Murderers are intriguing because of just how much of a divide needs to be crossed to understand them.

Ordinary people just can’t become murderers, intentional killers who sincerely act in a way that hurts and kills other people.

It’s not even about profession or state of life. The murderers most people talk about and learn about are ordinary people who don’t live dangerous lives or have terrible jobs.

They were your average, familiar neighbor one day and a ruthless nationally known killer the next.

That is the kind of killer Stacey Castor became. She was an ordinary woman, a wife who went through widowing once, and a mother of two.

But it was her actions that led to her widow status, and she was nearly the mother of 1 child as well. Yes, she was not only a husband killer but an attempted child killer as well.

Fortunately, because she was an average person, she lacked the competence to keep her murder spree up. It still raises the question of just why or how it all started. How did an ordinary person become a murderer?





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10 /10 Early Marriage

Not much is known about Stacey up until a certain point. She was born Stacey Ruth Daniels and met her first husband, Michael Wallace, when she was 17 back in 1985.

She worked at an ambulance dispatch company while Michael worked nights as a mechanic. From there, they developed a tight bond and married soon.

Stacey then had her first daughter, Ashley, in 1988 and her second daughter, Bree, in 1991.

Onondaga County Sheriff’s Department


9 /10 Possible Motivation







Things were going well enough for a while, it seemed, but something stirred in the family that Stacey didn’t like. For one, her daughter Bree seemed to favor her father’s affection far more than her mother.

As a result, Stacey started to show unequal appreciation towards Ashley to become her “best friend” in retaliation.

This may have been the point that inspired her to become a murderer, and her target was the one who stole her other daughter away.



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8 /10 First Widowing

Stacey was widowed in early 2000. In late December of 1999, the family of Michael Wallace noticed that he looked incredibly ill.

He was off-balance, coughed a lot, and looked swollen throughout. They insisted that he seek medical care, which he swore to do once the holidays were over.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t get to a doctor in time and die soon after the new year.

It was ruled as a heart attack, and Stacey denied any additional autopsy, choosing to believe the doctors completely even though Michael’s sister didn’t agree.

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7 /10 David Castor

Stacey met and married David Castor in 2003. He was the owner of an air conditioning install and repair company, and she was hired as his office manager.

Two years later, as things seemed to be going well, Stacey called the police to her home saying there had been an argument and David locked himself in their shared bedroom and wasn’t responding on his cell phone.

The police arrived, forced the door, and found David dead with a bright green liquid in a glass at his side.

Onondaga Prosecutor’s Office

6 /10 Investigation

When she failed to visit or mourn over the graves at all, police grew suspicious.

They set up wiretaps and cameras over the graves of her husbands, which were conveniently next to one another, to wait and see how she reacted to the second-time widowing.

They also found a turkey baster with the same antifreeze concoction David was poisoned with and evidence that it was used to force-feed the man until his death.

Everything seemed to look like a string of bad luck for Mrs. Castor, but the police weren’t convinced that two husbands dying in a row were a coincidence.

5 /10 Loose End

Investigations continued into 2007, leading up to the exhumation and autopsy of Michael Wallace, which found evidence of antifreeze in his system.

As a result, Stacey panicked and called her daughter for support. She wanted to share a drink with her college daughter once to help her relax from all the death and sadness.

She mixed up a glass which Ashley accepted despite being nasty and bitter because her mom was her best friend, who she trusted completely. Ashley fainted after taking the drink and was left unconscious.

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4 /10 Set-Up

Ashley was discovered nearly a full day later by Bree, who knew her sister was sick and suffering and demanded that the police be called.

Stacey relented and agreed, but while Bree was out of the room, her back turned, Stacey slipped a suicide note written as if it belonged to Ashley, pinning her for both murders from as young as 11.

When the police arrived, Ashley was taken to the hospital and saved. They claimed if she were just minutes late, she would have died from the potent mix of alcohol and painkillers.

3 /10 Breaking It Down

Stacey was arrested for the second-degree murder of David Castor and the attempted murder of her daughter later in 2007.

The evidence the prosecution managed to collect was substantial, and the suicide note that magically appeared by the comatose Ashley’s side seemingly placed a pin in the whole thing.

District Attorney William Fitzpatrick noted that “if there is a ceiling in terms of evil, she is at the ceiling.”

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2 /10 Testimony

Ashley came to testify, first on her defense over never writing the note or participating in the deaths – which she believed were just illness and suicide all along – and the reason for Stacey attempted to argue that the daughter was involved to a reasonable degree.

They ultimately failed in all of their defenses, and after two years of trials, Castor was found guilty of both counts, but the prolonged wait between the death of Michael Wallace meant his death went unveiled.

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1 /10 Poisoned Love

Stacey maintained her innocence despite the overwhelming evidence and testimony against her and was more or less abandoned by her core family.

Though some still believed she was an unexpected victim, it didn’t satisfy the sentencing, which saw her committed for over 51 years – well past her expected lifespan.

In 2016 she was found dead in her cell by unknown means, ruled as a heart attack. Her story became a hot topic, especially as it was adapted into a Lifetime network film.

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