MURDERED: Mary Yoder Part 2

In July 2015, Mary Yoder, a healthy 60-year-old chiropractor, went to work as usual. Later that day, she began feeling sick. Within 48 hours, she was dead. At first, her sudden decline seemed like a medical mystery. But investigators soon uncovered evidence of poisoning, launching a murder investigation that divided her family and the community.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Ashley Flowers?

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• 2:17Ashley Flowers?

  Hi, crime junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers.

• 2:20Speaker 01

  And I'm Britt.

• 2:20Ashley Flowers?

  Last episode, I walked you through the first five months following the death of Mary Yoder. Sixty-year-old Mary was happy, healthy, and beloved by her friends, family, and patients near Utica in central New York, where she and her husband Bill were chiropractors with their own practice. But out of nowhere, one Monday afternoon in July 2015, Mary became violently ill. Her son had been sick with the same symptoms a few months before, and it took him a while to heal, but he had. So initially, she and her husband thought that this was the same thing, some kind of stomach bug. But in less than 48 hours, Mary was dead. And when toxicology results came back, they revealed something no one

• 3:04Ashley Flowers?

  knew while she was alive. Mary had lethal levels of a drug called Colchicine in her system, a gout medication that she had no reason to be taking. As it became clear that Mary was poisoned, suspicion fell on her husband, Bill, who had started a relationship with one of Mary's own sisters just two months after his wife's death. But just as detectives were getting started, an anonymous letter arrived at their office, pointing the finger at someone else entirely. The tipster claimed that Bill and Mary's 25-year-old son, Adam, had killed her, and that there was proof. "The Colchicine bottle was still in Adam's

• 3:46Ashley Flowers?

  Jeep," the letter said. And sure enough, when police went looking, there it was, with the receipt of purchase emailed to [email protected]. It all seemed a little too perfect for Oneida County Sheriff's Lieutenant Robert Nelson and investigator Mark Van Namie. An anonymous letter that just happened to lead them right to the evidence? They had to wonder, was someone trying to frame Adam? And if so, who? His own father? Police clearly didn't have a full picture of this family yet, so they brought in one person who knew all of these players, 22-year-old Kaitlin Conley.

• 4:29Ashley Flowers?

  Katie had dated Adam on and off for years, and she was the office manager at Bill and Mary's practice. But she was more than an employee. Mary considered her family. She was even mentioned in Mary's obituary. And soft-spoken Katie didn't point the finger at Bill. Instead, she told detectives how suspicious she was of Adam. But the more she talked, the more convinced they became that Katie sounded a lot like their anonymous letter writer. So after that first meeting with her in mid-December 2015, detectives walked away with a new question. Not, "Did Adam do it?", but who is Caitlin Conley? And what have we been missing? It turns out, a lot.

• 5:14Ashley Flowers?

  Are you ready to dive back in, Brett?

• 5:16Speaker 01

  Let's go.

• 5:49Ashley Flowers?

  As soon as detectives found the Coltrazine with the receipt in Adam's car, they began trying to trace where it came from and who it was shipped to. What they found is that the one-gram bottle of powder was mailed from a company in California to the Yoder's Chiropractic office in February 2015, addressed to Adam. But the person who signed for it was the office manager, Katie Conley, which isn't unusual, right? She signed for most packages at the practice. What is unusual is her connection to the email address that ordered it.

• 6:25Ashley Flowers?

  Google records show that the email used to buy the Coltrazine, that Mr. Adam Yoder 1990, it was accessed from the Connley's home IP address, where Katie lives with her family. Then, in late November, that entire Gmail account was deleted using her phone. So, just a few days after they spoke with Katie, investigator Van Amy and Lieutenant Nelson asked her to come back in, and they confront her with what they've found. "You say you've never heard of Mr. Adam Yoder 1990 email address? But it was deleted from your phone. How do you explain that?" At first, Katie suggests maybe Adam accessed it using her cell at some point.

• 7:06Speaker 01

  Like logged in or deleted it?

• 7:09Ashley Flowers?

  Logged in, which, you get it. It doesn't explain the thing investigators are actually asking about.

• 7:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 7:15Ashley Flowers?

  So eventually, she admits that she is the one who deleted the account, but only after she just stumbled across it. The thing is, even that doesn't really make sense, because when you delete a Gmail account, you know what you need?

• 7:28Speaker 01

  The password.

• 7:29Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, so detectives push her. "You knew the password at some point, Katie. What was it?" She says she can't remember. Now, they humor her, not going super hard, because they can tell that she's building towards something. And finally, she comes out with it. "Adam confessed to her and told her that he ordered the Coltrazine, had it shipped to the office, poisoned his mother, then stashed the bottle in his Jeep." She says Adam regrets it, that she thinks he killed Mary by accident, mostly because she doesn't understand why he'd want to hurt her. But she also claims that he asked her about Coltrazine about a year before Mary died, wanting to know how to get his hands on some.

• 8:12Speaker 01

  Hmm, how do you accidentally plan something for like a year?

• 8:16Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, this is, it's not adding up.

• 8:18Speaker 01

  It also sounds a heck of a lot like the anonymous letter that they got, like word for word. "He regrets it. He stashed the bottle in his Jeep."

• 8:26Ashley Flowers?

  Bingo. And, and remember, they don't just think that this letter came from a tipster trying to do the right thing. Before they ever can tie anyone to it, they felt pretty confident that the letter was written, or the letters, there was two of them. They were written by Mary's real killer to throw off suspicion. So they press her on it. "You wrote it, didn't you?" And once Katie admits it, investigator Van Amy starts recording. In the footage, Katie is sitting at the side of a desk in a small office. She's quiet as she waits for Van Amy to come back into the room.

• 9:03Speaker 02

  We've been chatting for quite a while today. About a lot of things.

• 9:10Speaker 02

  I want to ask you some more specifics. I really appreciate you helping out stop pointing us in the right direction with the letter into Adam. Okay? You follow me then?

• 9:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:22Speaker 02

  Okay. Why are your socks up? Have I been anything less than nice to you?

• 9:26Speaker 03

  You've been really nice. I'm just...

• 9:31Speaker 03

  I'm afraid Adam's really smart.

• 9:33Speaker 02

  Okay. And you've said that to me a couple of times, that Adam's really smart. He's not going to let anything come back to him. I understand that. But myself and my friends in the other room, the investigators on this case, are really good at what we do. Okay? And we always get to the truth. I believe you about what you're telling me with Adam. You know, I just need your help to help me prove it's Adam. Okay?

• 10:03Speaker 03

  You can't prove it's Adam.

• 10:04Speaker 02

  Okay, well, that falls on me. Who do you...

• 10:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, but you can't prove it's Adam.

• 10:09Speaker 02

  Who's it? Who am I going to prove it is then?

• 10:12Speaker 03

  Right.

• 10:15Speaker 02

  Who did he make this look like it is?

• 10:18Speaker 03

  I'm afraid he put it back on me.

• 10:20Speaker 02

  You're afraid Adam did?

• 10:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:23Speaker 02

  Why?

• 10:24Speaker 03

  I don't know, so that I can't... I can't go to you for help.

• 10:30Speaker 02

  Do you know that he did that?

• 10:33Speaker 02

  Do you know that he's trying to point the finger at you?

• 10:36Speaker 03

  No, at the office, he said that if anyone was going to get in trouble, it was going to be me.

• 10:41Speaker 02

  Okay. Why would he keep the container? Why would he keep something that's going to link him to the crime that he just committed?

• 10:50Speaker 02

  You know what I mean?

• 10:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:52Speaker 02

  You could have dropped that in any garbage can and nobody would have been the wiser. Can you put that in a soda cup or soda bottle? Put it in that garbage. You could have thrown it out in here and you would have never known.

• 11:02Speaker 03

  Right.

• 11:03Speaker 02

  You can get rid of it anywhere. Why do you think Adam held on to that?

• 11:07Speaker 03

  I knew he'd keep it for so long.

• 11:12Speaker 02

  I'm gonna ask you a straight up question. Every time I ask these, I already know the answer.

• 11:18Speaker 02

  Is it possible that somebody made it look like Adam did this?

• 11:23Speaker 03

  Yes, but I don't think so.

• 11:25Speaker 02

  It is possible that somebody planted that on him? Because I can tell you right now, 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 they get caught.

• 11:37Speaker 03

  Right, but guys also don't use poison.

• 11:45Speaker 03

  They say it's a ladies weapon.

• 11:48Speaker 02

  They say it's a ladies weapon?

• 11:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 11:52Ashley Flowers?

  Now, Van Amy has clearly been playing good cop. We believe you. We're gonna find the truth and help you. But Katie's got her shovel and she just keeps digging herself deeper.

• 12:04Speaker 01

  No kidding? Poison is a ladies weapon? Like, does she hear herself?

• 12:09Ashley Flowers?

  I know. It is looking worse and worse for Katie. So that's when Van Amy and Lieutenant Nelson swap out. And he gets a little more direct with the questions.

• 12:19Speaker 04

  Here's some issues I still have. You gotta look at it from our point of view. We're looking at one of three people here. The husband, Adam, or you. You're gonna have to help us. If you tell us you have nothing to do with this, you're gonna have to help us rule you out. Just like we gotta rule out Adam or Bill, whoever is not responsible for this. Because right now, there's a lot of things, unanswered questions that we have.

• 12:43Speaker 03

  Right.

• 12:43Speaker 04

  The Gmail account and some other things. And like you said, those don't point to Adam. They point to that phone.

• 12:50Speaker 03

  I know.

• 12:50Speaker 04

  You need to help us clear you.

• 12:53Ashley Flowers?

  Katie has gone from witness to suspect. But investigators aren't ready to arrest her yet. They want to be able to directly tie her to the cult scene in a way that she can't wiggle out of. So they start digging into the digital trail to piece everything together. And there is a lot to unpack here, so just bear with me. What they find is that the Mr. Adam Yoder 1990 email account was created back in September 2014 using the IP address at the Yoder's office. That same month, someone opened a credit card in Mary's name. But the contact number on that account? Katie's cell. Then, a couple of months later, in December,

• 13:35Ashley Flowers?

  a prepaid credit card was used to try and buy colchicine online. But that order failed because the supplier required paperwork that the buyer didn't have. In early January 2015, someone tried again with a second prepaid card from the same store. This time, it went through. And they bought a gram of colchicine from that company in California. Now, to complete the order, the buyer submitted a letter of intent explaining who they were, why they needed the drug. Now, the letter was supposedly signed by Adam and Mary, and it listed Adam as the buyer and claimed that he needed the colchicine to manipulate plant genetics. And it also named him as the manager at the clinic, even though, again, he had not worked there in years.

• 14:17Ashley Flowers?

  Meanwhile, on the front office computer, which Katie used more than anyone, there were searches for various poisons, including colchicine, and how much it would take to kill someone based on their body weight. One investigator even told ABC News that someone took Mary's exact body weight and plugged it into a formula to calculate the fatal dose. Although, we couldn't find that detail in the records that we have. And what's interesting is some of those searches happened about a week after Adam went to the ER with the same symptoms that Mary would later have.

• 14:53Speaker 01

  Wait, is colchicine what made him sick too?

• 14:56Ashley Flowers?

  Well, at the time, they just thought it was a stomach bug. I mean, they ran blood work, they did scans, noted mild inflammation in his intestines, gave him medicine, sent him home. Never tied to colchicine, because why would you do that kind of thing unless, again, you're doing an autopsy? Anyway, that same office computer had been used to access the Gmail account tied to the colchicine order.

• 15:16Speaker 01

  So, the office computer she uses the most has the Gmail account on it, the Mr. Adam Yoder 1990, which was also pulled up from her home IP address. And eventually, the account gets deleted altogether, but from her phone.

• 15:31Ashley Flowers?

  Correct. But just staying with the office computer for one sec. In November 2015, so this is around the time that the anonymous letters were sent, someone installed software on it to mask IP addresses. A way to hide like what sites had been visited. But it didn't work. The clinic's antivirus program logged the activity anyway. And what it recorded was that someone on that computer during business hours was downloading the masking software first, then using a private browser to log into that same Gmail account. So whoever did this took steps to cover their tracks before they ever pulled it up.

• 16:07Speaker 01

  Was trying to hide it in the first place.

• 16:10Ashley Flowers?

  And listen, there's also a typewriter at the office, and the ink ribbon still had faint impressions of what had been typed, which matched the anonymous letters sent to the ME in the sheriff's office. Then, on Katie's phone, investigators found a deleted note with lines that read, "1990, at lowercase g, and capital A is gay." They figured that this was shorthand for the email address that's at the center of this whole thing, [email protected]. And maybe its password, which turned out to be "adam is gay." Now, that same email and password were also used

• 16:53Ashley Flowers?

  to set up a document scanning app on Katie's phone, too. The app had been deleted by the time they got to it, but the cloud storage was still accessible. And in it were scanned copies of every document sent to the supplier, the order forms, the letter of intent, all of it. There was also a letter of recommendation that Mary had written for Katie with Mary's signature on it. Implication being that that could have been used to forge the other documents. And there were other notes on Katie's phone that suggested she had been like workshopping how to frame Adam, drafting the language for the letter,

• 17:36Ashley Flowers?

  even references to legal standards, like what police need from an informant's tip before they can use it to get a warrant. Now, contrary to the mountain of evidence they find on Katie's phone, when they search Adam's devices, those all come up clean. No poison research, no suspicious searches, no sign that he ever tried to buy colchicine. And the physical evidence tells a similar story. Katie's DNA is consistent with being a major contributor on the colchicine bottle, on the colchicine bottle's wrapper, and under the stamp on the letter sent to the medical examiner. Adam's DNA doesn't show up anywhere.

• 18:19Ashley Flowers?

  So on February 5th, police bring Katie back in, and Investigator Van Amy confronts her with something major.

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• 21:37Ashley Flowers?

  When Katie comes back into the sheriff's office in February, the annuity doesn't just hit her with all the digital forensic evidence. Like, he's got her on that. What he wants is to tie her to the actual prepaid cards that were used to buy the drug. So he bluffs. He tells Katie that police have surveillance footage of her buying the prepaid credit cards.

• 22:02Speaker 02

  If you purchased them, you're involved in this.

• 22:10Speaker 02

  I'm telling you, Katie, there's no way around this, okay? I've let you sit here, that's why I asked if I could show you this, okay?

• 22:18Speaker 02

  I let you tell me, I don't know how they got on my phone, okay? We're at a crossroads now, okay? Because I know, all along, I don't ask a question I don't know the answer to, okay? You purchased those credit cards, didn't you?

• 22:31Speaker 03

  Yes, yes.

• 22:32Ashley Flowers?

  So she admits to buying the cards, but she still insists that she didn't actually buy the Coltra scene. And the only explanation she can offer is that somehow Adam must have used them, even though, according to investigators, cell records show that Adam was nowhere near Katie on the day that she scanned the documents needed to make the purchase.

• 22:56Speaker 02

  Those documents were scanned in your phone. I know that in your possession of your phone.

• 23:03Speaker 02

  We're at a crossroads right now, Katie. And I'm gonna be honest with you. You lied to me earlier when you said you don't know how those were scanned. I know for a fact that you were in possession of your phone when they were scanned.

• 23:18Speaker 02

  You're saying you purchased this credit card, and it was immediately used for the payment, within a day. Who did you give that credit card to then? If that's the road we're gonna go down, let's keep rolling this no more.

• 23:29Ashley Flowers?

  That's not the only hole in her story. You see, investigators had found a draft of the anonymous letter saved on the Google Drive connected to that Gmail account. It had been edited in November, right before it was sent. So now, if Katie admits to writing that letter, she is also admitting that she had access to the Gmail account. And if she was the one using the account, she is the one who ordered the poison.

• 23:58Speaker 01

  But what do you mean if she admits to writing the letter? I thought she already admitted to writing it.

• 24:04Ashley Flowers?

  She did. But now, she's saying that she didn't write this letter, the one that was drafted in November.

• 24:11Speaker 01

  What?

• 24:11Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, she claims she sent a different letter to police, like back in September.

• 24:16Speaker 02

  We can prove without a doubt that it's typed in November.

• 24:20Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 24:20Speaker 02

  Okay? We know that. That's not even, that's not even a question, okay? I'm telling you, in one of the last times I talked to you, you told me about sending the letter in November.

• 24:31Speaker 03

  No, in September.

• 24:32Speaker 02

  Katie, I'm telling you, there's no way you sent that letter in September.

• 24:37Speaker 03

  That's when you told me.

• 24:39Speaker 02

  You didn't send the letter in September.

• 24:41Speaker 04

  You're the one saying Adam told you that he did this. So nobody else is involved in that. Your letter, nobody else sent us a letter. We got one letter. You said you sent us a letter. That's your letter.

• 24:53Speaker 01

  I'm confused.

• 24:55Ashley Flowers?

  The way my brain almost exploded as I tried to untangle this. I mean, basically, if she wrote the letter, she owns the suspicious Gmail account. And if she owns the account, that's it.

• 25:06Speaker 01

  I mean, did police get a letter in September?

• 25:09Ashley Flowers?

  No. The only letters anyone received were the two in November. One to the sheriff's office, one to the ME. So investigators are starting to develop a pretty clear picture of what they think happened, including a firmer timeline.

• 25:25Ashley Flowers?

  Coljazin poisoning typically shows symptoms within eight hours, but a large dose can hit a lot faster. Their theory is that Katie laced Mary's afternoon protein shake around 1 to 1:30-ish on July 20th while they were both at the office.

• 25:41Speaker 01

  But why?

• 25:42Ashley Flowers?

  Well, prosecutors theorize that it all goes back to Katie's tumultuous relationship with Adam. In their view, Katie is a scorned ex and Mary is just collateral damage, either revenge on Adam or some kind of twisted attempt to pull him back after he dumped her, supposedly for cheating on him. Either 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 I secretly create a tragedy. They also say that this wouldn't be the first time that Katie did something dramatic to win Adam back, that she once faked an ectopic pregnancy. She said that she required a medically necessary abortion, which led to them rekindling their romance.

• 26:28Ashley Flowers?

  And according to prosecutors, it worked again this time because after Mary died, Adam leaned on Katie, and that's when they briefly got back together. It's a compelling narrative with compelling evidence to back it up, which is why nearly a year after Mary's death, on June 13th, 2016, Katie gets indicted by a grand jury on charges of second-degree murder, falsifying business records, second-degree forgery, and petty larceny. The falsifying accounts are for the documents that she allegedly created to make it look like Adam bought the coljazin. And the other charges came out of the investigation. I guess the forgery is for a parking ticket that she supposedly signed with Bill's name,

• 27:12Ashley Flowers?

  and then the larceny is for about 90 bucks that the investigators say she stole from the office. Now, the assistant DA knows that most of the evidence that they have is just circumstantial, but she still firmly believes that the case is really strong. Except, not everyone is convinced.

• 27:34Ashley Flowers?

  According to ABC News, Katie's arrest sends shockwaves through their small community. The Yoder's and the Conleys are both well-known families, and this case creates this real divide. In fact, some of Mary's own sisters side with Katie. They are still much more suspicious of Bill.

• 27:57Speaker 01

  Even after all of this comes out?

• 27:58Ashley Flowers?

  Yep.

• 27:59Speaker 01

  I'm presuming not including the one dating him.

• 28:03Ashley Flowers?

  Oh, no, yeah, so the ones who are suspicious are still the same trio that I mentioned before, Janine, Sharon, and Sally. And even though authorities say that there's no evidence implicating Bill, that is exactly the argument that the defense makes when Katie's first trial begins in Oneida County Court in April 2017. Katie's attorney, Christopher Pelley, says that Bill had something that Katie didn't have: real motives, a troubled marriage, money problems that went away when Mary died, and possibly an affair with Mary's own sister. Starting with the marriage, Pelley says that it wasn't as solid as Bill claimed. Before they even tied the knot, I guess Bill had suggested keeping things open, which

• 28:47Ashley Flowers?

  they decided against. And Bill says that he never cheated on Mary, but at some point, he started disappearing to hotels on various weekends, those solo trips I talked about, supposedly to write. And so they kind of posed this question, like, was that really the only reason he would take these trips? And then there's the Kathleen of it all. What kind of guy takes up with his dead wife's sister at all, let alone two months after your wife dies? And how do we know they even waited that long? I mean, sure, Kathleen and Bill say it all began in September, but a neighbor of Kathleen's testifies that she saw them on Kathleen's front porch, all snuggled up, looking very

• 29:29Ashley Flowers?

  much like a couple, the week before Mary died. And don't forget about the money. True, Mary didn't have any life insurance, but Bill had recently inherited that close to half a million bucks from his dad. And after Mary died, he told one of his daughters, Tamara, that while it wasn't enough for two people to retire on, it was for just one. And what's up with Bill's behavior after Mary died? Why did he have her cremated before anyone knew what the heck was going on? Why wasn't he more curious about what killed her? Why didn't he push investigators for answers?

• 30:04Speaker 01

  Because it sounds like he was moving on and was in love with someone else.

• 30:08Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, and it seems to be the thing that people have a problem with. There is also a strong possible link to the poison. Maybe Mary ordered it for gardening and Bill then used it against her. Or maybe he bought it. Either way, he would potentially know what to do with it. I mean, remember how Mary's sister mentioned that Bill had experimented with growing marijuana back in the 80s? Actually, the letter of intent to the supplier to get the coltrosine was all about manipulating plant genetics.

• 30:39Speaker 01

  Right.

• 30:40Ashley Flowers?

  And that was Bill's world, not Katie's. So the defense is saying that she didn't know anything about that.

• 30:47Speaker 01

  I mean, sure, maybe she didn't. But how do they explain away all of the digital stuff tying Katie to the coltrosine? Like, there's so much.

• 30:58Ashley Flowers?

  Her defense attorney, Pelly, he goes after that, too. He says that the state's forensic expert is unqualified, uncertified, a college student who cherry picked data to fit his theory. And he argues that the digital trail isn't as solid as it looks. I guess the Conley's home Wi-Fi, which Adam actually set up, wasn't password protected. So anyone nearby could have used the IP address.

• 31:22Speaker 01

  So theoretically, they're saying someone could have been outside the Conley's house and connected to their Wi-Fi.

• 31:30Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, if the range was wide enough, or somebody who would have been over at their house.

• 31:33Speaker 01

  But didn't they check all of Bill's devices to see if he did anything like that?

• 31:38Ashley Flowers?

  Eventually. I mean, they had his phone records pretty quickly. But here's the thing. When that Adam letter came and then they started looking at Katie, for some reason, checking Bill's devices got put way on the back burner, which I think comes back to bite them during this trial because apparently, right after Mary died, Bill told his daughter Tamara not to touch either of their home computers because they had viruses. But investigators didn't collect any of this until September 2016, and then some data couldn't be recovered at all. Plus, Bill was apparently no stranger to computers. He managed the network that connected all the chiropractic office computers for years.

• 32:22Ashley Flowers?

  And a lot of the stuff was done on the office computer and with office supplies, right? Typewriter, envelopes. Yeah, sure, Katie used all of that the most. But the defense points out that it was Bill's office after all. Like, he could use any of the equipment he wanted, including envelopes that Katie had pre-stamped. So they're trying to argue that even though her DNA was found under one of the stamps,

• 32:45Speaker 01

  that she could have done that at any random time.

• 32:47Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, and he just grabbed one.

• 32:49Speaker 01

  Is there any physical evidence pointing to Bill?

• 32:52Ashley Flowers?

  Uh, so DNA results on the cul-de-sac bottle were inconclusive. So the science could not rule him in or out.

• 33:01Speaker 01

  I thought the DNA on the bottle was Katie's.

• 33:04Ashley Flowers?

  It was, but there was actually at least three profiles. So Katie was the only one, or the only match that could be fully identified. And they were able to completely rule Adam out. But for some reason, not Bill, just based on, I guess, the sample they had or whatever. And listen, there is also a problem with the prosecution's theory that Katie poisoned Mary's protein shake. Mary's medical records from when she was admitted to the hospital say that she had a protein bar and grilled chicken that day. There was nothing in there about a shake.

• 33:35Speaker 01

  Okay, but where's that coming from? Like, did she tell them during intake?

• 33:38Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, this isn't like stomach contents or anything. She comes into the hospital, Mary's telling them herself. She was still coherent when she comes to the hospital. And sure, right? Like, she's in the worst position or the worst spot. She's so sick. Maybe she misspoke. Maybe she had both. Maybe some- Someone wrote it down wrong. But Pelley offers another idea. That maybe Bill could have slipped the colchicine into Mary's food on the morning of July 20th, and possibly given her a second dose while she was still at the hospital.

• 34:09Speaker 01

  So they're saying she was poisoned twice?

• 34:12Ashley Flowers?

  Well, the experts can't rule it out. Apparently, there's no way to know exactly how much colchicine Mary ingested. But the fact that it was in her stomach fluid during the autopsy indicates that it got into her system orally, rather than through like inhalation or injection. And keep in mind, this was after two days of vomiting. So the pathologist says that the levels in her system were actually rising when she died, like her body was still absorbing it. Now, the prosecution has an explanation for that. They say it has to do with the way that drugs can shift around in the body after death. And their toxicologist says a second dose would have triggered a fresh round of symptoms, which did not happen. But the defense pushes back.

• 34:54Ashley Flowers?

  Mary was on anti-nausea medication at the hospital, so they're saying that could have maybe masked new symptoms. And so it's just like this ping pong back and forth at trial.

• 35:05Speaker 01

  But you said in part one that Katie was at the hospital with Mary and the family. So if there was a second dose, who's to say who actually gave it to her? Like, what about it is tying Bill to this theory and not Katie?

• 35:20Ashley Flowers?

  Well, because Katie wasn't there at the hospital until Wednesday, like closer to the time that Mary died. Bill was the only one there with Mary on Tuesday before she took a turn for the worse. And Mary wasn't supposed to eat or drink or anything while she was hospitalized, but Bill admitted that he brought her cough drops and an inhaler from home when she asked. So either one could have theoretically been laced, but it's not clear if those things were ever tested, although as far as I can tell, they weren't.

• 35:50Speaker 01

  My head is spinning.

• 35:51Ashley Flowers?

  Spinning. I know. You're not the only one. This trial stretches on for over three weeks with dozens of witnesses. The jury goes on to deliberate for nearly 24 hours, over five days. But they are hopelessly deadlocked, reportedly 10 to 2 in favor of acquittal. So on May 18, 2017, the judge declares a mistrial. No verdict, no closure. Katie is in legal limbo, still charged with murder. And prosecutors aren't about to let things go. Five months later, in October, they bring Katie to trial again.

• 36:33Ashley Flowers?

  Now, the theory is the same, but this time the prosecution has a new ace in the hole. As they prepped for round two, investigators reexamined Adam's laptop, and they realized that one of the phone backups on it wasn't from Adam's device. It was from Katie's. In August 2015, so just weeks after Mary died, Katie had plugged her iPhone into Adam's laptop, and without meaning to, she triggers a full backup, preserving everything on that phone at the time, including stuff that she later deleted. What they found painted a picture of someone doing their homework.

• 37:16Ashley Flowers?

  In the fall of 2014, Katie started researching different poisons and screenshotting articles about how deadly each one was. By December, she seemed to land on colchicine. She was researching chemical suppliers, looked up the prognosis and treatment of colchicine poisoning, and then ordered it using those fake documents that she'd scanned with her phone. To prosecutors, this is a smoking gun, and they're feeling good as everyone crowds back into the courtroom.

• 37:48Ashley Flowers?

  But I don't think they are expecting the curveball that Katie's new lawyer is about to throw at them. Guys, I'm doing a bit of a kitchen clean out. I have been getting schooled lately on the effects of microplastics, so I am determined to eliminate as much plastic from my home as possible. And I am especially focused on the stuff that I cook with. So, I turned to Wayfair, where I have been getting so many pieces for my home. And I just got all-new wood and stainless steel cooking utensils that look beautiful, feel great, and I have already put them to use. And these things are a zillion times better than the gross plastic things that I had in the drawer for a decade. And I'm honestly ashamed that I kept them as long as I did.

• 38:30Ashley Flowers?

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• 41:10Ashley Flowers?

  Katie's defense attorney for trial number two is a guy named Frank Pollicelli. And he has a whole new approach. Instead of accusing Bill, Pollicelli lays the blame on Adam. This time, the defense says that Katie actually tried to help investigators see what was really going on, but they were so focused on her, they dismissed everything she told them, including her claim that Adam had confessed to her. According to Pollicelli, here's what really happened. Adam was desperate, volatile, and had a strained relationship with his mother. And when he couldn't hold on to Katie, he concocted a plan to poison Mary in a way that would make sure Katie took the fall.

• 41:54Ashley Flowers?

  Think about it from this angle: Adam actually studied computer science in college, and he had way more digital know-how than Katie. He had used her devices in the past. Was it really a coincidence that her damning phone backup was on his laptop?

• 42:08Speaker 01

  I mean, you gotta find a way to explain that new evidence.

• 42:11Ashley Flowers?

  In Bullicelli's view, Adam could have planted or manipulated any incriminating data. He had access to the Yoder's office, too, even had his own key, which he claims he lost. And when police searched his Jeep, they found goggles and gloves and a face mask, the kind of stuff that you would want if you were handling something toxic. But investigators never collected those things, let alone tested them. And yes, the relationship between him and Katie was toxic. No one disputes that. But Bullicelli says that Adam was the problem, not Katie. She had moved on. She had a new boyfriend, and she was making plans for a future, while Adam couldn't let go. Apparently, over the years, she had lent him thousands of dollars

• 42:56Ashley Flowers?

  that he never paid back, and she was scared of him. By his own admission, 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 willing to do that in front of people, you know, what's happening when no one's watching? And then there's the sexual assault allegation from 2014 that Katie told the detectives about in their first meeting. Remember that? Now, Adam denies it, but he also admits that he was so drunk that night, he doesn't remember anything.

• 43:26Speaker 01

  So how can you deny something you don't even remember?

• 43:30Ashley Flowers?

  Well, here's the thing. Prosecutors actually don't even believe Katie about it either. She had given police photos of injuries that she said came from the assault. But when investigators pulled the data, capture times told a different story. Some were taken nearly a year before the night in question. Others were months after. None of them matched up with when she said, like, they were supposed to have happened. And so, just like this, for almost every argument the defense tries to make, the prosecution comes back with a one-two punch. And they insist, via expert witnesses who did the data extractions, that there was no digital tampering or modification, and nothing pointing to Adam at all, except for Katie's word.

• 44:15Ashley Flowers?

  They are confident that the right person is on trial. But they do start to worry that- Some jurors might believe Katie didn't intend to kill Mary, just make her sick, like the way Adam got sick before from who knows what. Which, by the way, even back then, like when he got sick, he made sort of a joke? Question mark, that Katie poisoned him? Cause he said that he got sick right after taking some supplements that she had given him.

• 44:46Speaker 01

  Uh, can I just say that if that thought even crosses your mind when you're in a relationship? Run.

• 44:52Ashley Flowers?

  Get out. Yeah. But that half joking, did she poison me thing? That's something that we know from Katie's original interview with detectives and messages that she and Adam exchanged. And at trial, the defense actually brings up Adam's illness too. But they suggest that Adam poisoned himself for attention and then later did the same to Mary. Or maybe he bought the colchicine to grow marijuana and then got sick while handling it. But either way, this ends up backfiring. Like I said, the prosecution's getting a little nervous. So they go and ask the judge, listen, instead of just guilty or not guilty for second degree murder, can we give the jury an option? Can we add first degree manslaughter?

• 45:35Ashley Flowers?

  That way, it won't be an all or nothing on second degree murder. Now, the defense tries to keep the lesser charge off the table, but they can't. Because by floating the theory that Adam poisoned himself and then Mary, they basically opened the legal door and the state just walks right in. If Katie was behind both poisonings, maybe she just expected Mary to get better since Adam had gotten better.

• 46:06Speaker 01

  So was it ever confirmed that Adam had colchicine in his system? Or could he have just been really sick unrelated?

• 46:16Ashley Flowers?

  We don't know. Investigators tested the supplements from like the ones he was taking when Adam got sick. Those came back clean. But they don't even know for sure if they were from the same bottle that Katie gave him. So like it's, that part is all just still a big mystery. Either way, the question of intent is now in the jury's hands. And in early November, they start deliberating. At one point, it looks like they won't even be able to agree. And everyone's kind of like holding their breath, wondering if this is like gonna be another mistrial. But they're able to work through it. And after two days of hashing it out, the verdict comes in. Not guilty of second degree murder, but guilty of first degree manslaughter.

• 47:02Ashley Flowers?

  According to Observer Dispatch reporter, Jolene Cleaver, Katie's bail is revoked and she is taken into custody. Even after two trials, some of Mary's sisters still don't believe that Katie did this. When she is sentenced in January 2018, they asked the judge for leniency. And on the other side is Bill with his and Mary's children, who all stand by the conviction. To them, Katie took Mary's love and repaid it with poison. And Adam's voice, you can hear it break as he talks about the guilt that he carries for bringing Katie into his family. A family who welcomed her because he once loved her, but not anymore. He tells the court, he hates her for what she has done.

• 47:47Ashley Flowers?

  But Katie maintains that she didn't do anything and that the system got it wrong, though the judge isn't moved. The fact is, Mary died in agony, never understanding what was happening to her. And so he sentences Katie to 23 years. That was in 2018, so realistically, she could have been in jail until like 2041. But then, an attorney named Melissa Swartz takes on her appeal. And she zeroes in on the warrant that police used to search Katie's phone. Law enforcement had permission to take the phone, but apparently they didn't have permission to dig through all the data inside of it.

• 48:32Ashley Flowers?

  Swartz argues that Katie's trial attorneys should have fought to get that evidence thrown out. They didn't, and that failure cost Katie her freedom.

• 48:43Ashley Flowers?

  And so just last year, the appellate court agreed. In late January 2025, Katie's conviction was overturned. And a few days later, she walked out of prison, free for the first time in seven years. Now, you know, this overturned doesn't mean exonerated.

• 49:02Speaker 01

  Right.

• 49:02Ashley Flowers?

  Prosecutors can try again, and they're planning to do exactly that. But almost immediately, they shoot themselves in the foot. You see, when Katie was released, her attorney asked the judge to seal the case records, which Schwartz told us is pretty standard for a conviction that gets tossed. What's unusual is that the DA's office didn't object. And so now, all of the evidence, police reports, witness statements, digital records, all of it is locked away, not just from the public, but from prosecutors too.

• 49:34Speaker 01

  Why wouldn't they push back on that?

• 49:38Ashley Flowers?

  Dude, I don't get it. Maybe they figured that the seal only covered the conviction and not the actual evidence, which like, not true.

• 49:46Speaker 01

  And they should have known.

• 49:48Ashley Flowers?

  Mm-hmm. So even though they got like a whole nother grand jury to do the whole song and dance again, even get to the point where they call Schwartz to schedule Katie's arraignment because they expect a new indictment soon, they get blocked. Because it's at that point when Schwartz is like, wait, did you unseal the case first?

• 50:08Speaker 01

  Right, because like, what are you even going to bring to this grand jury? Because it's all tucked away.

• 50:12Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, and that's when the DA's office has this like, oh, moment. They had been using evidence that they had no right to touch. The judge orders them to stop, and now they're just stuck. They can't even ask to unseal the records themselves because only law enforcement can do that, and they can only do that if there's an active investigation. But police have admitted that no one is currently working on Mary's case. So from there, it just spirals. The DA's office tries to get the judge removed, accusing the judge of bias, claiming that at some point, she said that she thought Bill killed Mary. The judge denies it, refuses to step aside.

• 50:55Ashley Flowers?

  Then the DA files multiple appeals, all of this back and forth over months, which brings me to right now.

• 51:02Speaker 01

  Oh, she's still out?

• 51:04Ashley Flowers?

  Oh, yeah. This is active and ongoing. There is actually a hearing coming up in April. But Swartz says that the state has been fighting the wrong battles, that they have been focused on whether the judge was wrong when she ordered them to stop using the sealed evidence. But again, even if they win that, everything is-

• 51:24Speaker 01

  Everything is still sealed?

• 51:25Ashley Flowers?

  Yes. It's like arguing you shouldn't be able to stay out of a room that you like cannot get into in the first place.

• 51:31Speaker 01

  So they're not even getting at the real issue here?

• 51:36Ashley Flowers?

  No. Plus, even if they do get the records unsealed, most of the evidence might be worthless.

• 51:43Speaker 01

  Because of the-

• 51:44Ashley Flowers?

  The appeals court decided that the search of Katie's phone was illegal, right?

• 51:47Speaker 01

  Right. They shouldn't, the evidence that's there shouldn't even be there, essentially.

• 51:51Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, anything that came from it, including the backup on Adam's laptop, the statement that Katie made based on what cops found, all of it can be tossed.

• 51:58Speaker 01

  Wait, why the laptop backup? Didn't they have a warrant for his devices?

• 52:04Ashley Flowers?

  They 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 had Katie's phone first, so-

• 52:13Speaker 01

  Uh, fruit of the forbidden tree.

• 52:15Ashley Flowers?

  Exactly. On top of that, there's a question of whether Adam should have even had the backup on his computer. But even if prosecutors can use it, it's weaker now. I mean, at trial, they verified the backup by comparing it against the physical phone, basically like matching digital fingerprints to like prove nobody had tampered with it. With the phone suppressed now, they can't-

• 52:39Speaker 01

  They don't have that.

• 52:40Ashley Flowers?

  They can't even do that anymore. So you're left with like a backup file that they can't independently verify just sitting on Adam's laptop. And think about what the defense argued at Katie's second trial. Adam is tech savvy. Adam had possession of the laptop. Adam had every opportunity to manipulate what was on it. Without the phone to prove that those searches also existed on Katie's actual device, the defense can say that the only place this incriminating evidence lives is on the computer belonging to the guy-

• 53:09Speaker 01

  This other guy.

• 53:10Ashley Flowers?

  That they think did it.

• 53:11Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 53:11Ashley Flowers?

  So even in the best case scenario for prosecutors, that backup is nowhere near as powerful without the phone to back it up, for a lack of a better term. Actually, it could even hurt their case. But no matter what the path they want to take is, the clock is ticking because unlike murder, manslaughter has a time limit. Swart says that prosecutors have maybe three more years. And if they can't retry Katie before then, it's over. I mean, she got acquitted on the second degree murder, right? They cannot go back without. All they have is that manslaughter charge. And even if investigators wanted to take another look at Bill

• 53:55Ashley Flowers?

  or at Adam, which they seemingly don't, they're out of luck because they both got immunity when they testified before the grand jury.

• 54:05Speaker 01

  What?

• 54:06Ashley Flowers?

  I had the same reaction. Apparently in New York, that's routine.

• 54:09Speaker 01

  Routine?

• 54:10Ashley Flowers?

  It doesn't protect you from perjury if you lie, but it does mean that neither of them can ever be prosecuted for Mary's death, which as it stands, there doesn't appear to be any evidence for anyway. As of right now, the case is officially unsolved, but only on paper. Police are sure that they arrested the right person. Prosecutors are sure that the right person was on trial.

• 54:35Speaker 01

  And what does Katie say?

• 54:37Ashley Flowers?

  You know, she actually did an interview within the last couple of years with ABC News for that docu-series I mentioned in the first episode. And I will say, her attorney told us that she feels that when it came out, it lacked important context in how some of it was presented. But the way it was presented, there were parts that I found kind of odd. Like producers ask her if she ever searched for lethal poisons on her phone. And 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 type of person who could do something like that. And her parents, who were also interviewed, said that when they asked her straight up, "Did you kill Mary?", again, the answer is not no. She basically told them,

• 55:21Ashley Flowers?

  "You know, I want a family someday, so why would I jeopardize my future?" Which again, not a denial.

• 55:27Speaker 01

  Like, no is right there.

• 55:28Ashley Flowers?

  I know. But to answer your question, Katie says that she goes back and forth. Sometimes she thinks it was Bill, maybe Bill and Adam. She just knows it wasn't her.

• 55:40Speaker 01

  Okay, I'm still confused about the anonymous letters.

• 55:44Ashley Flowers?

  Oh, my God. That's like, it's like the murkiest part to me.

• 55:47Speaker 01

  Does she admit that she wrote them?

• 55:50Ashley Flowers?

  Or not. Some people think that her initial confession to police about writing those letters was coerced and that she didn't actually write them at all. Okay. But during her second trial, Polachelli said that Katie did admit to writing it. But then when ABC News asked her about it, Swartz stopped her from answering. So you've got these like competing claims. Either Katie wrote the November letters, which ties her to the Gmail account and the Coltrazine order, or she wrote the letters, but somehow the digital trail leading to the Coltrazine isn't as airtight as investigators claimed. Or she wrote a different letter entirely that just never got to police.

• 56:32Ashley Flowers?

  Or she didn't write any letters at all and her confession was coerced. That clears up absolutely nothing. Welcome to my world. I'm honestly not sure anyone has a straight answer on all of the letter stuff. I mean, so much about this case is still up in the air. And our reporter Nina reached out to Bill and Adam, but we never heard back. What we do know, though, is that Mary's loved ones still feel her absence every day. And the divide between them may never heal. I don't know if Bill and Kathleen are still together, but Mary's other sisters that we've mentioned have remained some of Katie's biggest supporters. They even teamed up with the Conleys to fight for her release.

• 57:15Ashley Flowers?

  But they live with the guilt of being the ones who pushed for an investigation in the first place, never dreaming that it would lead to a woman that they now think is innocent. Of course, the Yoder's have their own burdens. Tamara told ABC News that she struggles with the fact that she once even suspected her own father. And she said that Adam, who didn't participate in the show, may never stop blaming himself for bringing Katie into the family in the first place. No matter what you believe happened, one thing is certain. And it's really the most devastating part of all. Mary wasn't killed by a stranger. She was killed by someone she loved, someone she trusted, and someone that she never saw coming.

• 58:09Ashley Flowers?

  You can find all the source material for this episode on our website, crimejunkie.com.

• 58:14Speaker 01

  And you can follow us on Instagram at Crime Junkie Podcast.

• 58:17Ashley Flowers?

  We'll be back next week with a brand new episode.

• 58:56Ashley Flowers?

  Crime Junkie is an AudioChuck production. I think Chuck would approve.

• 59:05Speaker 06

  When the nights grow longer, the shadows start to stir, and that can only mean one thing: Full Body Chills is back. This season, step inside original tales where every doorway leads somewhere darker, every stranger carries a secret, and nothing is ever quite what it seems. Each story takes you somewhere new, but be careful. You never know what might follow you home. So gather round, listen close, and stream Full Body Chills wherever you get your podcasts.