The 1954 noir film The Black Widow tells the sordid tale of the apparent suicide of young Nancy Ordway hoping to make it big in New York, the realisation it was in fact a homicide, and the convoluted search to find her killer.

The culprit was the haughty actress of the plot 'Lottie' Marin. She found out Nancy slept with her husband, so she strangled her to death and staged it to look like a suicide.

A story straight out of Hollywood - but as the saying goes, sometimes truth is even stranger than fiction.

Philip Nisbet was found dead in his bed in May 2009 by his wife Helen Milner. Police were called, conducted a cursory investigation and determined it was suicide by drug overdose - up to 50 pills of anti-histamine drug Phenergen.

It was case closed for the police - but not for Mr Nisbet's family.

Something didn't add up, there were whispers within the family of sinister undertones to his death. Loudest amongst those whispers was his sister, Lee-Ann Cartier.

She worked for over a year trying to catch Milner out and gathering her own evidence - all was not as it seemed.

Her amateur detective work dug up bizarre and disturbing behaviour from Milner before and after the death.

Milner claimed she had found a black book documenting numerous affairs Nisbet was supposed to have had, along with an instruction manual on how to be a male prostitute.

She claimed Phillip's son wasn't his, and that the funeral director was able to help get a DNA test to prove it.

Then there was the suicide note that was originally shown to family member. They were suspicious it was a fake due to the odd way it was written.

It disappeared to be mysteriously replaced by a different version by the time it became evidence - there were two others that surfaced.

The tables began to turn when Coroner Sue Johnson agreed to examine the case in late 2010, in which members of Mr Nisbet's family grilled Milner on inconsistencies around the death.

Six months later the police launched an investigation, which resulted in one of the most extraordinary murder trials in Christchurch's history.

As Milner sat quietly in the back portraying a dowdy, innocuous but seemingly agitated figure - former colleagues told of conversation's she had in which she feared her husband was trying to kill her, and asked them about poisons at the company she could use to "get rid of him".

That led to them jokingly giving her the nickname the ‘Black Widow’. Christchurch's own 'Lottie' Marin.

Evidence was given on Milner's bizarre behaviour immediately after the death including a 10-minute recording of a disturbing and exaggerated 111 call she made, the multiple suicide notes, changes to Philip Nisbet's life insurance policy, and her overbearing and violent tendencies.

We heard from both her sons her spoke of numerous conversations she had around using drugs to take Nisbet out, catching her crushing pills into powder in one instance, and recalled her offering them money from his life insurance payout to hire a hit man or get rid of him themselves.

After three weeks of evidence, it took the jury seven-and-a-half-hours of deliberation to accept the Crown’s case that she fatally drugged him with Phenergan, and tried to cover it up as a suicide.

She was later sentenced to at least 17 years behind bars. A four-and-a-half-year battle for justice had come to an end for Philip Nisbet's family.
The focus then turned to police, and what went wrong initially, when they failed to take a closer look at his death.

Canterbury Investigations Manager Detective Inspector Tom Fitzgerald accepted that initial investigation was flawed, and mistakes were certainly made.

Officers involved in the initial inquiry had failings of the investigation brought to their attention, which were accepted and he was confident that they will never make those mistakes again.

He said it was clear those officers missed initial points to treat it as a homicide as they should have done.

It was by far the end of the story.

Milner's troubled son Adam Kearns was back in the headlines not long after.

He and a friend were charged with assault after getting into a fight with former star All Black Justin Marshall in Queenstown after a boozy night.

The friend pleaded guilty, Kearns not guilty - the trial is yet to get underway.

He was back in court a few months later - this time on the other side of the dock suing his mother.

Before she graduated to murder she framed him over fake death threats that led to him being falsely imprisoned for 18 days.

It spurned Mr Kearns to sue his mother for $60,000 in damages after he suffered hurt, distress and humiliation, as well as financial loss, by his false imprisonment.

He won, but quickly ended up back in jail after a police raid on his home a few weeks later.

He faced 11 charges of possession, supply and sale of drugs, two assault charges and having a gun and taser.

He pleaded guilty to some of those charges and was granted bail while the process continues.

He argued the gun was for protection against his mother, who he believes hired a hit man to kill him.

As for Milner, she lost a Court of Appeal action against her murder conviction and is currently trying to appeal through the Supreme Court.

She argued the prosecution hadn't proven beyond a reasonable doubt that she'd administered her husband with a fatal dose of the drug Phenergen.

The Court of Appeal rejected that, ruling the mechanics of administering the drug was simply one factor for the jury to weigh up in the context of strong circumstantial evidence.

She also claimed she was targeted inside prison, and that she had to pay other inmates off for her life.

With court processes pending for both Milner and her son, this sordid story is far from over, and while her work colleagues felt the nickname the Black Widow was a good fit with the film, this is a story with many more twists and turns than even Hollywood could reasonably dream up.