The Coldest Sociopath Ever? - "You're in a class by yourself." The Case of Stacey Castor & Antifree
Any one who has spent significant time studying true crime through books and documentaries has learned about certain people that put absolutely zero value on human life other than their own. Every time we think we’ve finally found the most vile, disgusting sociopath of all time, there’s always some one even worse to learn about in another case. Today, we’ll be discussing the case of one of these kinds of people – and she is one of the worst of the worst – as the judge who sentenced her said, she is in a class all by herself. This person is Stacey Castor and she was more than your typical black widow who murders her husbands for life insurance money – this woman was willing to frame and kill any and every one to protect herself – including her own flesh & blood.
Stacey Castor was born as Stacey Daniels in Clay, New York in 1967 and from outward appearances, led a relatively normal life. She met her first husband, Michael Wallace, when she was 17 and they had two daughters together, Ashley and Bree. Every one who knew her believed she dearly loved her husband and daughters. Unfortunately, the marriage did have issues though and the couple rarely saw each other as Stacey worked during the day as an ambulance dispatcher and Michael worked evenings as a mechanic.
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| Stacey Castor and her first husband, Michael |
In 2001, Stacey met David Castor, who she would marry in 2003, taking his name in the process. Not surprisingly, a life insurance policy was set up for her new husband as well with Stacey being the beneficiary. Also not surprisingly, he quickly experienced a major health problem. On August 22nd, 2005, Stacey frantically dialed the police, saying that he had locked himself in his bedroom and wouldn’t come out. When police arrived and kicked in the door, they found David dead with an open bottle of antifreeze on the floor along with a glass of antifreeze on the nightstand.
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| Stacey and David Castor |
Now both of Stacey’s husbands had died relatively quickly after their marriage. This time the circumstances were even more suspicious, especially after police found a turkey baster that smelled like alcohol in the trash can. The baster had David’s DNA on the tip. They also found Stacy’s fingerprints on the glass but not David’s. Also, David’s will left everything to Stacey and her daughters but somehow nothing to his own son, David Jr. Detectives were convinced that Stacey murdered not only David but also her first husband, Michael. Now, they had to prove it.
Detective Dominic Spinelli helped lead the investigation and they began by setting up a camera watching over David’s grave. Surely, if she was really the grieving widow she claimed to be, she would visit her husband’s grave. She never did. Then, they decided to exhume the body of Michael Wallace to do a proper autopsy. When some one experiences poisoning from antifreeze, crystals form in the victim’s organs. Sure enough, Michael was loaded with crystals. Detectives now knew that she had murdered both her husbands. When they brought her in for questioning, a slip of the tongue removed any doubt.
According to Detective Spinelli, “I asked Stacey, ‘Do you remember which glass it was that you poured the cranberry juice in?’ and she looked at it and said, ‘Well, when I poured the anti-free-- I—‘ and then she stopped and said, ‘I mean-- I mean, the cranberry juice.’”
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| The glass of antifreeze |
By 2007, the evidence had been piling up and Stacey Castor knew it. She knew that they had exhumed David’s body and discovered that he had also been poisoned with antifreeze. Instead of hiring a lawyer and either going to trial to face the charges or accepting a plea deal, Stacey decided to execute a diabolical plan that included framing and murdering her own daughter.
After Ashley Wallace was informed that her father died of antifreeze poisoning, she was understandably upset and wanted answers. Stacey tried to calm her down, and after asking questions about what was said between Ashley and the detectives, she invited her to have drinks together and relax, as she had had a “hard day.” Ashley agreed as she trusted her mother and considered her her “best friend.”
Stacey made her a mixed drink that tasted terrible, but Ashley drank it anyway. The following day, the same thing happened – Stacey made Ashley a drink that was disgusting. She encouraged Ashley to drink it, saying use a straw and put it towards the back of your throat so you don’t taste it. After drinking it, she felt tired and went to lay down.
Seventeen hours later, Bree found her sister Ashley comatose in her bed. She told her mother and demanded that they call 911, which Stacey, to Bree’s shock, was hesitant to do. Finally, she relented and called 911 but not before sneaking an apparent suicide note next to Ashley. Bree found the letter, which confessed to the murders of both her father and stepfather and said that she was now taking her own life. Medics were able to save her just in time, and when detectives explained to her what happened – asking about the note, she was completely baffled. “I did not try to kill myself nor did I leave a suicide note,” she said.
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| Stacey and her daughters |
What actually happened is clear as day – Stacey Castor fabricated the suicide note and attempted to murder her own daughter so that she would take the fall for the murders of both Michael Wallace and David Castor. When Michael died, Ashley was only 11 years old. Investigators found several drafts of the suicide note on Stacey’s computer and the timestamps proved that they were written while Ashley was at school. It was also unique as a suicide note in that instead of describing remorse and the reasons why she was taking her own life like most suicide notes, the main focus of the note was assurance that Stacey was innocent – a theme that was repeated 14 times in the note. For even more proof, the word “antifreeze” was spelled “antifree,” which is how Stacey incorrectly pronounced the word in interviews. The evidence proved that not only did Stacey try to kill her own daughter, but she killed David over the course of 4 days, slowly poisoning him with antifreeze, force feeding him with a turkey baster, to make it look like a suicide.
On December 20th, 2007, Stacey Castor was finally indicted not only for murder but also for the attempted murder of her own daughter. The case went to trial and Stacey’s attorney had no other argument other than to try to say that Ashley, who had no history of mental illness, murdered both her fathers using antifreeze including her biological father when she was just 11 years old. Ashley testified at the trial, explaining she hated her mother for ruining so many lives but also still somehow loved her. She was also understandably insulted at how the suicide note not only made her look like a murderer, but it also made her look stupid, as it had many grammatical errors. Even still, Stacey, when asked at the trial, blatantly blamed her daughter for killing both her husbands, despite all the evidence that proved otherwise.
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| Stacey Castor |
She was found guilty and sentenced to 51 years in prison. “She was my best friend, too," Ashley Wallace said "She was. And then she took that all away. I would have done anything for her, but she decided she wanted to kill me instead.”
She may have also killed her own father, as she visited him and brought him a can of soda when he was in the hospital in 2002. He died shortly after that visit, and Stacey was the executor of his estate. It would not be surprising at all if she did murder her own father. As the assistant district attorney Christine Garvey explained at Castor’s sentencing, "She is cold, calculating and without any emotion for what she has done. Human life is sacred. Stacey Castor places no value on human life, not even her own flesh and blood. To Stacey Castor, human beings are disposable."
Castor died in her cell of a heart attack in 2016 and never admitted to the murders of her husbands and the attempted murder of Ashley.
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