Nurse Found Guilty of Husband’s Murder Using Stolen Insulin

A Madison County jury has found Marjorie “Nikki” Cappello guilty in the murder of her husband.

Investigators say former nurse Marjorie “Nikki” Cappello used insulin that she stole from her workplace, North Alabama Specialty Hospital in Athens, to poison her husband, James “Jim” Cappello.

The jury deliberated for less than an hour on Thursday. As everyone waited for the verdict to be read, there was an anxious feeling throughout the courtroom. The sense that the family of Jim Cappello might finally have closure after a murder from nearly four years ago.

“Waiting three and a half years for justice, and we got it,” says James Cappello, Jim’s father.

It has been nearly four years since Jim Cappello was murdered by his wife, Nikki. Jim’s family says finally hearing a guilty verdict brings some closure, but doesn’t change the fact that their loved one is gone.

“One part of it is over, the other you got to heal from that, and he’ll never be forgotten,” says James.

Prosecutors say there was a clear case against Nikki from the beginning, and even brought one of her close friends to the stand who testified that Nikki came clean to her and admitted she had poisoned her husband with insulin. Insulin that she stole from the North Alabama Specialty Hospital in Athens where she worked as a nurse.

In 2018, when the crime happened, investigators found Jim’s body in the garage of their home and a freshly dug grave in the backyard, along with a dirty shovel and muddy pair of women’s shoes.

Prosecutors think it was strong witness testimony like that allowed jurors to unanimously return a guilty verdict after less than an hour of deliberation.

Although a lot of the evidence presented during the trial was circumstantial, prosecutors say with witness testimony and a timeline of events, they were able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Nikki murdered her husband.

During the trial jurors heard from an expert witness who described how small insulin needles are. So small that they don’t even leave a mark when inserted, so investigators were never able to find where Nikki injected her husband. However, this small factor did not sway the jury, and they still came back with a guilty verdict.