early in the series, that make this photo look tame. As planted evidence, I'm sure the gallon container of antifreeze partially under the bed was tested for fingerprints. But the plastic bottle was probably not a good surface to pull fingerprints from – I wouldn't think Stacey had the insight to remove them.

Image credit: Episode screen capture from Forensic Files

Finding her fingerprints on the very glass that still contained antifreeze told a lot about Stacey. Perhaps getting away with her first husband's murder had been so easy, she didn't think to avoid leaving clues to be found during an investigation. This was further demonstrate when Stacey didn't have the awareness to put the turkey baster in a better place than in the kitchen garbage. These obvious evidentiary hints showed Stacey was clearly not the sharpest tool in the shed. It's one thing that David's DNA was found around the tip of the turkey baster, but there was still "traces of green liquid in it".

It's impossible to not talk about "antifree", Stacey's consistent mispronunciation and also phonetical spelling of the common word antifreeze. Stacey had to hear police and investigators correctly pronounce this word dozens of times. How can an adult not realize they were pronouncing a word improperly and not want to correct themselves? It's such an obvious word as well – the meaning of what the substance is used for is in its very name. In a related article from 2020 at www.syracuse.com, it was said Stacey also shared this foible during her police interview:

"When I poured the antifree...I mean, cranberry juice…"

But Stacey found a way to take her ignorance a step further, and despite having a computer, actually wrote out the word antifreeze the same way she continued to think it was said. This occurred multiple times in the fake suicide note she'd written in her attempt to frame her daughter Ashley for her crime. Take a close look at the supposed suicide note, and think of Stacey's mindset as it was composed. With all of its capitalization, grammatical, and punctuation issues, as well as several misspellings in addition to "antifree", I'm left with an important question: Did she have that poor of a grasp of the written language, or did she think her daughter did? It frightens me when I see similar composition and the lack of time/care used, mostly in text messages shared among the younger generation. Of course not everyone born after about 1995 is guilty of this, but efficiency (or laziness) continues to adulterate our written language.

Image credit: Episode screen capture from Forensic Files

I understand the legal binding of a marriage affords a spouse certain rights related to their significant other. But Stacey's ability to block a medical examiner from administering an autopsy on David Castor seems inappropriate. I suppose if David's family pushed criminal investigators hard enough, they would've had the authority to override Stacey's request. But this seems to afford some undue protection to a spouse who has a hand in their partner's demise. And how creepy was it that Stacy had her second dead husband buried adjacent to her first?

A mother's capability to attempt to murder her own daughter to cover up her own guilt strikes a specific nerve with me. Ashley was an innocent minor at the time Stacey tried to make her overdose with sleeping pills. She'd had nothing to do with her father Michael Wallace's death in 2000, when she'd been merely 12 years old. But simply by being the right age (Bree would've been too young) and in the wrong place (with her evil mother), Stacey thought her own daughter's life was an acceptable price to avoid being caught and punished. If Ashley had not survived her horrific ordeal, I hope there would've still been sufficient evidence to charge and convict Stacey.

Image credit: Episode screen capture from Forensic Files

Ashley's anger at her mother was palatable, and rightly so, but this probably wasn't the only target of her ire. Defense attorneys occasionally frustrate me when the evidence clearly points to their client's guilt. I know it's "their job", but to defend the obviously guilty, to try to get others to believe the lies, and to vilify the innocent – I wonder if there's a special place in hell for such folks. Stacey's attorney had to present the ridiculous story that 12-year-old Ashley had poisoned her own father with antifreeze, had done it again to her stepfather five years later, and then had attempted to take her own life.

I'm pretty sure Stacey's testimony did not strengthen her case. In the limited footage I've seen, she came across as aloof and unconvincing. It's a special kind of wickedness that allowed Stacey to continue to blame her own daughter after attempting to kill her. The judge's statement was epic, "You're not just a danger to the general public, you're a danger to the people who love you and are closest to you." As usual, a couple of questions still haunt me:

Image credit: Episode screen capture from Forensic Files

• Stacey certainly was not "Mother of the Year" material, but it's obvious the drink she'd spiked with sleeping pills was alcoholic. Why was she giving her 17-year-old daughter hard liquor? And with that amount of crushed pills in it, was it a wonder Ashley didn't notice an odd taste?
• With the suspicion mounting that her mother had not only killed her current husband, but had likely also killed her own father, why did Ashley trust a drink her mother prepared for her in the first place?

Where is Stacey Castor now in 2024?

In 2016, after serving seven years of her sentence, Stacey Castor was found dead in her cell from an apparent heart attack. She was serving a 51-year sentence in Bedford Hills, New York.