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WOMAN JAILED FOR MURDERING BOYFRIEND BY LACING MARGARITA COCKTAIL WITH ANTI-FREEZE
　
Mail Online
November 11, 2010
　
A woman has been jailed for 23 years for killing her alcoholic boyfriend by lacing a jug of margarita cocktail with anti-freeze at her home in Canandaigua, New York.

Cynthia Galens, 52, was charged with murder in January, three months after Stack, a 48-year-old Air Force veteran, died from complications of ethylene glycol poisoning.
　
A grand jury later opted for a first-degree manslaughter charge and Galens turned down an offer to plead guilty in exchange for an 18-year sentence.
　
State police say Galens insisted she wanted to make Stack sick, not kill him, by mixing the toxic automotive chemical into a store-bought container of margarita mix.
　
Galens said she put the cocktail in the refrigerator and went to bed early on October 2 2009, knowing that he would drink it.

She said Stack drank most of the one gallon jug.

Stark was 'feeling poorly' the next morning, Galens said, but she left at noon to visit the grave of her teenage son, who died of a drug overdose in 2005.
　
When she returned at 4pm she found him unresponsive, foaming from the mouth and breathing loudly.
　
She said she first called David Galens, her ex-husband, and when he turned up 20 minutes later, they agreed to call an ambulance.
　
But Galens didn't tell paramedics about the antifreeze.

The judge said Galens had 'many opportunities to undo what she had done' over a 30-hour period.
　
Instead, prosecutor R Michael Tantillo noted she chose for Stack 'a slow, agonizing and horrific death' by telling doctors she had 'no idea what he may have ingested.'
　
An autopsy listed the cause of death as 'complications of ethylene glycol intoxication,' referring to the active ingredient in automotive antifreeze.
　
Galens own daughter, Emily Galens, 19, testified against her in the trial, saying her mother got the idea to use antifreeze in an alcoholic drink from a TV show called Snapped.
　
She told the jury that while Stack was inside their home suffering the effects of the poisoning, her mother discussed cutting up his body and putting him out with the rubbish.
　
Galens worked for 30 years at a Veterans Affairs hospital in Canandaigua and met Stack there while he was being treated for alcohol abuse in 2007. They lived on and off at her home in nearly Farmington, about 25 miles southeast of Rochester.
　
Based on his history of alcoholism, bipolar disorder and depression, state police deemed his death an accident or possibly a suicide.

But during a trip to Clearwater, Florida, in early January, authorities say Galens told a friend what she had done - and her friend tipped off the police.
　
'It's not as if you were captive in this house,' Judge William Kocher said in imposing a near-maximum penalty on Cynthia Galens, who maintained that victim Thomas Stack was emotionally and physically abusive.
　
'It's just senseless what you did.'
　
'I accept the consequences of my actions,' the 52-year-old said in court. 'I am sorry for all the pain I caused everyone. I'm really sorry.'