00:00:00
right now there's a lot of things un unanswered questions that we have right >> um the Gmail account and some other
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things and like you said those don't point to that they point to that phone >> I know
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>> you need to help us clear you >> hi crime junkies I'm your host Ashley Flowers
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>> and I'm Brit >> Last episode I walked you through the first 5 months following the death of
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Mary Yodar 60-year-old Mary was happy healthy and beloved by her friends family and patients near Udica in
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central New York where she and her husband Bill were chiropractors with their own practice.
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But out of nowhere, one Monday afternoon in July 2015, Mary became violently ill.
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Her son had become sick with the same symptoms a few months before, and it took him a while to heal, but he had.
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So, initially, she and her husband thought this was the same thing, some kind of stomach bug. But in less than 48
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hours, Mary was dead. And when toxicology results come back, they revealed something no one knew while
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Mary was alive. She had lethal levels of a drug called cultine in her system, a gout medication that she had no reason
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to be taking. As it becomes clear that Mary was poisoned, suspicion fell on her husband, Bill, who had started a
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relationship with one of Mary's own sisters just two months after her death. But just as detectives were getting
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started, an anonymous letter arrived at their office, pointing the finger somewhere else entirely. The tipster
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claimed that Bill and Mary's 25-year-old son, Adam, had killed her. And there was
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proof. The cultine bottle was still in Adam's Jeep. And sure enough, when police went looking, there it was with
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the receipt of purchase emailed to Mr. Adam Yoder [email protected]. It all seemed just a little too perfect
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for Anida County Sheriff's Lieutenant Robert Nelson and investigator Mark Vanam. An anonymous letter that just
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happens to lead them right to the evidence. They had to wonder, was someone trying to frame Adam? And if so,
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who? His own father. Police clearly didn't have a full picture of this family yet. So, they brought in one
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person who knew all of these players, 22-year-old Caitlyn Connley. Katie had dated Adam on and off for years, and she
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was the office manager at Bill and Mary's practice. But she was more than an employee. Mary considered her family,
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and she was even named in Mary's obituary. And soft-spoken Katie didn't point the
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finger at Bill. Instead, she told detectives how suspicious she was of Adam. But the more she talked, the more
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convinced they became that Katie sounded a lot like their anonymous letter writer. So after that first meeting in
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December 2015, detectives walked away with a new question. Not did Adam do it, but who is Caitlyn Connley and what have
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we been missing? It turns out a lot. You ready to dive in, Brett? >> Let's go. As soon as detectives found the cultine
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with the receipt in Adam's car, they began trying to trace where it came from and who it was shipped to. What they
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found is that the 1 g bottle of powder was mailed from a company in California to the Yodar's chiropractic office in
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February 2015, addressed to Adam. But the person who signed for it was the office manager, Katie Connley, which
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isn't unusual, right? She signed for most packages at the practice. What is unusual is her connection to the email
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address that ordered it. Google records show that the email used to buy the cultine, that Mr. Adam Yoda 1990, it was
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accessed from the Conley's home IP address where Katie lives with her family. Then in late November, that
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entire Gmail account was deleted using her phone. So just a few days after they spoke with Katie, investigator Van Amy
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and Lieutenant Nelson asked her to come back in and they confront her with what they found. You say you've never heard
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of Mr. Adam Yoder 1990 email address, but it was deleted from your phone. How do you explain that? At first, Katie
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suggests maybe Adam accessed it using her cell at some point, >> like logged in or deleted it.
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>> Logged in, which you get it. It doesn't explain the thing investigators are actually asking about,
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>> right? >> So, eventually she admits that she is the one who deleted the account, but
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only after she just stumbled across it. The thing is, even that doesn't really make sense because when you delete a
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Gmail account, you know what? You need the password. Yeah. So detectives push her. You knew the password at some
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point, Katie. What was it? She says she can't remember. Now they humor her though, not going super hard because
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they can tell that she's building towards something. And finally, she comes out with it. Adam confessed to her
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and told her that he ordered the cultine, had it shipped to the office, poisoned his mother, then stashed the
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bottle in his jeep. She says Adam regrets it, that she thinks he killed Mary by accident, mostly because she
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doesn't understand why he'd want to hurt her. But she also claims that he asked her about cultureine about a year before
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Mary died, wanting to know how to get his hands on some. >> How do you accidentally plan something
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for like a year? >> This it's not adding up. >> It also sounds a heck of a lot like the
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anonymous letter that they got. Like word for word, he regrets it. Did he stash the bottle in his jeep? Bingo. And
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and remember, they don't just think that this letter came from a tipster trying to do the right thing. Before they ever
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can tie anyone to it, they felt pretty confident that the letter was written or the letters, there was two of them, they
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were written by Mary's real killer to throw off suspicion. >> So, they press her on it. You wrote it,
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didn't you? And once Katie admits it, investigator Van Amy starts recording. In the footage, Katie is sitting at the
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side of a desk in a small office. She's quiet as she waits for Van Amy to come back into the room.
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We've been chatting for quite a while today about a lot of things. Okay, I want to ask you some more species. I
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really appreciate you helping us out and pointing us in the right direction with
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a letter into Adam. Okay. You follow me then? >> Yeah. >> Okay. Why yourselves up?
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>> Have I been anything less than nice to you? >> I've been really nice. I just really smart.
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>> Okay. And you've said that to me a couple times that Adam's really smart and he's
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he's not going to let anything come back to him. I understand that. But myself and my friends in the other
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room, the investigators on this case are really good at what we do. Okay? And we
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always get to the truth. I believe you about what you're telling me, Adam. You know, I just need your help to help
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me prove it to Adam. Okay. You can't prove it to Adam. >> Okay. Well, that that falls on me. Who
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do you If you can't prove it's Adam, >> who's it? Who am I going to prove it is then? Right.
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>> Who did he make this look like? It is. >> I'm afraid he put it back on me. >> You're afraid Adam did?
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>> Yeah. >> Why? >> I don't know. So that I can't I can't go to you for help. >> Do you know that he did that?
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Do you know that he's trying to point the finger at you? But at the office, he said that if
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anyone was going to get in trouble, it was going to be >> Why would he keep a container? Why would
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he keep something that's going to link him to the crime that he just committed? You know what I mean?
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>> Yeah. >> You could drop that in any garbage can and nobody would have been the wiser. He
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put that in a soda cup or soda bottle, put in that garbage. You could have thrown it out in here and we would have
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never known. >> You can get rid of it anywhere. Why? Why do you think I have held on to that?
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>> Why you keep it for so long? >> I'm going to ask you a straight up question. Every time I ask these, I
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already know the answer. >> Is it possible that somebody made it look like Adam did this?
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>> Yes, but I don't think so. It is possible that somebody planted that on because I can tell you right now
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in the FBI's studies and everything that we went back on, guys don't hang on to the murder weapon because that's why
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they get caught, >> right? But guys also don't use poison. >> They say it's a lady's weapon.
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>> They say it's a lady's weapon. >> No. Now, Vanami has clearly been playing good cup. We believe you. We're going to
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find the truth and help you. But Katie's got her shovel and she just keeps digging herself deeper. Uh,
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>> no kidding. I mean, poison is a lady's weapon. Like, does she does she hear herself?
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>> I I know it is looking worse and worse for Katie. So, that's when Van Namy and
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Lieutenant Nelson swap out and he gets a little more direct with the questions. >> Here's some issues I still have. You got
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to from you got to look at it from our point of view. We're looking at one of three people here.
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>> The husband. >> Mhm. >> Adam or you. Okay. You're going to have to help us. If you're telling us you
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have nothing to do with this, you're going to have to help us rule you out. Just like we got to help out Adam or
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Bill, whoever is not responsible for this, >> which is I'm trying to help. >> I know. Right now, there's a lot of
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things unanswered questions that we had, >> right? >> Um the Gmail account and some other
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things. And like you said, those don't point to at they point to that phone. >> I know.
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>> You need to help us clear you. >> Yes. >> Katie has gone from witness to suspect,
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but investigators aren't ready to arrest her yet. They want to be able to directly tie her to the culture scene in
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a way that she can't like wiggle out of. So, they start digging into the digital
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trail to piece everything together. And there is a lot to unpack here, so just bear with me. What they find is that the
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Mr. Adam Yoder 1990 email account was created back in September 2014 using the IP address at the Yod's office. That
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same month, someone opened a credit card in Mary's name. But the contact number on that account, Katie's cell. Then a
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couple of months later in December, a prepaid credit card was used to try and buy cultine online, but that order
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failed because the supplier required paperwork that the buyer didn't have. In early January 2015, someone tried again
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with a second prepaid card from the same store. This time it went through and they bought a gram of cultureine from
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that company in California. Now to complete the order, the buyer submitted a letter of intent explaining who they
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were, why they needed the drug. Now, the letter was supposedly signed by Adam and
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Mary, and it listed Adam as the buyer and claimed that he needed the cultine to manipulate plant genetics. and it
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also named him as the manager at the clinic even though again he had not worked there in years. Meanwhile, on the
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front office computer, which Katie used more than anyone, there were searches for various poisons, including cultine
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and how much it would take to kill someone based on their body weight. One investigator even told ABC News that
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someone took Mary's exact body weight and plugged it into a formula to calculate the fatal dose, although we
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couldn't find that detail in the records that we have. And what's interesting is
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some of those searches happened about a week after Adam went to the ER with the same symptoms that Mary would later
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have. Wait, is cultine what made him sick, too? >> Well, at the time they just thought it
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was a stomach bug. I mean, they ran blood work, they did scans, noted mild inflammation in his intestines, gave him
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medicine, sent him home. Never tied to cultine because why would you do that kind of thing unless again you're doing
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an autopsy. Anyway, that same office computer had been used to access the Gmail account tied to the cultureine
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order. So, the office computer she uses the most has the Gmail account on it, the Mr. Adam 1990,
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>> which was also pulled up from her home IP address. >> And eventually the account gets deleted
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altogether, but from her phone. >> Correct. But just staying with the office computer for one sec. in November
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2015. So, this is around the time that the anonymous letters were sent, someone installed software on it to mask IP
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addresses, a way to hide like what sites had been visited, but it didn't work. The clinic's antivirus program logged
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the activity anyway. And what it recorded was that someone on that computer during business hours was
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downloading the masking software first, then using a private browser to log into
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that same Gmail account. So, whoever did this took steps to cover their tracks before they ever pulled it up,
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>> was trying to hide it in the first place. >> And listen, there's also a typewriter at
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the office, and the ink ribbon still had faint impressions of what had been typed, which matched the anonymous
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letters sent to the ME in the sheriff's office. Then on Katie's phone, investigators found a deleted note with
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lines that read 1990 at lowercase G and capital A is gay. They figured that this
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was shorthand for the email address that's at the center of this whole thing, Mr. Adam Yoder [email protected]
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and maybe its password, which turned out to be Adam is gay. Now, that same email
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and password were also used to set up a document scanning app on Katie's phone, too. The app had been deleted by the
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time they got to it, but the cloud storage was still accessible, and in it were scanned copies of every document
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sent to the supplier, the order forms, the letter of intent, all of it. There was also a letter of recommendation that
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Mary had written for Katie with Mary's signature on it. Implication being that that could have been used to forge the
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other documents. And there were other notes on Katie's phone that suggested she had been like workshopping how to
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frame Adam, drafting the language for the letter, even references to legal standards like what police need from an
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informant's tip before they can use it to get a warrant. Now, contrary to the mountain of evidence they find on
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Katie's phone, when they search Adam's devices, those all come up clean. No poison research, no suspicious searches,
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no sign that he ever tried to buy cultine. And the physical evidence tells a similar story. Katie's DNA is
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consistent with being a major contributor on the cultine bottle, on the cultine bottles wrapper, and under
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the stamp on the letter sent to the medical examiner. Adam's DNA doesn't show up anywhere. So on February 5th,
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police bring Katie back in and investigator Van Amy confronts her with something major.
00:16:08
Some cases fade from headlines. Some never made it there to begin with. I'm Ashley Flowers and on my podcast, The
00:16:15
Deck, I tell you the stories of cold cases featured on playing cards distributed in prisons designed to spark
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00:16:29
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00:16:38
When Katie comes back into the sheriff's office in February, Vanami doesn't just
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hit her with all the digital forensic evidence. Like, he's got her on that. What he wants is to tie her to the
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actual prepaid cards that were used to buy the drug. So, he bluffs. He tells Katie that police have surveillance
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footage of her buying the prepaid credit cards. >> If you purchase them, you are involved
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in this. I'm telling you, Kitty, there's no way around this. Okay, I've let you sit
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here. That's why I asked if I could show you this. Okay, I let you tell me. I don't know how they
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got on my phone. Okay, >> we're in a crossroad now. Okay, because I know all along I don't ask a question
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I don't know the answer to. Okay, >> you purchased those credit cards, didn't you?
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>> Yes. >> Okay. So, she admits to buying the cards, but she is still insists that she
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didn't actually buy the culture scene. And the only explanation she can offer is that somehow Adam must have used
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them. Even though, according to investigators, cell records show that Adam was nowhere near Katie on the day
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that she scanned the documents needed to make the purchase. >> Those documents were scanned in your
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phone. I know that. And you were in possession of your phone. We're at a crossroad right now, Katie.
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And I'm going to be honest with you. You lied to me earlier when you said you don't know how those were scanned. I
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know for a fact that you were in possession of your phone when they were scanned.
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>> Yes. >> You're saying you purchased this credit card and it was immediately used for the
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payment within a day. Who did you give that credit card to then? If that's the road we're going to go down, let's keep
00:18:27
rolling the snowball. That's not the only hole in her story. You see, investigators had found a draft
00:18:34
of the anonymous letter saved on the Google Drive connected to that Gmail account. It had been edited in November,
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right before it was sent. So now, if Katie admits to writing that letter, she is also admitting that she had access to
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the Gmail account. And if she was the one using the account, she is the one who ordered the poison. But what do you
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mean if she admits to writing the letter? I I thought she already admitted to writing it.
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>> She did, but now she's saying that she didn't write this letter, the one that
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was drafted in November. >> What? >> Yeah. She claims she sent a different letter to police like back in September.
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>> We can prove without a doubt that it's typed in November. >> Okay. >> Okay. We we know that. That's not even
00:19:22
that's not even a question. Okay. I'm telling you in the one one of the last times I talked to you, you told me about
00:19:28
sending the letter in November. >> No, in September. >> You, Katie, I'm telling you, you didn't
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There's no way you sent that letter in September. >> That's what he told me. >> You didn't send the letter in September.
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You're the one saying Adam told you that he did this. So, nobody else is is involved in that. Your letter, nobody
00:19:46
else sent us a letter. We got one letter. You said you sent us a letter. That's your letter.
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I'm confused. >> The way my brain almost exploded as I tried to like untangle this.
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>> I mean, basically, if she wrote the letter, she owns the suspicious Gmail account. And if she owns the account,
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that's it. I mean, did police get a letter in September? >> No. The only letters anyone received
00:20:10
were the two in November. One to the sheriff's office, one to the Emmy. So investigators are starting to develop a
00:20:18
pretty clear picture of what they think happened, including a firmer timeline. Cultazine poisoning typically shows
00:20:25
symptoms within 8 hours, but a large dose can hit a lot faster. Their theory is that Katie laced Mary's afternoon
00:20:33
protein shake around 1 to 1:30ish on July 20th while they were both at the office.
00:20:40
>> But why? Well, prosecutors theorize that it all goes back to Katie's tumultuous
00:20:44
relationship with Adam. In their view, Katie is a scorned ex and Mary is just collateral damage. Either revenge on
00:20:53
Adam or some kind of twisted attempt to pull him back after he dumped her supposedly for cheating on him. Either
00:21:00
way, basically like an if I can't have him, I'll hurt him or I'll be the shoulder that he cries on after like if
00:21:08
I secretly create a tragedy. They also say that this wouldn't be the first time that Katie did something dramatic to win
00:21:14
Adam back, that she once faked an ectopic pregnancy. She said that she required a medically necessary abortion
00:21:21
which led to them rekindling their romance. And according to prosecutors, it worked again this time because after
00:21:29
Mary died, Adam leaned on Katie and that's when they briefly got back together. It's a compelling narrative
00:21:35
with compelling evidence to back it up. Which is why nearly a year after Mary's death on June 13th, 2016, Katie gets
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indicted by a grand jury on charges of seconddegree murder, falsifying business records, seconddegree forgery, and petty
00:21:52
larseny. The falsifying accounts are for the documents that she allegedly created
00:21:57
to make it look like Adam bought the cultine. And the other charges came out of the investigation. I guess the
00:22:02
forgery is for a parking ticket that she supposedly signed with Bill's name and then the larseny is for about 90 bucks
00:22:10
that the investigators say she stole from the office. Now, the assistant DA knows that most of the evidence that
00:22:17
they have is just circumstantial, but she still firmly believes that the case is really strong. Except not everyone is
00:22:28
convinced. According to ABC News, Katie's arrest sends shock waves through their small community. The Yoders and
00:22:37
the Connley's are both well-known families, and this case creates this real divide. In fact, some of Mary's own
00:22:45
sisters side with Katie. They are still much more suspicious of Bill even after all of this comes out.
00:22:54
>> Yep. I'm I'm presuming not including the one dating him. >> Oh no. Yeah. So, uh the ones who are
00:23:01
suspicious are still the same trio that I mentioned before. Janine, Sharon, and Sally. And even though authorities say
00:23:06
that there's no evidence implicating Bill, that is exactly the argument that the defense makes when Katie's first
00:23:13
trial begins in Onida County Court in April 2017. Katie's attorney, Christopher P, says that Bill had
00:23:21
something that Katie didn't have. real motives, a troubled marriage, money problems that went away when Mary died,
00:23:29
and possibly an affair with Mary's own sister. Starting with the marriage, P says that it wasn't as solid as Bill
00:23:37
claimed. Before they even tied the knot, I guess Bill had suggested keeping things open, which they decided against.
00:23:44
And Bill says that he never cheated on Mary, but at some point he started disappearing to hotels on various
00:23:52
weekends. those solo trips I talked about supposedly to write. And so they kind of pose this question like, was
00:23:59
that really the only reason he would take these trips? And then there's the Kathleen of it all. What kind of guy
00:24:04
takes up with his dead wife's sister at all? Let alone 2 months after your wife dies. And how do we know they even
00:24:13
waited that long? I mean, sure, Kathleen and Bill say it all began in September,
00:24:17
but a neighbor of Kathleen's testifies that she saw them on Kathleen's front porch, all snuggled up, looking very
00:24:24
much like a couple the week before Mary died. And don't forget about the money. True, Mary didn't have any life
00:24:31
insurance, but Bill had recently inherited that close to half a million bucks from his dad. And after Mary died,
00:24:38
he told one of his daughters, Tamron, that while it wasn't enough for two people to retire on, it was for just
00:24:44
one. And what's up with Bill's behavior after Mary died? Why did he ever cremated before anyone knew what the
00:24:51
heck was going on? Why wasn't he more curious about what killed her? Why didn't he push investigators for
00:24:57
answers? Cuz it sounds like he was moving on and was in love with someone else. >> Yeah. And it seems to be the thing that
00:25:04
people have a problem with. Mhm. >> There is also a strong possible link to the poison. Maybe Mary ordered it for
00:25:13
gardening and Bill then used it against her. Or maybe he bought it. Either way, he would potentially know what to do
00:25:19
with it. I mean, remember how Mary's sister mentioned that Bill had experimented with growing marijuana back
00:25:24
in the 80s. >> Actually, the letter of intent to the supplier to get the cultine was all
00:25:30
about manipulating plant genetics. I >> and that was Bill's world, not Katie's. So, the defense is saying that she
00:25:38
didn't know anything about that. >> I mean, sure, maybe she didn't, but how do they explain away all of the digital
00:25:47
stuff tying Katie to the culture scene? Like, there's so much. For her defense attorney, Py, he goes after that, too.
00:25:54
He says that the state's forensic expert is unqualified, uncertified, a college student who cherrypicked data to fit his
00:26:02
theory. And he argues that the digital trail isn't as solid as it looks. I guess the Conley's home Wi-Fi, which
00:26:09
Adam actually set up, wasn't password protected, so anyone nearby could have used the IP address. So theoretically,
00:26:17
they're saying someone could have been outside the Conlay's house and connected to their Wi-Fi.
00:26:24
>> Yeah. If the range was wide enough or somebody who would have been over at their house, but didn't they check all
00:26:28
of Bill's devices to see if he did anything like that? Eventually. I mean, they had his phone records pretty
00:26:36
quickly. But here's the thing. When that Adam letter came and then they started looking at Katie, for some reason,
00:26:44
checking Bill's devices got put way on the back burner, which I think comes back to bite them during this trial
00:26:51
because apparently right after Mary died, Bill told his daughter Tamron like not to touch either of their home
00:26:57
computers because they had viruses. But investigators didn't collect any of this
00:27:01
until September 2016 and then some data couldn't be recovered at all. Plus, Bill
00:27:07
was apparently no stranger to computers. He managed the network that connected all the chiropractic office computers
00:27:14
for years, and a lot of the stuff was done on the office computer and with office supplies, right? Typewriter,
00:27:20
envelopes. Yeah, sure, Katie used all of that the most. But the defense points out that it was Bill's office after all.
00:27:28
Like, he could use any of the equipment he wanted, including envelopes that Katie had pre-stamped. So they're trying
00:27:35
to argue that even though her DNA was found under one of the stamps that she could have done that at any random time.
00:27:41
>> Yeah. And he just like grabbed one. >> Is there any physical evidence pointing
00:27:45
to Bill? >> Uh so DNA results on the cultine bottle were inconclusive. So the science could
00:27:54
not rule him in or out. >> I thought the DNA on the bottle was Katie's. >> It was. But there was actually at least
00:27:59
three profiles. So Katie was the only one like or the only match that could be like fully identified and they were able
00:28:05
to completely rule Adam out, >> but for some reason not Bill just based on I guess the sample they had or
00:28:13
whatever. And listen, there is also a problem with the prosecution's theory that Katie poisoned Mary's protein
00:28:19
shake. Mary's medical records from when she was admitted to the hospital say that she had a protein bar and grilled
00:28:26
chicken that day. There was nothing in there about a shake. Okay, but where's that coming from? Like, did she tell
00:28:31
them during intake? >> Yeah, this isn't like stomach contents or anything. She comes into the
00:28:35
hospital. Mary's telling them herself. She was still like coherent when she comes to the hospital. And sure, right?
00:28:40
Like she's in like the worst position or like the her the worst spot. She's so sick. Maybe she misspoke. Maybe she had
00:28:47
both. Maybe someone wrote it down wrong. But P offers another idea that maybe Bill could have slipped the cultene into
00:28:56
Mary's food on the morning of July 20th and possibly given her a second dose while she was still at the hospital. So
00:29:03
they're saying she was poisoned twice. Well, the experts can't rule it out. Apparently, there's no way to know
00:29:09
exactly how much cultine Mary ingested, but the fact that it was in her stomach fluid during the autopsy indicates that
00:29:17
it got into her system orally rather than through like inhalation or injection. And keep in mind, this was
00:29:23
after 2 days of vomiting. So, the pathologist says that the levels in her system were actually rising when she
00:29:29
died, like her body was still absorbing it. Now, the prosecution has an explanation for that. They say it has to
00:29:35
do with the way that drugs can shift around in the body after death. And their toxicologist says a second dose
00:29:41
would have triggered a fresh round of symptoms, which did not happen. But the defense pushes back. Mary was on
00:29:47
anti-nausea medication at the hospital. So they are saying that could have maybe
00:29:51
masked new symptoms. And so it's just like this pingpong back and forth at trial. But you said in part one that
00:29:58
Katie was at the hospital with Mary and the family. So, if there was a second dose,
00:30:05
who's to say who actually gave it to her? Like, what about it is tying Bill to this theory and not Katie? Well,
00:30:13
because Katie wasn't there at the hospital until Wednesday, like closer to the time that Mary died. Bill was the
00:30:20
only one there with Mary on Tuesday before she took a turn for the worse. And Mary wasn't supposed to eat or drink
00:30:27
or anything while she was hospitalized. But Bill admitted that he brought her cough drops and an inhaler from home
00:30:33
when she asked. So either one could have theoretically been laced. But it's not clear if those things were ever tested.
00:30:41
Although, as far as I can tell, they weren't. >> My head is >> spinning. I know you're you're not the
00:30:47
only one. This trial stretches on for over 3 weeks with dozens of witnesses. The jury goes on to deliberate for
00:30:56
nearly 24 hours, over 5 days, but they are hopelessly deadlocked. Reportedly 10 to2 in favor of a quiddle. So on May
00:31:08
18th, 2017, the judge declares a mistrial. No verdict, no closure. Katie is in legal limbo, still charged with murder,
00:31:20
and prosecutors aren't about to let things go. 5 months later in October, they bring Katie to trial again. Now,
00:31:27
the theory is the same, but this time, the prosecution has a new ace in the hole. As they prepped for round two,
00:31:36
investigators re-examined Adam's laptop, and they realized that one of the phone
00:31:42
backups on it wasn't from Adam's device. It was from Katie's. In August 2015, so
00:31:49
just weeks after Mary died, Katie had plugged her iPhone into Adam's laptop and without meaning to, she triggers a
00:31:56
full backup, preserving everything on that phone at the time, including stuff that she later deleted.
00:32:04
What they found painted a picture of someone doing their homework. In the fall of 2014, Katie started researching
00:32:14
different poisons and screenshotting articles about how deadly each one was. By December, she seemed to land on
00:32:21
cultine. She was researching chemical suppliers, looked up the prognosis and treatment of cultine poisoning, and then
00:32:28
ordered it using those fake documents that she'd scanned with her phone. To prosecutors, this is a smoking gun, and
00:32:36
they're feeling good. as everyone crowds back into the courtroom. But I don't think they are expecting the curveball
00:32:45
that Katie's new lawyer is about to throw at them. Katie's defense attorney for trial
00:32:53
number two is a guy named Frank Policelli and he has a whole new approach. Instead of accusing Bill,
00:33:03
Polelli lays the blame on Adam. This time, the defense says that Katie actually tried to help investigators see
00:33:09
what was really going on. But they were so focused on her, they dismissed everything she told them, including her
00:33:16
claim that Adam had confessed to her. According to Pichelli, here's what really happened. Adam was desperate,
00:33:24
volatile, and had a strained relationship with his mother. And when he couldn't hold on to Katie, he
00:33:30
concocted a plan to poison Mary in a way that would make sure Katie took the fall. Think about it from this angle.
00:33:37
Adam actually studied computer science in college and he had way more digital knowhow than Katie. He had used her
00:33:43
devices in the past. Was it really a coincidence that her damning phone backup was on his laptop?
00:33:49
>> I mean, you got to find a way to explain that new evidence. In Bolichelli's view,
00:33:54
Adam could have planted or manipulated any incriminating data. He had access to the Yodor's office, too. Even had his
00:34:02
own key, which he claims he lost. And when police searched his Jeep, they found goggles and gloves and a face
00:34:09
mask, the kind of stuff that you would want if you were handling something toxic. But investigators never collected
00:34:15
those things, let alone tested them. And yes, the relationship between him and Katie was toxic. No one disputes that.
00:34:22
But Policelli says that Adam was the problem, not Katie. She had moved on. She had a new boyfriend and she was
00:34:30
making plans for a future while Adam couldn't let go. Apparently, over the years, she had lent him thousands of
00:34:36
dollars that he never paid back and she was scared of him. By his own admission,
00:34:41
he had gotten physical with her. Said that he slapped her in the face a few times at a party in 2013. if he's
00:34:48
willing to do that in front of people. You know what's happening when no one's watching? And then there's the sexual
00:34:53
assault allegation from 2014 that Katie told the detectives about in their first
00:34:58
meeting. Remember that? Now, Adam denies it, but he also admits that he was so drunk that night, he doesn't remember
00:35:05
anything. So, how can you deny something you don't even remember? >> Well, here's the thing. Prosecutors
00:35:13
actually don't even believe Katie about it either. She had given police photos of injuries that she said came from the
00:35:20
assault, but when investigators pulled the data, capture times told a different story. Some were taken nearly a year
00:35:28
before the night in question, others were months after. None of them matched up with when she said like they were
00:35:35
supposed to have happened. >> And so, just like this, for almost every argument the defense tries to make, the
00:35:41
prosecution comes back with a one-two punch. And they insist via expert witnesses who did the data extractions
00:35:48
that there was no digital tampering or modification and nothing pointing to Adam at all except for Katie's word.
00:35:56
They are confident that the right person is on trial. But they do start to worry
00:36:01
that some jurors might believe Katie didn't intend to kill Mary, just make her sick, like the way Adam got sick
00:36:11
before from who knows what. Which by the way, even back then, like when he got sick, he made sort of a joke, question
00:36:20
mark, that Katie poisoned him, cuz he said that he got sick right after taking some supplements that she had given him.
00:36:27
Uh, >> can I just say that if that thought even crosses your mind when you're in a
00:36:32
relationship, run, >> get out. Yeah, but that half joking, did she poison me thing, that's something
00:36:38
that we know from Katie's original interview with detectives and messages that she and Adam exchanged. And at
00:36:44
trial, the defense actually brings up Adam's illness, too. But they suggest that Adam poisoned himself for attention
00:36:52
and then later did the same to Mary. Or maybe he bought the cultine to grow marijuana and then got sick while
00:36:58
handling it. But either way, this ends up backfiring. Like I said, the prosecution's getting a little nervous.
00:37:05
So, they go and ask the judge, "Listen, instead of just guilty or not guilty for
00:37:10
seconddegree murder, can we give the jury an option? Can we add firstdegree manslaughter? That way, it won't be an
00:37:19
all or nothing on seconddegree murder." Now, the defense tries to keep the lesser charge off the table, but they
00:37:25
can't because by floating the theory that Adam poisoned himself and then Mary, they'd basically open the legal
00:37:35
door and the state just walks right in. If Katie was behind both poisonings, maybe she just expected Mary to get
00:37:45
better since Adam had gotten better. So, was it ever confirmed that Adam had cultine in his system or could he have
00:37:56
just been really sick unrelated? >> We don't know. Investigators tested the supplements from like the ones he was
00:38:04
taking when Adam got sick. Those came back clean, but they don't even know for sure if they were from the same bottle
00:38:10
that Katie gave him. So, like it that part is all just still a big mystery. Either way, the question of intent is
00:38:17
now in the jury's hands, and in early November, they start deliberating. At one point, it looks like they won't
00:38:25
even be able to agree. And everyone's kind of like holding their breath, wondering if this is like going to be
00:38:30
another mistrial, but they're able to work through it. And after 2 days of hashing it out, the verdict comes in.
00:38:38
not guilty of seconddegree murder, but guilty of firstdegree manslaughter. According to Observer Dispatch reporter
00:38:48
Jolene Clever, Katie's bail is revoked and she is taken into custody. Even after two trials, some of Mary's sisters
00:38:56
still don't believe that Katie did this. When she is sentenced in January 2018, they ask the judge for leniency. And on
00:39:05
the other side is Bill with his and Mary's children who all stand by the conviction. To them, Katie took Mary's
00:39:13
love and repaid it with poison. And Adam's voice, you can hear it break as he talks about the guilt that he carries
00:39:20
for bringing Katie into his family. A family who welcomed her because he once loved her, but not anymore. He tells the
00:39:27
court he hates her for what she has done. But Katie maintains that she didn't do anything and that the system
00:39:34
got it wrong, though the judge isn't moved. The fact is Mary died in agony, never understanding what was happening
00:39:43
to her. And so he sentences Katie to 23 years. That was in 2018. So realistically, she could have been in
00:39:51
jail until like 2041. But then an attorney named Melissa Schwarz takes on her appeal
00:40:01
and she zeros in on the warrant that police used to search Katie's phone. Law enforcement had permission to take the
00:40:10
phone, but apparently they didn't have permission to dig through all of the data inside of it. Schwarz argues that
00:40:17
Katie's trial attorneys should have fought to get that evidence thrown out. They didn't. And that failure cost Katie
00:40:25
her freedom. And so just last year, the appellet court agreed. In late January 2025, Katie's conviction was overturned.
00:40:35
And a few days later, she walked out of prison free for the first time in 7 years. Now, you know, this overturned
00:40:44
doesn't mean exonerated. Prosecutors can try again, and they're planning to do exactly that.
00:40:52
But almost immediately, they shoot themselves in the foot. You see, when Katie was released, her attorney asked
00:40:58
the judge to seal the case records, which Schwarz told us is a pretty standard for a conviction that gets
00:41:04
tossed. What's unusual is that the DA's office didn't object. And so now all of the evidence, police reports, witness
00:41:11
statements, digital records, all of it is locked away, not just from the public, but from prosecutors, too. Oh.
00:41:18
Uh, why wouldn't they push back on that? >> I don't get it. Maybe they figured that
00:41:24
the seal only covered the conviction and not the actual evidence, which like not
00:41:29
true. >> And they should have known. >> Mhm. So, even though they got like a whole another grand jury to do the whole
00:41:37
song and dance again, even get to the point where they call Schwarz to schedule Katie's arraignment because
00:41:42
they expect a new indictment soon, they get blocked cuz it's at that point when Schwarz is like, "Wait, did you unseal
00:41:50
the case first?" >> Right. Cuz like, what are you even going to bring to this grand jury? Cuz it's
00:41:55
all tucked away. >> Yeah. And that's when the DA's office has this like oh moment. They had been
00:42:02
using evidence that they had no right to touch. >> The judge orders them to stop and now
00:42:08
they're just stuck. They can't even ask to unseal the records themselves because
00:42:13
only law enforcement can do that and they can only do that if there's an active investigation. But police have
00:42:19
admitted that no one is currently working on Mary's case. So from there, it just spirals. The DA's office tries
00:42:26
to get the judge removed, accusing the judge of bias, claiming that at some point she said that she thought Bill
00:42:32
killed Mary. The judge denies it, refuses to step aside. Then the DA files multiple appeals. All of this back and
00:42:40
forth over months, which brings me to right now. >> Oh, she's still out. >> Oh, yeah. This is active and ongoing.
00:42:49
There is actually a hearing coming up in April. But Schwarz says that the state has been fighting the wrong battles that
00:42:56
they have been focused on whether the judge was wrong when she ordered them to stop using the sealed evidence. But
00:43:02
again, even if they win that, everything is still sealed. >> Yes. It's like arguing you shouldn't be
00:43:08
able to stay out of a room that you like cannot get into in the first place. >> So, they're not even getting at the real
00:43:16
issue here. Plus, even if they do get the records unsealed, most of the evidence might be worthless
00:43:23
>> because of the >> the appeals court decided that the search of Katie's phone was illegal.
00:43:28
Right. >> Right. They shouldn't The evidence that's there shouldn't even be there
00:43:31
essentially. >> Yeah. Anything that came from it, including the backup on Adam's laptop,
00:43:35
the statement that Katie made based on what cops found, all of it can be tossed.
00:43:39
>> Wait, why the laptop backup? Didn't they have a a warrant for his devices? They
00:43:46
did, but there are a few problems with it. Like for one, the only reason they even knew to look at it was because they
00:43:53
had Katie's phone first. >> The fruit of the forbidden tree. >> Exactly. On top of that, there's a
00:43:59
question of whether Adam should have even had the backup on his computer. But even if prosecutors can use it, it's
00:44:06
weaker now. I mean, at trial, they verified the backup by comparing it against the physical phone. basically
00:44:13
like matching digital fingerprints to like prove nobody had tampered with it with the phone suppressed now. They
00:44:19
can't have that. >> They can't even do that anymore. So, you're left with like a backup file that
00:44:23
they can't independently verify just sitting on Adam's laptop. And think about what the defense argued at Katie's
00:44:30
second trial. Adam is techsavvy. Adam had possession of the laptop. Adam had every opportunity to manipulate what was
00:44:37
on it. Without the phone to prove that those searches also existed on Katie's actual device, the defense can say that
00:44:44
the only place this incriminating evidence lives >> is on the computer belonging to the guy
00:44:50
>> that they think did it. >> Yep. >> So, even in the best case scenario for prosecutors, that backup is nowhere near
00:44:58
as powerful without the phone to back it up, for a lack of a better term. Actually, it could even hurt their case.
00:45:05
But no matter what the path they want to take is, the clock is ticking because unlike murder, manslaughter has a time
00:45:15
limit. Swart says that prosecutors have maybe three more years. And if they can't retry Katie before then, it's
00:45:23
over. I mean, she got acquitted on the second degree murder, right? They cannot go back with that. All they have is that
00:45:28
manslaughter charge. And even if investigators wanted to take another look at Bill or at Adam, which they
00:45:35
seemingly don't, they're out of luck because they both got immunity when they testified before the grand jury.
00:45:43
>> What? I had the same reaction. Apparently in New York, that's routine. >> Routine.
00:45:48
>> It doesn't protect you from perjury if you lie. But it does mean that neither
00:45:52
of them can ever be prosecuted for Mary's death, which as it stands, there doesn't appear to be any evidence for
00:45:59
anyway. As of right now, the case is officially unsolved, but only on paper. Police are sure that they arrested the
00:46:07
right person. Prosecutors are sure that the right person was on trial. >> And what does Katie say?
00:46:14
>> You know, she actually did an interview within the last couple of years with ABC
00:46:17
News for that docu series I mentioned in the first episode. And I will say her attorney told us that she feels that
00:46:25
when it came out, it lacked important context in how some of it was presented, but the way it was presented, there were
00:46:30
parts that I found kind of odd. Like producers asked her if she ever searched for lethal poisons on her phone. And
00:46:39
instead of just saying no, she told them that she doesn't even have a reason to search for poisons because she's not the
00:46:45
type of person who could do something like that. And her parents who were also interviewed said that when they asked
00:46:51
her straight up, did you kill Mary? Again, the answer is not no. She basically told them, you know, I want a
00:46:57
family someday, so why would I jeopardize my future? Which again, not not a denial.
00:47:02
>> Like, no is right there. >> I know. But to answer your question, Katie says that she goes back and forth.
00:47:09
Sometimes she thinks it was Bill. Maybe Bill and Adam. She just knows it wasn't her.
00:47:16
Okay. I'm still confused about the anonymous letters. Like, >> oh my god, that's like it's like the
00:47:23
murkiest part to me. >> Does she admit that she wrote them or not? >> So, some people think that her initial
00:47:29
confession to police about writing those letters was coerced and that she didn't
00:47:34
actually write them at all. >> Okay. >> But during her second trial, Pichelli said that Katie did admit to writing it,
00:47:42
but then when ABC News asked her about it, Schwarz stopped her from answering. So, you've got these like competing
00:47:47
claims. Either Katie wrote the November letters, which ties her to the Gmail account and the cultine order,
00:47:54
>> or she wrote the letters, but somehow the digital trail leading to the cultine
00:47:58
isn't as airtight as investigators claimed. Or she wrote a different letter entirely that just never got to police.
00:48:08
Or she didn't write any letters at all and her confession was coerced. Well, >> that clears up absolutely nothing.
00:48:15
Welcome to my world. I'm honestly not sure anyone has a straight answer on all of the letter stuff. I mean, so much
00:48:22
about this case is still up in the air. And our reporter, Nenah, reached out to Bill and Adam, but we never heard back.
00:48:30
What we do know, though, is that Mary's loved ones still feel her absence every day, and the divide between them may
00:48:37
never heal. I don't know if Bill and Kathleen are still together, but Mary's other sisters that we've mentioned have
00:48:42
remained some of Katie's biggest supporters. They even teamed up with the Conleys to
00:48:47
fight for her release, but they live with the guilt of being the ones who pushed for an investigation in the first
00:48:53
place, never dreaming that it would lead to a woman that they now think is innocent. Of course, the Yoders have
00:48:59
their own burdens. Tamron told ABC News that she struggles with the fact that she once even suspected her own father.
00:49:05
And she said that Adam, who didn't participate in the show, may never stop blaming himself for bringing Katie into
00:49:10
the family in the first place. No matter what you believe happened, one thing is
00:49:15
certain, and it's really the most devastating part of all. Mary wasn't killed by a stranger. She was killed by
00:49:22
someone she loved, someone she trusted, and someone that she never saw coming. You can find all the source material for
00:49:31
this episode on our website, crimejunkkey.com. And you can follow us on Instagram, crimejunkie podcast.
00:49:37
>> We'll be back next week with a brand new episode.