Sword and Scale - Episode 251

Episode Date: October 23, 2023

In June of 2013, 24-year-old Sarah Staudte became very ill and ended up in a hospital. Sarah’s internal organs were failing, her brain was hemorrhaging blood, and her doctors expected that Sarah was going to die. Yet, nobody could figure out the cause of the problem. Eventually, police were called in to investigate. They learned that Sarah’s father and brother recently had similar health complications before dying. Soon, the unbelievable and horrible truth came out. Someone was slowly, methodically, and systematically killing off everyone in the Staudte family.This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/5895676/advertisement

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Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised. after somebody died in it. Welcome! This is Season 10, episode 251 of Sword and Scale. A an app and that we've been working on updating it now for quite a while, almost two years now, unfortunately, but it will be ready in 2024, early 2024, January. In fact, so we're working towards that. We have a bunch of other surprises coming in January. You will not be disappointed guys. See you soon. 2-Bissie Juggling Life and Grocery Two busy juggling life in groceries meet Centra Go.

Your 45 minute grocery and deli genie, craving breakfast for dinner, need lunchbox fillers for school tomorrow. Tap the app and voila! Your groceries and deli favourites are on the way faster than you can say, hanger management. Centra Go, from chicken rolls Kitchen Rolls, we deliver. Find Central Go on Google Play and in the App Store. Available in the Selected Store's only. Family is not an important thing. It's everything.

Michael J. Fox said that. And many of you listening right now would probably agree that your family is indeed everything. For those of you that have actually created a family of your own, you probably also agree that your everything didn't come easy. When it comes to marriage, kids, and everything that goes along with that, well, it can be a lot to handle. It requires serious dedication and a lot of sacrifices to make it all work.

If you have created, maintained, and continue to maintain a happy, functioning family, you deserve a lot of credit. It's hard work, as you know. Not everyone has what it takes to do that. Oftentimes, marriages fail. Oftentimes, families fail. One common problem, it seems, is that many people start off thinking they want the typical spouse in children lifestyle.

But after they get it, and maybe after they experience it for a few years, they start to realize it's just not for them. Unfortunately, after someone creates a family, they are kind of locked into it, kind of permanently. Sure, anyone could get a divorce and abandon their kids, but societal, legal, financial, and even religious pressures can make it seem impossible. When this happens, it can spell disaster. Sometimes the pressure of an unwanted and seemingly inescapable life can lead someone to do something truly horrific. We've seen this before truly horrific. We've seen this before with the likes of Chris Watts and Kasey Anthony, but there are lesser known cases where someone has made the terrible and selfish choice

to end their family in order to obtain personal freedom. Ultimately, they decided that the life they truly want supersedes the lives of their spouse and their kin. June 9, 2013 was a Sunday. That morning, a middle-aged mom and Missouri woke up and did what she would normally do on a Sunday. She took her kids to church, but she wasn't able to bring along all of her children because her oldest daughter wasn't feeling well. And then you woke up Sunday morning. Morning, she was asleep. Okay. Then what happened? Me and the other girls went to church and we left her

sleeping. Okay. And then I came home and she was still sleeping. And then maybe a couple hours later, I went to check on her and we just couldn't get her to respond or answer anything. 49-year-old Diane Staudi returned home from church and discovered something that most people would consider to be a worst nightmare situation for any mother. Her 26-year-old daughter, Sarah, was sick, in bed and completely unresponsive.

Thankfully though, Sarah was still breathing, so Diane and one of her other daughters picked Sarah up, put her in the family car and rushed her to the hospital. Strangely when doctors examined Sarah, they couldn't figure out what had caused her to become so ill. This ultimately led to the local police getting involved. The lead investigator assigned to the case was detective Mikamus.

Diane's daughter was a wife and mother of four children. She was the breadwinner of the family. She worked handling insurance adjustment claims for medical field. She was heavily involved in church. She was active in choir and orchestra and spent a lot of time at church during her downtime. And from what I understand you, you're in the medical field. I'm a nurse. You're a nurse.

Okay. But I'm a party all I can. I know how hard it's been. Yeah. Have you always been like in the claims business like you are now or were you ever like in the hospital? I used to work in the hospital. Okay.

How long, how long ago was that? About 15 years ago. Okay. How long, how long ago was that? 15 years ago. Okay. Which hospital did you work in? Oh gosh. St. John's, Cox. I worked up in Kansas City.

Okay. And what company do you work for now? You know I'm in health care. Okay. And you've worked for them for 12 years. Mm-hmm. And very successful. Okay.

Diane and her children lived in Springfield, Missouri, a serene college city that is mostly known for being the headquarters for the Sporting Goods retailer, Bass Pro. Others may know of Springfield because of its proximity to Branson, Missouri, which is a popular tourist destination for a variety of reasons. The price is right, it was filmed there, so was the Beverly Hillbillies, if you remember that. And who can forget Jakov Smirnoff and his weird little theme park performance theater thing? thing. He was a personality during the 80s and achieved a moniker of success, but I digress. As a successful nurse and health insurance claims person, Diane Stouty was able to support her children, all of whom remained living with Diane well into adulthood. As a whole, the Staudi family wasn't known for being particularly social, but they were considered to be especially devout churchgoers. What church do you go to?

We do your Lutheran. Is that here in town? Okay. Are you pretty active in church? Sure, are you? Okay. I'm their organist. Oh, okay.

Wow. How long have you been doing that? Oh gosh. Thirty plus years? of in church. As the longtime church organist, Diane was well respected inside the halls of her preferred place of worship, Redeemer Lutheran. And when Diane was there, she often had her children with her. But on June 9th, 2013, Diane's oldest daughter, Sarah, didn't make it to church. She was apparently very sick in her illness, ultimately landed Sarah in a hospital bed. Sarah's daughter had just graduated with a degree in French from Missouri State University, and she had not gotten a job yet, so she was just, for the most part,

she was staying at home and not doing a whole lot after college. Is she working in her? No. No. She's been supposedly trying to find a job, but I don't think she's been trying that hard. What are Sarah's friends like she.

She really does help. Go out much. Don't have my friends. I don't have my friends. Yeah. Like the rest of the family, Sarah usually kept to herself and aside from deflecting her mom's encouragement to find a job, she spent most of her time online. Like many 24-year-olds, Sarah loved her social media and watching YouTube videos. But on one particular Sunday afternoon, Sarah's

lifestyle had seemingly come to an abrupt and unexpected end When her mom found Sarah in bed, completely unresponsive. She's still unresponsive at that point? Pretty much, yeah. We literally had to rage on, I had to carry her. We carried her to the car. Okay. And what did they say at the hospital?

Basically, she was as sick as sick could get But no idea what it was. We have no clue When Sarah was admitted to the hospital the doctors and nurses determined that Sarah's kidneys were shutting down Many of her internal organs were failing and her brain was hemorrhaging blood. Diane was informed that this wasn't a case of if Sarah was going to die. It was a matter of when, but nobody and I spoke with the medical staff that was treating her nurses, doctors, and everybody was just, they were befuddled, they did not know what

was going on, they had performed numerous tests on Sarah, and everything was coming back negative. As the police continued investigating Sarah's bizarre and unexplainable illness. They soon learned that this wasn't the first time the Saudi family had suffered an unexpected tragedy. How old was he? 61. Oh, so he was young. He had a lot of medical issues. Did he? What kind of stuff did he have?

Oh, he had liver problems. He was diabetic. He wouldn't quit smoking. Mark and Diane Stoudy met at St. John's College in Kansas, and quickly became longtime sweethearts. They eventually got married, moved into a modest sized home in Springfield and had four children. But sadly, at just 61 years old, Matt Stouty unexpectedly dropped dead. Mark Stouty primarily was a, a stay-at-home father.

Diane, his wife, was the breadwinner of the family, and Mark took care of the kids. Mark was in a band, he wasn't making a lot of money doing that, but that's what he did for a little bit of money on the side and to keep himself busy. He was the lead singer in a band. Like his wife, Mark was a musician. Though his genre of music was much different than Diane's church hymns, Mark was the lead singer of a rock band messing with destiny. And according to his bandmates, Mark was an especially jovial guy who loved life and loved his family. Throughout its existence, Mark's band didn't find any mainstream success, but in the months leading up to his death, messing with destiny, had been booking larger and more lucrative

gigs. So much so that it seemed like the band was about to have a breakout year. In fact, on the weekend before Mark died, he and his bandmates were rehearsing in Branson, Missouri and preparing to perform at an especially large venue alongside the Aretha Franklin impersonators. You gotta get married to the co-operation I'm gonna make sure that I'm number one in the nation Sadly, Mark was never able to perform in that show On April 8th, 2012, Mark died at home and his body was discovered by his wife Diane who properly called 911.

Diane was eventually informed that Mark had died of natural causes. Did they do any kind of autopsy on Mark? No, they didn't. I can remember them, you know, they tried CPR on him and they told me that his lives were just black from the smoke. You know, he was pretty overweight and they didn't even, I don't know, they just said it's a heart attack for sure. And it's like, okay, we're just keep bearing. He was cremated. Oh, he was cremated, okay. After Mark was cremated, his ashes were scattered at a nearby lake.

So obviously, any further examination to more narrowly determine his cause of death was improbable. But the police investigation into Sarah's stouties illness did continue. And during that investigation, the detectives also spoke to one of Mark and Diane's other daughters, 22-year-old Rachel Stoutie. Rachel Stoutie was kind of the prized child of the Stoutie family. She was very successful, very intelligent, she was going to school at Missouri State University, she too was very active and involved in church with singing and choir

and she was also a very artistic young person. And speaking with Rachel, detectives were able to gain a little more insight into the Saudi family dynamics. And more specifically, the kind of relationship that Mark and Diane had. What was mom and dad relationship like? They would find a little bit more than like any other Mary couple or really. So what most of our events over just money like everybody else. I know that your father passed, when was it when he passed away? Last April. Last April last year. Very sudden. Just very sudden death. As far as the dead goes a pretty good dad to you and everybody or what you're in he was nice.

Oh, you guys, you let us know. Oh, you guys are doing what you wanted to do. It's always kind of been out of the job and pretty much. I mean, you would get frustrated with whatever job he was in, like screw this. Before they even can. Okay, not his thing. No. You're trying to do the man betting against it. Yeah.

Make it big like any other person that has a van. Okay. All right. At this point, police had established that Mark Stouty had unexpectedly died in April of 2012. And just over a year later, Sarah Stoutie had unexpectedly become very ill and was not expected to survive. The police also learned that something equally as tragic had happened between the time of Mark's death and Sarah's illness.

Do you have a son as well? No, not any. No, he died. He had a seizure disorder. When did he die? I was last fall. How old was he? He was 26. He'd had several strokes. So was his kind of an unexpected or...

It wasn't a complete surprise. That's right. In addition to Mark's untimely death and Sarah's unexplainable illness, another member of the Stouty family had also died. He was Mark and Diane's 26-year-old autistic son, Sean. Sean's study was the only boy in the Saudi family. He had autism and a couple of other medical issues that he dealt with, but he was the only son of the Saudis and he kept himself a lot with the medical issues he was involved in

a work activity for special needs children, which he did well at, but primarily just in state at home as well. When asked about her brother's death, Rachel Stouty recalled that Sean was very ill before he died. She described his symptoms as flu-like and claimed that her mom took the entire situation pretty hard. I remember he was throwing up.

And then all of a sudden, how did obviously mom had to take that? I mean, pretty hard to first dad and then short time later, you know, it's your brother. Did she seem to, how did she seem to handle that? I can only imagine, but she wishes there was more to get done. And I mean, she told me like when we talk at night, it's like, she just like, failure is a mom. Because it's like, it's one thing to lose your dad. Her husband and her wife.

Yeah, your dad, her husband, yeah. Well, that's a lot of sudden death. I'm a short amount of time. Sean Staudi died in September of 2012 after experiencing severe flu-like symptoms. Rightfully so, the detectives found it highly suspicious that less than a year later, 24-year-old Sarah Stouty was experiencing those same symptoms and was likely to die as well. The similarities between Sean's death and Sarah's illness were glaring, but there was one important difference. Sarah made it to the hospital before the worst happened. Unfortunately, even though Sarah was receiving much needed medical attention,

the doctors had their doubts and they didn't think Sarah was going to pull through. And from what we understood from the hospital so far, we really haven't been able to determine how your sister got so sick from the hospital standpoint. Okay. The doctors have been able to confirm anything, as of yet they're still working on it, but they basically told us that what they were leaning towards and what they were thinking and what's the thinking was the cases that your sister had been poisoned. We were told that she's probably going to die. Within 15 months, two members of the Saudi family had unexpectedly died and a third member

of the family was deathly ill. For the police, this didn't seem like a situation where a family was dealing with some of the worst coincidences imaginable. It was pretty obvious that something malicious was happening here. And as the investigation continued, the unbelievable and horrible truth finally came out. Someone was slowly, methodically and systematically, killing off everyone in the Staudi family. In April of 2012, 61-year-old father of four and lead singer of the rock band Messing with Destiny, Mark Stouty was planning to perform a show with his band in Branson, Missouri. But Mark never made it to that show. Just a few days before he was set to take the stage, Mark's wife, Diane Stouty, found Mark dead in their bedroom.

When Mark Stouty died, the initial cause of death was believed to be just natural causes. Mark had had some health issues. It was also said that Mark would drink on occasion and smoke. And so it was just a situation where they thought some of his lifestyle choices and things like that led to him dying of natural causes. Leading up to his death, Mark's bandmates noticed that Mark's health had been deteriorating. His skin was pale, he was weak on his feet, and he didn't seem to have the same pep that Mark was known to carry himself with.

Another person that took note of Mark's declining health was his 26 year old son, Sean Stouty. On his Facebook page, Sean wrote the following, My father is slowly getting sicker. His voice is slurred. His walking is wobbly. His body is more tired than normal. He is sleeping in bed longer than us. He may collapse under his weight at any time. Just one day later, after writing this post, Sean announced on Facebook that his dad was dead.

My father died. He lived a full life. The cause of his death is a stroke. This funeral is this week. Tragically, what Sean didn't know is that his father hadn't died of a stroke. Mark Stouty was murdered, and even more horrifying the person that killed him was plotting to kill Sean as well, which they eventually did.

Five months after Mark died, Sean's stouty suddenly became very ill. According to his sister Rachel, Sean was vomiting and had flu-like symptoms. A few days later Sean was found dead on the floor of his home. Like his father, Sean was also cremated, but in his case an autopsy had been performed. The initial cause of death for Sean Stoutty was also ruled to be natural. He had epilepsy as a child and they found lesions on his brain during the performance of the autopsy and without anything else to go on it was believed that he died of a seizure. Both Mark and Sean had presumably died of natural causes, so the police were never called in to take a closer look at the situation. But that all changed about a year later.

In June of 2013, yet another member of the Staudi family became very sick and ended up in the hospital. This time it was 24-year-old recent college graduate Sarah Stouty. Sarah was seemingly dealing with the same flu-like symptoms that had affected both her father and her brother just before they died. After Sarah was examined by a doctor, it was determined that her kidneys were shutting down. Her other organs were failing. Her brain was hemorrhaging blood.

Yet none of the hospital's tests could determine what caused Sarah's illness in the first place. Interestingly, it wasn't Sarah's illness and her admittance to the hospital that alerted police and prompted an investigation in the Stouty family. Instead, it was an anonymous phone call that sprang homicide detectives into action. Upon viewing the initial report, it seemed pretty bizarre. The report talked about someone calling in saying that we needed to look at the Saudi family because of a couple deaths. And now a young woman, Sarah, was hospitalized and appeared that she was not going to survive.

After this anonymous call came in and a police report was made, the investigators decided to speak with Sarah's doctor. The doctor explained that even though the exact cause of Sarah's illness could not be determined, there was a good chance that Sarah had been poisoned. So at that time I really didn't have anything at all to go on other than just the discussions with with the doctor, but having knowing that there's other two other children still in the Saudi home, I felt like I I needed to do something to try to figure out what was going on. If this was in fact a malicious act going on by somebody in the in the Saudi home that I needed to act as quickly as I possibly could

And that is what led me to wanting to interview Diane From talking with the hospital It sounds like they're doing a bunch of tests and they're even sending some tests soft Labs elsewhere. They mentioned the Mayo Clinic and I love. Do you think there's going to be anything suspicious that we, that they find in all these tests that they're going to be doing? I have no clue. There could be anything maybe malicious

or suspicious and involved with that. I can't think of that. If it would come back that there was something in there like that, how would you explain that? I don't know. 49-year-old Diane Stouty was the widow of Mark Stouty and the mother of Sean and Sarah Stouty.

Given her background in nursing and the fact that she didn't seem overly concerned or emotional that her daughter Sarah was about to die, the detective suspected that Diane may know more than she was telling. As crazy as it seemed, she may have even murdered her own husband and her own son. What was Mark's life insurance policy like? He only had 20,000. How about Sean? Sean only had 15. What about Sarah?

Sarah only has 15, I believe. And you were able to get the money from Mark and Sean's correct. What did you do with that money? What marks we were able to move into a better neighborhood? Just before Mark died, the Staudi family consisted of six people. Mark and Diane were the parents of three kids in their early to mid-20s. That was Sean, Sarah, and Rachel. The youngest member of the family was 11-year-old Brianna.

All six of them lived in a small two-bedroom one bathroom house in Springfield, Missouri, but after Mark died, Diane was able to use his $20,000 life insurance policy to upgrade. She and the rest of the family moved into a larger home call a good marriage. Has there been any interdalities on either side? He has. Yeah. So I'm guessing then just briefly, Dany, wasn't the best husband? Probably not. Okay.

Not to society now. What do you mean by that not to society? Well, he was running around and he would drink and smoke pot. So he wasn't a very good guy. Was there any physical abuse towards you? Nothing like that. He just had some extra marital affairs and you said he did some drugs and smoked and drank a lot. Okay. You said he did some drugs and smoked and drank a lot. Okay. For police, if Diane had murdered Mark, his life insurance policy was a possible motive.

But so was the fact that Diane seemed pretty resentful of her husband. Even so, this was all speculation. And at this point in the investigation, there wasn't any evidence that Diane had killed Mark and Sean or that she'd poisoned Sarah. Going into the interview with Diane, I had nothing other than just a more and more growing suspicion that she was somehow involved.

It was difficult because when I brought Diane in without having any evidence To put out there against her it was just I wanted to get at her level I wanted to speak with her and come across as being there as as almost a friend and understanding her To try to gain as much information as I possibly could and going into the interview I also understood that maybe this isn't delicious. There isn't at this time. There's nothing to show that it is. And so I wanted to be very careful if this is just a mother that's gone through some terrible trauma. I did not want to add to that. So it was it was quite the fine line of trying to figure out the balance of how far do I push this.

Ultimately, the detective pushed his interview with Diane to its limit. And without outright saying it, he suggested that Diane was responsible for Sarah's illness among a lot of other things. With some of the stuff involved in these cases from what we've been looking at, I think you're aware of why we're just, why we're here. Maybe, I don't know. I think you know what? Why we're here talking. Because I know that there's a reason, maybe why some of this stuff did happen. As far as did I do something to or I didn't do anything to. I mean, I guess I could have taken into the ER sooner, but I didn't know.

If she, I don't know. I know I didn't do anything. And if you do? I'm just telling you I didn't do anything. That's what I feel like here insinuating I do. I may not be the best mother in the world, because I do wait a little longer before I take them to the doctor. Naturally, Diane denied the accusations, And after she did, the detective focused

on the reasons that Diane may have wanted to kill off her husband and children. In other words, he focused on her motive. I think Mark, he's having these infidelities. He's not working. You've got the whole burden of the family. You've got to take care of everybody. You have all this stress and pressure on you to raise your kids, to put food on the table. You're the working one. He's out. He's drinking. He's using drugs. He's doing things. He shouldn't be doing. I think persons just get pushed to where you know what? People just can't take it anymore.

I think it's just, you gotta push so far, you have all this weight on your shoulders because you're not a bad person, are you? I don't think you are. The detective played this interrogation smart. He took a sympathetic and relatable approach, and a strategy ultimately worked. With regard to Sarah and her illness, Diane admitted that she knew a lot more than she'd been telling.

Diane explained that she had been hounding Sarah for weeks about getting a job. And after one particular argument between them, Sarah did something that was very strange. I really mad at me, but I think she went out in the garage and was handy for easy. Because she was commenting, like, well, that kills cats. And it's like, yeah, it's like, it kills people. And I was so mad and I waited before I took her to hospital. Diane claimed that in some bizarre act of rebellion, Sarah went into the family garage and started drinking antifreeze.

Yes, antifreeze. Not only that, but Diane also claimed that Mark and Sean had done the same thing. What a weird family. The detective quickly shut down Diane's explanation for what happened to Mark, Sean, and Sarah, and at this point he had pretty much figured out what had happened. I'm sure a lot of you probably have too. Diane had poisoned her husband and two of her children with anti-frees to the point where two of them had died and another was about to die. Eventually, after being unable to maintain her ridiculous explanation, Diane came clean.

She admitted to what she had done and explained how she did it. How much would you put in? Just a little bit. And what were you putting it in? So you were putting in Mark Skater, right? You were putting in a Sean's Coke, just regular Coke. And what about Sarah? Regular Coke. Okay. He loved Coke. Okay. Regular Coke. Regular Coke. Okay. He loved Coke. Okay. And you were only doing it once a day?

Because you thought that's all you needed? Okay. When they weren't passing right away, did you eventually start to give them more and more? I may. And I regret doing it. I really do. I've screwed up everybody. I've screwed up my whole family.

Why did you decide that you were gonna use anifres to do a one on some other means? Because I regret on my nervous, pretty easy to do. Okay. From what I understand, the dumbest taste good, is that correct? That's what they say. The deadly ingredient in antifreeze is a chemical compound known as ethylene glycol. Some of you true crime nerds may already know that. It is colorless, odorless, and has kind of a sweet taste. Don't try it. Don't try it. I know you want to. I know some of you are a little

dumber than others, but don't do it, please. You're going to get me in trouble. It's also not typically detected when an autopsy is performed. In order to find ethylene glycol, a medical examiner has to specifically look for it. Which is another reason it's commonly used as a poison. Injusting this compound can quickly cause several fatal health problems, including dysrhythmias and heart failure. In case this is an obvious ethylene glycol poisoning is a pretty awful way to die, you wouldn't wanna try it at all anyway. There's much easier ways.

When your internal organs start shutting down, it's not a fun time. It's not gonna be good. It's actually quite, quite painful. According to Diane for several weeks, she'd been slipping small doses of antifreeze into her husband's gatorade. After he died from the poisoning, she did the same thing to her son, Sean. The only difference was that Sean preferred Coca-Cola over Gatorade. After Sean was dead, Diane then began poisoning her oldest daughter, Sarah,

by slipping Antifreeze into her soda as well. What kind of a mother would harm her own kids for her own benefit? Oh, I don't know, lots of them. Just gonna let that sit there for a minute. Oh, I don't know. Lots of them. Just gonna let that sit there for a minute. As far as motive was concerned, Diane had a different reason for each of her three victims. In the case of her husband,? By then I hated his guns. I hated his guns. I understand. And then I hated his guns. How much was his life insurance policy?

It was only 20,000. 20,000 and you were able to use that money to get into your new house. Okay. So you need the money. to get into your new house. Okay. So, As for her son, Diane explained that Sean had become too much of a pest, and she simply couldn't deal with him anymore. Sean would be interfering with whatever I would do to the point where he was getting into my work. You get to the point where you just pull out your hair, because I didn't know what else to do with him.

Finally, Diane explained that she decided to also murder her oldest daughter, because Sarah refused to get a job. And Diane didn't want to pay off Sarah's college loans. I mean not wanting to pay her college loans makes you do all kinds of stupid things, doesn't it? Sarah is a difficult child to deal with. I understand. And I've been kind of putting pressure on her to, you know, you need to get out, get a job. Your college bills are coming due.

I don't want to pay for them, you know. Pretty relatable, right? If your kid has college loans and you don't want to pay them, just slip a little anti-freeze into their soda. Problem solved. Diane's motives for the killings were just as strange and bizarre as just the epitome of this entire case. When talking about Mark, she said it, it's got to the point that she hated him. And where it really got strange and bizarre was with the children.

She said, Sean was a huge burden. And I even asked if he was a pest. And she said, well, he was worse than that. He was worse than a pest. And then when discussing Sarah, she had college loans that she needed to pay, but she wouldn't get a job. And so that's what led to her poisoning Sarah. It was, it was really stunning to hear her discuss what led her to, uh, to killing off and

poisoning the family members. Diane admitted to what she had done and explained why she did it, but even so there were still a few questions. First, being if Diane wanted to kill Sarah, why did she eventually bring her to a hospital? And second, why did Diane spare her other two daughters? What was the reason for bringing her when she was, because you even said, you know, she was so bad, you know, you thought she was gonna die and you had to carry her

and did Rachel wish she the one that said, and you had to carry her and the differential will see the one that's available to the hospital. Actually, both of us thought the same thing at the same time. It's like this take a ran. Had you been giving any to her? What about Brianna? Why not those two? I love them. And I wish I hadn't done it ever since I'm stupid. Diane claimed that it was Rachel who prompted Diane to take Sarah to the hospital. Speaking of Rachel, after Diane confessed, the detectives were given the awful task of breaking all of this bad news to her. Brought your mom in today and interviewed her at length quite a long time. And basically what has happened is your mom has admitted to killing your dad and your brother and trying to kill your sister. She had been giving your father a small dose of the band-of antifreeze in his drinks,

same thing with your brother, and the same thing with your sister Sarah. It takes some time. It's a lot of process. I don't even know how you actually process actually process that to be honest with your Rachel. Did you think there was anything going on there with mom at all? I mean, did that even with that thought even ever even crossed your mind? She never gave any kind of indication that she was just at her own with the three of them at any one time that you currently.

I mean, I'm just frustrated. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Rachel Stouty was a 22-year-old unemployed college student. In a matter of months, she had lost her father, her brother, and her oldest sister. And now, her mom was being locked up for murder.

Can you fucking imagine what that's like? As a result, the responsibility of caring for 11-year-old Brianna Stouty fell on Rachel's 22-year-old shoulders. So my friend, Tom, and I go to the center and we'll talk to her briefly and then after they talk to her, it'll be, if it's okay with you, we'll just really start to you. You're going to be able to do something to me with you, she doesn't need to be in any way else, she needs to be with you. After Rachel was made aware of this horrific situation, the detective left the interview room and Rachel broke down understandably Sadly, the bad news that Rachel had just gotten was only going to get worse, because there was yet another horrible twist in this story.

Not only had Rachel's mom poisoned Rachel's dad, brother, and sister, but it turned out that Diane hadn't done this all on her own. As the investigation continued, the police learned that Diane Stouty was interviewed by a Springfield, Missouri homicide detective. During that interview, Diane confessed to murdering her 61-year-old husband, Mark, and her 26-year-old son, Sean. Diane also admitted that she had tried to murder her oldest daughter 24-year-old Sarah Stouty, as well. Diane explained that for several weeks she'd been slipping small

doses of antifreeze into her husband's drinks. After he died from the poisoning, she did the same thing to her son. After her son died, she began doing the same thing to her daughter. After Sarah became Deathly ill and was taken to the hospital, an anonymous phone call was placed to police about what was going on in the Staudi family. This prompted detectives to open an investigation. At the start of that investigation, homicide detectives didn't have much to go on. There wasn't any actual evidence of foul play, but when Diane was interrogated, it didn't take long for her to crack. She admitted to what she had done and explained how she did it.

Even so, the investigation wasn't quite over. The lead investigator suspected that Diane hadn't hatred or this thing and animosity that she had towards them. But she talks so it was a complete 180 when she talked about Rachel. And so much so that during my time speaking with her, I began to become suspicious as gosh was this was Rachel involved with her. It becomes suspicious as gosh was this Rachel involved with her? In addition to Sarah, Diane had two other daughters, 22-year-old Rachel and 11-year-old Brianna, both of whom had not been poisoned. Not yet, anyway.

After Diane confessed and was arrested, Rachel was made aware of the situation in Sennheum. But the following day, Rachel was invited back to the police station for yet another interview. I mean, that's... Nobody expects to have something that they know with that. Were you ever suspicious of your mom? No. No. So you didn't think that she would be capable of doing something like this? I mean, if anything, she'd been helping me with setting up things for school. even helping me with setting up things for school.

It sounds like you and her from talking to her, that you and her were pretty good buddies. Is that right? You guys were real close. I'm almost best friend, Kenna. Again, when Rachel's mom was interviewed, the cops didn't have much to go on. They didn't have any evidence to confront her with, which in the end didn't matter because Diane confessed.

In Rachel's case, however, things were a little different. After my interrogation with Diane was over, I, one of our crime scene detects that's got hold of me and said that I, that he had a piece of evidence down in our evidence room that he thought I should look at. So I went down there and he had a journal and the journal appeared to be that of Rachel's and a couple of the entries were extremely odd and bizarre and after reading them it just kind of cemented my suspicion of Rachel. The cops had found Rachel's personal journal, and in that journal, Rachel wrote the following, This journal entry pretty much confirmed the detective's suspicions. At the very least it verified that Rachel knew what her mom was doing.

And Rachel may have even helped Diane commit the murders. Do you recognize this? Yeah, I remember this. Okay. What is that? A little journal thing. A journal thing. Who's journal?

Mine. You're a journal. You wrote this. And you remember writing it. Yeah. Okay. Got some questions for you, Rachel. Some questions that you need to be honest with me about.

Now's the time to be completely truthful with everything. After Rachel was confronted with her journal, she came clean and admitted that with the help of her mom, Rachel poisoned her father, her brother, and her older sister with antifreeze. Like mother, like daughter. What would you guys come up with as plan? I can't think of exact dates but I mean we talked about it like Christmas before Rachel whose idea was this? Mom brought it up, I mean, then we discussed but what did she say to you? Basically went through different options. We had a book on Poison's Plants. I mean, she would talk about cyanide. And she mentioned once our hearted would be to find, was trying to find things that wouldn't be traceable,

or at least would be hard to trace. According to Rachel, she and Diane had thought long and hard about how they were going to go about murdering the rest of the family. I can only imagine that conversation. After many discussions, they eventually settled on using antifreeze, which, again, is not easily detected when an autopsy is performed. More than likely Diane's background in nursing made her well aware of that fact. She would do it than I would. For how long? Several weeks. Several weeks. How many bottles of Anna Freese did you guys go through? Upwards of five. So for your dad, you went through about five bottles and how big were the bottles?

Can you kind of give me a visual about how big you think they were. So probably around a gallon or so. Something like that. Okay. Over the course of several weeks, Rachel and Diane slipped about five gallons of antifreeze into Mark Stouty's drinks, which ultimately led to his death.

While Diane's motives were rooted in hatred for her husband, Rachel had a different reason for wanting to kill her father. My dad, I couldn't really see him ever like doing anything to help us. He had no concept of money. He was always just blowing money. He would always be out of the house. Wouldn't really help around the house. It was basically a drain on her, on us. Basically, Rachel saw her dad as a deadbeat. She considered him to be a worthless burden on the family. As for her brother, Rachel claimed that she wasn't immediately on board with the idea of

killing Sean. But after her mom kept pressing the idea, Rachel eventually agreed to go along with the plan. Sean, I accept it that she wanted him gone, but I really didn't. I think he was necessary. Sean, we argued on a lot, because I still think we could have put him in the dark. I had to go like a assisted living, but she wanted him out. She would just go on and on about him just being a burden basically. After Mark and Sean were dead, Rachel and her mom then decided they were going to also go after Rachel's older sister, Sarah.

So how are you guys getting her the drinks without her knowing about it? She's on the computer a lot, on YouTube a lot, on sites like that a lot. And she's easily distracted. It wouldn't take much to go like, get whatever drink she did have and just slip it real quick. According to Rachel, the plot to kill Sarah was her mother's idea, but again, Rachel had her own reasons for wanting her sister dead. Dead. Did you and your mother discuss killing Sarah? I'm almost thinking about it.

What'd she say about it? Oh, and the fact that she basically lived in the back bedroom and didn't like have any gumtune to get a job. Or, or thus, that she wasn't going anywhere with her life and that she really had no purpose. She was very adamant on the Sarah was just a burden that Sarah needed to be taken care of. By taking care of, I mean she means killed. Mom probably has her own issues with her. What about you? Did you guys buy one? Yeah. Why did you want Sarah to? I mean she grew up a little later when she

got on the medicine but she still argues she still has really inappropriate jokes. In appropriate jokes, that was Rachel's rationalization for killing her sister. Did did you hear that? What is going on? What what? What is wrong with the world right now? Does anybody know? I'd like to find out. What is wrong with people in their 20s? Specifically. Which makes someone like this think that murder is appropriate if their sensibilities are offended. Holy fuck! Also, the depravity didn't end there. If you remember from Diane's earlier police interview, it was Rachel who prompted Diane to take Sarah to the hospital.

This decision didn't come about because of some sort of sympathy for Sarah or because Rachel was having second thoughts. The decision was rooted entirely in selfishness. I'd like to know why you guys eventually took, you know, when Sarah got so bad, and you guys said you thought that she was pretty much dead, but why did you take it to the hospital? I didn't want another one to die in the house.

And why is that? Because houses are nasty after somebody's died in it. Okay, and what does that mean? What do you mean what do you mean by that? I get a lot of nightmares. Like after Sean died, I moved into his room and it was awful, awful, awful, awful in there. Were you surprised when you found out that Sarah was going to live? Very. Very surprised. Were there any more discussions of finishing, finishing wrong?

Didn't really get. Never got to those discussions. According to Rachel, if her sister survived the hospital stay, Diane and Rachel would still have carried out the murder, though they never got around to discussing how they would actually do it. At the same time, they were also planning to commit yet another murder. It really is scary to think of what would have happened if we, if our attention was not brought to what was going on in the Staudi family. And it came straight from Rachel's mouth to me that their plan was to kill the youngest child of the family,

who at the time was only 11 years old. So it's one of those situations of thank God we were able to to stop this when we did otherwise this small child would have possibly succumbed to the to the same outcome as as what the others did. Again, it wasn't Sarah going to the hospital that caught the attention of the police. wasn't Sarah going to the hospital that caught the attention of the police. It was an anonymous phone call that alerted the authorities. Eventually, the detectives figured out where that call came from. The caller was Diane and Rachel's church pastor. Who did you tell what happened?

I mean, I hinted a little with Siby, but I didn't get hurt. What did you tell Baster Siby? I mainly wanted help, because I didn't want to get so far. Rachel partially confided in her church pastor, and after he learned that Sarah was in the hospital, he called police. Had this call not been made, 11-year-old Brianna would likely have suffered the same fate as Mark, Sean, and Sarah. Did you think that eventually after everybody dying off and someone were away, is that we might show up to talk to you guys? And Sarah. Did you want it to just be you and your mother? Yeah. And why is that? Because she understands me.

She doesn't know anything. Given what had happened in the Staudi home, a logical question is, why Rachel? Why did Diane choose Rachel to be the accomplice and not any one of her other children? And also, why would Rachel agree to follow her mother and go along with such an evil plan? Why indeed would a child want to please her parents and do what they say. I believe the reason Diane chose Rachel or those two acted together is just because of this very strange mother

daughter relationship they had. And both of them discussed that. I mean, it was obvious that Rachel was the favorite of Diane that she was kind of the chosen child. Rachel was very artistic and was talented musically, which was one of Diane's passions. And they spent a lot of time together in church. And Rachel talked about the same things.

Rachel talked about her and her mother. We're the only ones that really understood each other that nobody else did. But it was almost like a best friend relationship as opposed to a mother daughter. Miraculously, after Diane and Rachel confessed and were both arrested, Sarah Stowdy pulled through and was eventually released from the hospital. Unfortunately, some of the physical effects of the anti-freeze poisoning were irreversible. Sarah survived the interfreeze poisoning, her sister Rachel and her mother Diane's daughter put in her drink, but she now has brain damage and requires round the clock

care. Her brother and father died from the poisoning. Sarah was kind of a medical miracle because by all accounts it was believed that she was going past but she ended up surviving. She did sustain some pretty heavy brain damage from the incident. So Sarah now lives in an assisted living home full time. Following Sarah's release from the hospital both Diane and Rachel were charged with several crimes including two counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of Mark and Sean Stouty and attempted murder for the near death of Sarah Stouty

When Rachel went to court, yeah, obviously this was a death penalty case, but Rachel ended up taking a plea deal that she would testify against her mother during the death penalty hearing for Diane. Rachel pled to murder and she was offered part of her plea deal that she could be eligible for parole after, I believe it was 42 years prior to Diane's case actually going to trial. Diane agreed to take a plea deal to take the death penalty off the table. So both. Diane and Rachel are currently incarcerated in the Missouri Department of Corrections. Rachel will be eligible for parole and she's in her 60s dying in it will serve her entire life in prison.

During the sentencing phase, Rachel read a brief statement in court and apologized to her sister Sarah. I'm sorry, I couldn't find a courage to stand up for this right. To go over help, to protect you, our cities. I was scared. The things here don't speak. In response to Rachel's statement, Sarah addressed the apology in a few media interviews. Sarah claimed that she is forgiven both her mom and her sister for what they have done. was the only way to go. Was that something you were able to do right away? Yes.

Well, you might be inclined to commend Sarah for taking the high road here. She might not be as deserving of that commendation, as you think. Believe it or not, there was yet another bizarre twist in this really, really crazy tale. During whatever police interviews Rachel Stoudy told investigators that Sarah knew about the plan to murder both Mark and Sean. over her. Did Sarah know yes or no? Yes. She obviously just didn't realize it. She was going to get it also. Sarah more or less over her. She really didn't plan. She's just more there. It's Sarah knew. But Sarah knew. Okay. So did Sarah ever become suspicious when she started to get sick? She didn't mention, oh am I going to die? She never mentioned a thing about her, you guys poisoned me too or... No. But she asked if she was going to die. Who did she ask that? Mom. What did your mom say?

I don't know. Granted, it's entirely possible that Rachel was lying. But when she was first asked about Sarah's knowledge of the crimes, Rachel said that Sarah knew nothing. It was only after the detectives pressed her, that Rachel changed her story. If Rachel was lying and just wanted to throw Sarah under the bus, why would she initially deny that Sarah knew?

If you're wondering, the police did investigate the possibility that Sarah knew about the murder plot, but ultimately, conspiracy charges were never filed against her. So who knows? During Rachel's interview, she talked about Sarah having knowledge of the poisoning of both Mara and Sean. I did look into that and there were some things that might have indicated that Sarah was, in fact, knowledgeable.

And I have spoken with her about that, and she has said things to me that we're alarming and disturbing, but based on Sarah's mental capacity and the effects from the antifreeze from her being poisoned. There was never a case that was brought against Sarah If Sarah knew that Diane and Rachel had killed Mark and Sean Stouty It means that justice was not fully carried out for either victim It's been over a decade since both men were murdered So the likelihood of prosecutors bringing up charges against Sarah is pretty much nonexistent.

She's free to go. But at least we can say that the mastermind behind it all got her comeuppance. in terms of Diane, I have never seen the one bit of remorse from Diane about any of it. And I think the only the only remorse that she might have is that Rachel got caught with her and that now that Rachel was going to spend decades and decades in prison. I believe this whole case really just centered around Diane's narcissism, her selfishness, and how she wanted it her way, and it was only going to be her way. It was a situation that seemed to be the will of these people that she did not like. She was eliminating, she was getting rid of just so she could have it to what she wanted, which was her and Rachel. It was a situation where I believe that Diane was just a pure narcissist and

is cliche, but in my career I don't know that I can say that I've sat across from somebody that was truly more evil than Diane. What's especially mind-boggling about Diane's stoutie is that there was almost nothing forcing her to remain in or maintain the life and family that she no longer wanted. She could have walked away at any point. She was the breadwinner of the family. She was the only one with a real job. She had all the money, all the power.

And all but one of her kids was well into their 20s. If she wanted to, she could have just left. If she wanted to, she could have just taken Rachel and her youngest daughter with her. Left everyone else to fend for themselves. There was no reason at all for any of this. Sure, that would have been kind of a shitty thing to do when people would have looked at her a little differently, but they're doing that now, and they're doing that a lot more harshly. And at the same time, I imagine that Mark, Sean, and Sarah, all of them would have preferred

that Diane had just left, instead of, you know, poisoning them. But as the detective explained, none of that mattered to Diane. The pain she caused didn't matter and neither did the other options that were available to her. Those options just weren't good enough for Diane. Diane was going to have things her way because Diane is a narcissist. Diane is selfish. Diane is selfish. Diane is evil.

Diane is a monster. Whoa. I felt like I was talking about someone else for a second there. Alright guys, thank you for joining us. We'll see you next time. Stay safe. Hey, certain tale. I just want to thank you for doing all of the child murder podcasts. I know it must be really hard. I work in child care and it's so important for people to understand if you see something, say something and and every time like I cried from all of the stories, brissa, kids, but it's so important because people hear it and they don't want to keep hearing it. Well then someone needs to do something

instead of someone thinking that somebody else is going to do it. So I just want to thank you for the bottom of my heart for doing the child story so that there is awareness. Thank you so much. Have a good day. Bye. Hey Mike. I'm sorry for my voice being out today. And completely devastated over episode 246. I'm not asking anything of you Mike.

No one should change Mike. But podcasts will never die. They'll never say that to me again. And also, fuck Austin Robinson, that little pussy. That little girl didn't ever ask for anything to love. And when you made that, the third was so beautiful. And scary. But it was how long it was, and it was all the information and the love of the audience.

We can keep it every time. And you're gonna regret it by so soon. I love you, Mike. You