The Poisonous Blame Game - Mary Yoder

March 25, 2024

In this case, Payton and Garrett dive into the case of Mary Yoder. When Mary suddenly falls gravely ill, suspicion casts a shadow over every member of the family. The question looms: Who is responsible for poisoning Mary Yoder?

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AUDIO TRANSCRIPT

You're listening to an Oh No Media podcast.

Hey everyone, welcome back to the podcast. This is Murder With My Husband. I'm Payton Moreland, and I'm Garrett Moreland. And he's the husband. And I'm the husband.

Welcome back, another week, another episode, and here we are. Okay, thank you to everyone who got tickets to our upcoming spring tour.We are so freaking excited. I just want to take just a little bit of a second to say thank you, thank you, thank you for supporting the show. I just don't even know how we got here. Sorry if there's been some hiccups with ages and allt hat. It is 18 plus at all of them. We are working on maybe later this year, next year. I don't know yet, um, depending on how all these live shows go and what we're thinking on doing one where there's no age restrictions at all.Right now, a lot of it's at different comedy clubs and improv, and they just—it's their rules, it's their rules. They have 21 plus. We were able to beat them up a little bit and get them to at least 18 plus, so thanks for supporting us. We're super excited. Not going to lie, I'm a little nervous, butI'll be there. Alright, G, you got your 10 seconds?

Yes, I do. I do have my 10 seconds, actually. I'm prepared and I'm ready, so I used Nair on my thighs and on my legs for the first timeever. I was like, you know what, let's change it up a little bit. I have pretty hairy legs, pretty hairy thighs, and it's been grown for 29 years, as long asI've been alive, and I decided, you know what, I'm going to use some Nair on my legs and we're going to see how this works. It was extremely painful. It wasextremely painful. I put it on and after, I don't know, two minutes, all mylegs were burning, so I washed it off. It worked, all your legs? All my legs.All six of my legs were burning. Anyways, washed it off, all the hair came off,so it worked. It did its job, but I have a huge chemical burn on the back of myleg, and so I haven't been able to sleep. I know, poor me, poor Garrett. But Ihaven't been able to sleep and I don't think I'm ever going to use Nair again,and I tried to get him to put diaper cream—no, I'm not using diaper cream. Itold him it will help, so I didn't use diaper cream. If you're wondering why wehave diaper cream, we don't have a secret baby, we don't have a baby. I usediaper cream on my face if I get burnt, that's why. I'm like, chemical burn,facial burn, it's the same thing. Yeah, so I got a bunch of burns on my legs.I'm good now, it's gotten a lot better. If anyone's wondering if N decides tosponsor us one day, I don't know, man, sorry, but it burns and be careful outthere, be careful out there, fellow hairy men. Alright, let's get into this.

Alright, our sources for this episode are: "We ThoughtWe Knew You: A Terrifying True Story of Secrets, Betrayal, and Deception"by William Phelps, Observer-Dispatch, Oxygen.com, True Crime Daily, DailySentinel, FoxNews.com, DailyMail.co.uk, Syracuse.com, WKTV.com, and Medium.com.

So they say silence is golden, right? We talk about it onthis show often, how if one person would have just kept their mouth shut, hadnot inserted themselves into a case, had denied, denied, denied, and stuck totheir guns, they probably would have gotten away with it all. But there's areason why so many criminals just can't help themselves. Sometimes it has to dowith a personality disorder or at least an unwavering certainty that they canoutsmart everyone else in the investigation. But other times, it's becausethey're hellbent on pinning the blame on someone else, and in some instances, likewe'll see in today's case, framing someone is the entire reason for committingthe crime in the first place.

So for today's case, we're headed to a little town east ofSyracuse called Whitesboro. It's here, in 2015, that 60-year-old Mary Yoder andher 68-year-old husband Bill have established their roots, the place where theyraised their three now grown children, Tamarind, Lyanna, and Adam, where thecouple established their joint chiropractic business, which had attractednearly everyone in town at some point or another. So it's safe to say Mary andBill were a community staple in Whitesboro, and they were more than just localcare providers; they were kind. They went out of their way to drive a patienthome if they weren't feeling well. They were good friends to everyone whostepped into their chiropractic office.

A quick history on Mary and Bill: They met in college in themid-'70s. They started out as roommates, which quickly turned into a romanceand had been inseparable ever since. Since the beginning of their relationship,they found a lot of common ground when it came to holistic wellness and ways toachieve happiness. In 2011, Bill had even published a book called "TheHappy Mind: Seven Principles to Clear Your Head and Lift Your Heart."Mary, the picture of health, also ran a small vitamin business out of thepractice, selling things like natural nutrition, beauty, and diet supplements.So for the Otters, their practice wasn't just about treating scoliosis; it wasabout balancing the mind, body, and spirit. It was their shared dream together.

But by the summer of 2015, with 28 years of success undertheir belts, both Mary and Bill were ready for a change. Mary had begunthinking about what retirement would look like after taking a strong interestin pottery and gardening over the years. Bill, a few years older, had alreadytaken a step back, focusing more on the bookkeeping side than seeing patients.He now only went to the office on Tuesdays and Thursdays, while Mary tookMondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. But on her off days, Mary was known to driveout to Amish Country to provide care there as a sort of community service. Soyeah, Mary was taking on more of the physical demands of the job, but she neverseemed to complain.

According to people who knew the couple, the business neverseemed to create any problems at home, which is so interesting because we getasked all the time how we're able to work together, and Mary and Bill were alsoable to work together. It just works for some people, and some people itdoesn't. It just works. Still alive, we're still married. The Ys wereprofessional enough to keep those two things separate, but they also kept thepractice pretty insular. Over the last year or so, their 24-year-old son Adamworked as their office manager, but when he decided to go back to schoolfull-time in 2014, he asked his parents if they'd consider hiring hisgirlfriend, 21-year-old Katie Connley, to split the duties.

So come the summer of 2015, however, Katie was working asthe sole office manager full-time. Okay, the son's working for the parents,he's like, "Hey, I'm going to go back to school, hire my girlfriendKatie," and Katie is now working for them full-time. Bill and Mary hadonly met Katie a handful of times before she took the job, but they quicklygrew to trust and love her as she worked for the family company. After all,she'd come from a well-respected family in the area, and she seemed to maketheir son Adam happy, at least until they called it quits earlier that year.

So despite the fact that Adam and Katie were no longertogether by the summer of 2015, Katie actually remained the hardworkingprofessional they hired. Okay, I was going to ask that, that's probably alittle awkward. Well, it's like one of those things where you're like,"Mom, Dad, pick a side," yeah, exactly, like, "I'm yourson," and it's like, "Well, she's a good office manager, like her,what do you want me to do?" And I think they were also like, findingsomeone new at this stage just seemed a bit unnecessary when the only reasonthey wouldn't have her is 'cause they broke up. This is also because Mary andBill were looking to sell the practice and just fully retire themselves, sothey knew it wouldn't be easy, money would certainly be tight without theconstant influx from the practice, but the couple was just ready to slow down,they're, you know, in their 60s, getting to their 70s, maybe spend less timewith their patients and more time together. They'd even planned a month-longvacation for that September, something they hadn't done in the 28 years sincethe practice had opened. So while challenges certainly lay ahead for thiscouple, their number one focus seemed to be their future together. This was avision that came toppling down on the afternoon of July 20th, 2015.

So, the Yoders woke up that Monday morning to anotherbeautiful summer day. Bill was up and at ‘em by 6:30 a.m. as always, ready tohit the workout room while Mary showered and got ready for the office. He gaveMary a kiss goodbye, as he did every morning, before she made the 15-minutedrive to work. And like most days, Mary was eager to get through her patientlist quickly and get home by early afternoon to tend to her garden. Patientswho saw her that morning, as well as Katie, said Mary seemed like her usualself. She was upbeat and ready to go, at least for the first half of the day.When Mary's lunch hour hit, she told Katie she was going to visit her93-year-old mother at her sister's house and that she'd be back for herafternoon appointments. So, on her lunch, she's going to go visit her93-year-old mother at her own sister's house. But shortly after returning tothe office, Mary had lost much of the color in her face. She was running to thebathroom in between clients and seemed like she may be coming down withsomething. So Mary's first instinct is what she told people was food poisoning.However, she ate the same thing almost every single day for lunch, especiallywhen she was running around, a protein powder that she mixed into a shake alongwith a bit of almond milk. But as the afternoon went on, Mary couldn't sufferthrough her patients any longer. She asked Katie to cancel the rest of her dayand she called Bill to tell him she was coming home early. I usually don't getfood poisoning from a shake I drink mixed with some almond milk, right?

So by the time Mary got home, she was in bad shape, rulingout the possibility of food poisoning. Bill wondered if Mary might have caughtsome sort of stomach bug. As I mentioned, Mary was pretty much the picture ofhealth in this family. She worked out, she took good care of herself. It wasunusual for her to get this sick, like, ever. At around 9:30 p.m. that night,Mary told Bill to go upstairs and leave her on the couch; she was going tosleep it off and believed she'd feel better by the morning. Only, that wasn'tthe case.

When Bill came down to check on her early on the morning ofthe 21st, Mary told him she hadn't left the bathroom all night. All right, timeto go to a hospital. So that's when Bill called their daughter, Lyanna, whohappened to be a medical doctor in Long Island. Lyanna's advice was this: go tothe hospital and, at the very least, get Mom some fluids; she's probablydehydrated, if nothing else. So that's exactly what Bill did. By 9:00 a.m.,they were on their way out the door and making the short drive over to St.Luke's Hospital. When they get there, they run all sorts of tests on Mary, butthey can't figure out what's causing her sudden illness. By that evening,doctors tell Bill, "Look, there is this weird GI bug going around. We'regoing to keep Mary overnight and monitor her, but she'll likely be fine to gohome by tomorrow." They even suggest that Bill go home himself, get somesleep in his own bed that night. So that's exactly what Bill—I'm nervous, man.I do not know what's coming next, all right? But in the morning at around 5:30a.m., Bill wakes up to the sound of banging on his front door, and standingthere are two people you never want to see on your doorstep: state troopers,who told Bill the hospital has been trying to get a hold of him.

Mary had taken a turn for the worst overnight; she was nowin the ICU. What the freak? So when Bill gets to the hospital, he realizes it'stime; he's got to get his kids up here. Adam, who lives in the Whitesboro area,had actually been visiting his sister Lyanna down in Long Island, so he tellsBill they're going to rush up as soon as possible, same with their eldestdaughter, Tamarind. But over the course of that day, things just didn't turnaround for Mary. She coded about eight separate times. By 2 p.m., she'd goneinto full cardiac arrest. Oh my gosh, man. Luckily, by that point, the entirefamily was by her side. Unfortunately, though, it was time to say their finalgoodbyes, and at 2:54 p.m. on July 22nd, 2015, Mary Yoder was officiallypronounced dead.

It's so scary how 36 hours before, you can be perfectly fineand nothing's wrong, and just yeah, like a flip of a switch. Now, doctors werejust as confused by the situation as the family was. Mary's only symptoms hadbeen nausea and diarrhea, followed by a rapid succession of cardiac events.What started out sounding like a stomach bug didn't really sound like one anylonger. No, there's no way it's a stomach bug. And when an unexplained deathlike Mary's occurs, it means that an autopsy is imminent, at least nowadays.Top of Form

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By the morning of July 23rd, her body was already in themedical examiner's office, ready to undergo the procedure. And at first, the medicalexaminer suspected that Mary must have an infection in her colon that may haveleaked into her bloodstream. But the more they examine her, the stranger theevidence gets. She... I'm just going to say what I think happened before wekeep going to see maybe I'm correct. I think she was poisoned. Okay, I mean, Ifeel like that seems pretty obvious at this point.

So the medical examiner noticed the fact that several ofMary's organs had failed prior to her death, including her lungs, 100%, whichwas odd. The medical examiner also noticed that all of Mary's organs appearedto be an unusual reddish-greenish-purple color, something he'd never seen inthe entirety of his career. And on top of that, they never found any evidenceof bacteria, but instead signs of cell death, which indicated toxic exposure.Yep, AKA it appeared as if Mary had consumed poison.

Over the next few weeks, they run tests for the obviousones, things like cyanide, arsenic, and they all come back negative. Meanwhile,Mary's family is racking their brains for anything she might have accidentallyingested that could have caused this. They know Mary always takes vitamins andsupplements, plus she was always out in her garden working with harshchemicals. Could it maybe have come from one of those? Well, none of theseavenues provide them any answers until October of 2015, when the medical examinerspeaks to a poison control expert who says Mary's symptoms sound a lot likecolchicine poisoning. What the... what is that? Colchicine is a medicine usedto treat an inflammatory arthritis condition known as gout, but the doses needto be very small and controlled. Okay, I'm curious to see, I'm just trying tofigure out in my head who did it or who I think did it, and I don't know,because she went to visit her grandma and suddenly she comes back and is sick.So if you take too much, it can be extremely lethal. Now, interestingly enough,colchicine is also a chemical used in crones growth. So the question becomes,did Mary accidentally ingest this after working in her garden? But the answeris, absolutely no way, because Mary had 15 times the lethal amount in hersystem. So this means someone poisoned Mary intentionally, 15 times. How...like, how does it even happen without noticing? That's insane.

Now, it's October 2015 when Mary's sister, Sharon Mills,calls the Oneida County Sheriff's Office to see if anyone opened up aninvestigation into her sister's death. And the man who takes her call is adetective named Mark Vani, and he admits this is the first time he's heardabout the case. So they do all these tests, and they're like, okay, she'spoisoned, she did have 15 times the legal amount, but they don't really open upan investigation into what really happened until the family starts asking questions.Okay, which, that's a little strange, right? Yes.

So Sharon gives Mark the rundown, telling him about the newdevelopments from the medical examiner's office. But then she drops a bomb. Shementions Bill's name. Bill is Mary's husband, remember, this is Mary's sisterwho's talking. She says, "If he did it, you're never going to catchhim," because Sharon goes on to tell Mark that Bill is brilliant and if hedid find a way to poison his wife, he certainly found a way to cover it up aswell. That is such a strange thing to say to somebody, right? Police open theinvestigation and now have to follow this lead. Plus, it's not that far-fetchedto consider Bill, the husband, a person of interest. So why wasn't he a person—I mean, no offense to anyone in the family, but if someone in your family dies,especially of poisoning, the family should be the first people who arepois—because it's like, who's feeding them, who's possibly making them a drink,you know? Mhm.

So Mark starts looking into Bill, but here's the thing:there's no life insurance policies to be paid out, there's no real cash hestands to gain from this, so they're narrowing down his motive until theyrealize Bill's been dating Mary's other sister, Kathy, for at least the lastcouple of months. So he's been cheating on his wife with his wife's sistersince her death. Oh, apologies, okay, got it. That was kind of confusing, buthe's still dating her sister once she died. Yeah. So according to Bill, the twoonly reconnected after Mary's death. So he's like, "No, Mary died, andthen we... that's... that's what everyone who has an affair, it's what theyalways—or sorry, everyone when situations like this happen, 'cause I guess it'snot technically an affair, I feel like they always say this." Well, he'slike, "I even have dates." So he says they met up, just the two ofthem, of course, Bill has dates for the first time around July 30th, and Billsaid they found solace in each other's company, him having lost his wife, herhaving lost her sister. And not only had Kathy just lost her sister, she'dactually also lost her husband a few years back. Okay.

After that July though, Bill and Kathy's relationshipblossomed, and by September, the two were in a full-blown romanticrelationship, and they weren't doing much to hide it. However, there are somewitnesses, including Mary's other sisters, who claim Kathy and Bill werespotted together well before Mary died. Also, sorry to any of our listeners whoare maybe in a similar situation, but for the kids, that's weird. That's hard.Is that not awkward? If you're listening and you're a kid in that situation, that'sgot to be a little strange, right? For sure, it happens. Um, you ever watch"This is Us"? But in "This is Us", the husband dies, andthen she ends up marrying his best friend. Yeah, see, I'm just, and it's reallyhard for the kids in the show. I'm not really about that. Not not about that,personal opinion here. So the other sisters are like, "No, no, no, they'vebeen together, they've been together before she died. The relationship didn'tstem from their shared grief, but instead, Mary's death may have stemmed fromhis desire to be with Kathy." Problem was, police had zero evidence ofthis being the case, and when asked to hand over his phone and computer, Billdid do it willingly, and from that, police discovered that Bill had kept all ofthe emails and texts between him and Cathy, showing that not only was he nottrying to hide the relationship, the timeline did seem to correspond withBill's testimony. I don't believe any of this.

So the evidence is saying Bill's telling the truth. However,on November 23rd, 2015, police received a piece of evidence that would throwthem off Bill's scent for the time being. It was an anonymous letter written tothe sheriff's department, and it claimed to know exactly who had killed Mary.It didn't beat around the bush either. The second paragraph of the letterclearly stated that if Colchicine was found in Mary's system, the person toblame was her son Adam. This is the same son who was dating Katie, the girl whoworked for them and then broke up with Katie. Okay, so outlined a motive too,this anonymous letter to police. I don't think it's Adam, but let's keep going.

It outlines a motive, saying Adam had been resentful of hismother for not helping him with his recent financial struggles and that hebelieved he would receive a handsome payout from his mother's death. But whenthat didn't happen, Adam became outraged. It described how Adam had executedthe poisoning, that he'd put it in one of the supplements Mary took at thehouse. And finally, according to the anonymous letter, Adam had even mentionedwhere he was hiding the rest of the Colchicine under the front passenger seatof his Jeep. This is really detailed, way too specific. This is obviously Bill.Obviously, wrote this letter trying to blame his son, Adam. That's what I thinkhappened, but let's see. Now I'm not sure. The whole thing just felt a littletoo convenient to the police, but they had to follow through on the lead,especially when they confirmed some of this information with Mary's sisters andlearned, yeah, Adam and Mary had recently kind of had a falling out when shetook a firmer stance on giving him money. So she was kind of helping her sonAdam out and then cut back, and this hurt Adam's feelings. Okay. Plus, acompany named Art Chemicals had received an order prior to Mary's death for Colchicinefrom a user with the email address Mr.Adamy1990atgmail.com. I still don'tbelieve this.

So they call Adam to come in for questioning, and he's fullycooperative, not sensing that he's now a person of interest by any means. Butwhen Adam meets with the investigators, they show him that note implicating himin the crime. So they bring him in, they're like, "Look at thisnote." And one of Adam's first statements is, "Someone's trying toframe me." He happily hands over his phone to the police, and while theydon't find anything incriminating there, they do ask Adam if they can searchhis Jeep without a warrant, and he agrees. He's like, "Yeah, go searchit." So detectives slap on a pair of rubber gloves and go right to thearea the letter mentioned. And while Adam's standing nearby smoking acigarette, and what do you think they find when they look under the passengerside of the Jeep? So of course they find the poison or the medication, whateveryou want to call it, a prescription bottle wrapped in cardboard. Alongside it,a receipt from Art Chemicals, the place Adam, the email, had purchased it from.But when police turn to Adam to show him what they found, the cigarette nearlyfalls out of his mouth. He looks at them and goes, "I've never seen thatbottle before. I have no idea how that got there."

So, dude, Bill, man, what a freaking douche. He looks at thepolice and he's like, "Someone put that there." Yeah, he's like,"That was not me. Somebody put that under my seat. I am screaming lawyerso fast right now." Well, and judging by how shocked Adam seemed, thepolice are like, "Okay, is he not innocent or did this guy literallydeserve an Oscar?" 'Cause he was adamant, and they're like, "Is hereally being set up by someone?" So they take a look at Adam's whereaboutsduring the time of the poisoning. Now, I mentioned earlier that when Billcalled the kids to come say their goodbyes to Mary, Adam was in Long Islandvisiting his sister Lyanna. In fact, he'd been there over the last severaldays, including July 20th, the day Mary first started showing symptoms.

So if Adam did plan to poison her while she was away, hewould have had to devise a very elaborate plan for her to take the drug on herown while he was gone. It wasn't like he could slip it to her in a proteinshake and say goodbye because this agent acted quickly. So whoever slipped thedrug to Mary had to have seen her in the hours before she got sick, and we knowthat couldn't have been Adam.

There was one person, however, who wasn't on the best ofterms with Adam, someone who might have gone out of their way to make it looklike it was Adam who did see her, and that was his ex-girlfriend, 22-year-oldmanager Katie Conley. You're telling me she did it? There's no... I thought forsure it was Bill. I'm going to be a little upset if I got that wrong. So thatsucks.

Let me back up a bit and give you a little more contextaround Adam and Katie's relationship. You kind of bamboozled us, though,because you didn't say anything about her. So that's kind of your fault, not myfault. This is the circle of a true crime case. Let's hear it. Keep it going.

So, it seems like there were things going on behind thescenes that even Adam's parents didn't know about while these two were dating,because if they had, they might not have agreed to hire her. So Katie and Adamgot together in 2011, and when the relationship began, it was pretty hot andsteamy. The two even talked about a future together, getting married, havingkids, buying a house. But eventually, that honeymoon period wore off, and thecouple began fighting a lot. And anytime Adam started to pull away, Katie wouldcome up with a reason to keep him around, piss him off, maybe get him introuble. For example, on one occasion, Katie hooked up with Adam's friend justto get back at him after a bad argument. On another, she told Adam that she'drecently experienced a miscarriage with Adam's child. And after this, Adamstopped seeing the new woman that he was with and got back together with Katiebecause she's like, "Well, I was pregnant with our baby." But whenthings turned sour again, Katie reported to the police that Adam had sexuallyassaulted her, something Adam was like, "No, no, no, I never didthis."

So now you can understand why Adam really wanted nothingmore to do with Katie by July 2015. But unfortunately, cutting ties with hercompletely was out of the question, considering she still worked for the familybusiness. But you know, there's something different between a psychoex-girlfriend and a mother killer.

So, the police unravel all of this, everything I just toldyou. They wonder, was revenge enough of a reason for Katie to kill herex-boyfriend's mother? What I just said, it seems like Shakespearean. Like,just to get back at him, she's going to murder his mom. And they have to takeinto consideration the fact that they still haven't completely ruled Bill oreven Adam himself out as suspects at this point. Like, Adam definitely has analibi, but it's still possible he could have done the poisoning. So the questionultimately was, who was framing who?

So, police narrow in on Katie. They're like, we know aboutBill, we know about Adam. They bring her in for questioning, where she admittedshe was the one who wrote the anonymous letter. But soon, they discoveredanother important detail about their suspects, something that happened justmonths before Mary was murdered. See, back in April of 2015, it turns out Adamhad been sick as well, and he had a lot of the same symptoms Mary had beforeshe died. I always wonder, like, how this stuff takes so long to come out,like, "Oh, I was sick too," or "Oh, this," you know? Andmaybe it's just because it's day-to-day life and it's not details you think of.I just think police have to learn it through people, and if he didn't tellanyone super close to him, how would they learn besides talking to her? Or, youknow, like, it's a big game of telephone when police are trying to learndetails that aren't told to them directly by the person.

So, he had nausea, diarrhea, abdominal pain, and as Adam'sreflecting on this with the police, Adam himself tells the police this. Herealizes Katie had offered him some sort of supplement called Alpha Brain tohelp him focus on his college exams that spring. Now, at that time, Adam andKatie were obviously not on the best of terms, but they still spokeoccasionally, especially because Katie was constantly trying to find ways toinsert herself back into Adam's life. So Adam didn't find the offer weird, and heclearly didn't connect it to the fact that a day or so later, he was beingrushed to urgent care for what doctors believed was just another GI bug. Yeah.So the police asked Adam, "Do you still have that bottle of pills lyingaround somewhere?" He did. He handed it over to them as evidence and toldthem he only ever took two. Well, the bottle originally had 30 tablets, and now29 remained, meaning one of the two pills Adam took did not belong in thatbottle. Crazy. But if Katie was the one who planted the poison, then thequestion was, how did she get her hands on it? Well, that's when police learnedthat Katie's scheme began well over a year ago.

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It was back in December of 2014 when she walked into asupermarket and purchased a prepaid MasterCard. Nine days later, someone signedonto the office computer and logged into a Gmail account under the name"Mr. Adamy1990". People are so dumb, like, how does she think she'snot going to get caught when she made this fake email address? Well, also, ifyou just need any more of an indicator of the type of person Katie is, uh, thepassword for this account, hey Adam, Adam is gay. Okay, from that emailaddress, Adam, or rather Katie masquerading as Adam, sent an email to ArtChemicals claiming to have difficulty with a payment they tried to make online.The order was for one gram of colchicine, enough to kill dozens of people. Andeventually, a company representative named Rosa replied back, saying they wouldenter the information manually but that they still needed a letter of intentand a copy of the business license to approve the purchase.

A few days later, that letter, written on companyletterhead, arrived at Art Chemicals with an attention to Rosa. It hadeverything Rosa required: a tax ID number, the intended purpose (which wasstated as studying plant life), and a stamped signature from Mary, a stamp thatwas conveniently kept at the front desk where Katie worked. Now, here's thereal kicker: the IP address where the email originated from was tied to Katie'shome address. Yeah, open and shut. Rosa also spoke to someone over the phone atone point about the order, and it was a woman. Rosa claimed sounded a lot likeKatie once she heard her voice. But finally, that bottle that was left underthe seat of Adam's car, well, it didn't have a shred of his DNA on it, butKatie's DNA was all over the packaging.

I kind of feel bad for blaming Bill now, not going to lie.By May of 2016, less than a year after Mary's death, Katie Conley was arrested.She was charged with second-degree murder, one count of forgery, and two countsof falsifying business records. Her trial began in April of 2017, and theprosecution felt they had a pretty strong case against her. Their theory wasthat Katie had waited for Mary to leave on break that day, then snuck the toxininto her protein drink, knowing that would be her lunch when she returned. Themotive? Katie wanted to win Adam back, and what better way than to make himvulnerable and offer a shoulder for him to cry on. But when that didn't work,Katie felt it was time to throw Adam under the bus. If she couldn't have him,then no one would, especially if he was in jail.

Well, the defense argued the motive was a bit ridiculous,saying Katie had built her own bond with Bill and Mary, and that she was theone being set up here. But it was a narrative that even Mary's own sistersbelieved. So this is wild. But three of Mary's sisters were so convinced theofficials had the wrong person, that it wasn't Katie, it had to have eitherbeen Adam or Bill, that they started a "Free Caitlyn Conley" campaignonline. No, you're freaking lying, that's insane! They really believed that Billhad done this, something the defense ran with when it came time for Katie'strial. They argued that not only did Bill's relationship start long beforeMary's death, but that the timing of the poisoning did not make sense if it wasdone by Katie.

They claimed that Mary started to bounce back in thehospital, only to again go on a sharp decline, insisting that Bill had to havedosed her again after she'd been admitted. No way. They also pointed to thefact that police had to bang on his door to get him to come to the hospital thenext day, and he didn't rush there. They claimed he took his sweet time. Mary'ssisters also said it was odd that while Bill knew Mary had been poisoned, hedidn't ever file a police report. Remember, it was Mary's sister who had to saythat a crime had been committed. But here was the root of Mary's sister'sfrustration. Even though fingers were being pointed at Bill, he nor Adam wouldever get their own trial because both had been granted immunity for testifyingagainst Katie. What the freak is there now? You got me thinking. Maybe it wasBill, man.

Still, all of these factors were taken into considerationwhen the jury went to deliberate on May 17th, 2017, including the DNA andcomputer evidence that implied Katie had acted alone. But when the jurorsreturned to the courtroom, they told the judge they couldn't reach anagreement. I figured it ended in a mistrial. Katie would have to wait another 6months to learn her fate. Over the next few months, the prosecution preparedtheir case for round two, and they went back into Katie's iPhone records to seeif there was anything they may have missed. So they're going in for trial two,and they're like, “Is there any more evidence we can find that we didn't havein trial one?" And that's when Adam chimed into the conversation to say,"You know, Katie accidentally backed her phone up to my laptop rightbefore my mom died. Could maybe that be helpful?" And the prosecution'slike, "Adam, how could you not have told us this before the last trial?You had access to stuff and you didn't tell us.” That's what I'm saying, like,how does that happen?

Now suddenly they have an entire snapshot of what Katie wasdoing on her phone prior to Mary's death, not just text messages, but photos,browser history, everything she may have deleted before she handed her phoneover to the police. And what do you know, there's a screenshot of a searchengine result for "world's most dangerous toxins." Also in thatphoto's folder was a pencil drawing of what appeared to be a mermaid next to aman with a sword. His back, underneath the image, was a caption that read"the breakup." Katie also had screenshots of a time when she clearlyhacked into Adam's Facebook page and blocked certain people. What perhaps mostincriminating, Katie had begged Adam repeatedly after the incident to deletethe backup from his computer. And eventually, Adam told her he did, just tosatisfy her, not knowing that soon enough, this would all become crucialevidence against Katie in court. Which, again, happened in October of 2017. Andthis time, after days of deliberations, the jury came back with a very clearverdict: guilty.

Interestingly enough, they found Katie Conley not guilty ofsecond-degree murder but guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter in thefirst degree. How does that happen? It was obvious. Make it make sense. Itshould have been first-degree murder, premeditated. You don't accidentallypoison someone. Well, but she had planned the entire thing out. I don't know. Idon't know.

In January 2018, she was sentenced to 23 years in prison.She's currently serving time at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility inWestchester County, New York, and won't be eligible for parole until 20137. Butyou have to wonder what might have happened had Katie never inserted herselfinto the investigation. Had she never written that anonymous letter to beginwith, would she have gotten away with her crimes, leaving the family and thecommunity to forever question what happened to Mary?

So what I think, I think she wrote that letter because Adamwouldn't have been caught or charged 'cause they never would have foundanything in his car, they never would have questioned him, so they just wouldhave blamed it on no one or Bill. But she wanted Adam to get in trouble, whichis obviously why she wrote the letter. And then it ended up biting her,backfiring. Yep. So if you ask some of Mary's sisters, they might tell youthat's exactly what happened. Anyways, that the wrong person went to prison forthis crime. Wow. Because even today, the Free Katy Conley website is up andactive. Oh, no freaking way. asking visitors to write a letter for her chanceat freedom. Wow. And that is the case of Mary Yodder.

I feel bad that I blamed Bill. Unless Bill, if you did it,don't tell me because I'll rat you out. But I, I mean, with all the evidence, Idon't see how it could be anyone else other than her. It seems pretty black andwhite that it was her. And to be honest, for me, the strongest evidence is thatAdam got sick after taking pills from her with the exact same symptoms. He evenwent to the hospital for it. So, we know what really happened. True. And then,uh, you know, then pack, pack on everything on top of that, that's pretty nuts.Yeah. All right, you guys.

Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode, andwe will see you next time with another one. I love it. I hate it. Goodbye.

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