"A compelling and fascinating tale of family psychopathology taken to the extreme; a real page turner."
– Jonathan Kellerman,
author of Bad Love and The Clinic

Author's Note:

ometimes it can be difficult to find a hero in a true-crime story. Publishers always want one––readers have to root for someone. In Bitter Almonds, I had two. Jack Cusack the FBI agent was the obvious choice. He was handsome, smart and a seasoned investigator. But in this case study I also had Willie Stewart, product tamperer Stella Nickell's favorite niece. Willie was a stunner; a beautiful woman who had struggled her whole life, but never lost the hope that things would get better. She had given up a baby as a teenager, been divorced more than a time or two, but by the time I met her she was still living her greatest struggle. It was Willie who found crucial evidence against her aunt and was tormented with the truth that she had knowledge that could send Stella to prison for the rest of her life.

"I don't want to believe that my aunt would kill my uncle," she told me not long after we first met. "And I don't ever want to think that she could have killed that other lady [Sue Snow]. It would hurt too much."

In time, though, she did believe it. And though she thought Stella's daughter, Cynthia, was somehow involved in the crime, Willie came to the realization that it didn't matter who did what.

"She's still my aunt and I love her," she said.

I haven't heard from Willie for awhile, but I think of her often. I got a Christmas card from Stella last Christmas, as I almost always do. She wished me and my family the best of the season. She read the book and thought I got "most of it right."

ABC News article on Stella Nickell