True Crime with Kendall Rae - Poisoned by Her Son’s Ex-Girlfriend or Someone Else? The Suspicious Death of Mary Yoder
Episode Date: December 7, 2023Mary Yoder was the picture of health, she loved the outdoors, tending to her garden, and working at her family-owned chiropractic office with her husband, Bill. But in July of 2015 she became mysterio...usly ill. After 2 days in the hospital, and 8 total heart attacks, Mary lost her life. Nobody could explain what happened to her until a poison control expert solved the mystery. Mary died of colchicine poisoning. But who poisoned her? It was her son’s ex-girlfriend, Kaitlyn Conley, who also happened to work at the chiropractic clinic. After 2 trials and 1 hung jury, Katie was convicted of manslaughter, however, her supporters, which include 3 of Mary’s sisters, feel she has been wrongly convicted. What do you think? From now until the end of the year I am matching donations to NCMEC! See our progress, make a donation, and track my contributions here: https://give.missingkids.org/campaign... Shop my Merch! https://kendallrae.shop This episode is sponsored by: ZocDoc Skylight Frame Green Chef - promo code: 60kendallrae Huggies Check out Kendall's other podcasts: The Sesh & Mile Higher Follow Kendall! YouTube Twitter Instagram Facebook Mile Higher Zoo REQUESTS: General case suggestion form: https://bit.ly/32kwPly Form for people directly related/ close to the victim: https://bit.ly/3KqMZLj Discord: https://discord.com/invite/an4stY9BCN CONTACT: For Business Inquiries - kendall@INFAgency.com
Transcript
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Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of True Crime with Kennell Ray.
I am so happy to have you joining me today as we discuss yet another case.
And if you are new, then welcome.
So today we're going to be talking about a case that is very complicated.
I think there will be a difference in opinions in the comments,
which I always find interesting to see you guys kind of discuss the case with each other.
It's one of those cases where even though justice has been served, there are many people out there
that think they have the wrong person to this day. But before we jump in and I start trying to
explain this all to you, I do have two quick announcements. First of all, I wanted to thank you all for
the amazing feedback regarding my upcoming documentary, 530 days, which will be coming
out in 2023. I wanted to be really clear. A lot of people thought that it was coming
out in 530 days. The title of the documentary is 530 days.
And we do have a new trailer to share with you all today,
which I'm very excited for you to see a little bit more
of what we have been working on this entire past year.
And for those of you who haven't already figured it out
by the clues we left in the trailer,
this documentary is on the case of Jessica Easterly,
which many of you probably remember me covering at one point.
And a lot of you got involved and made the right calls and sent emails to get help.
And for a second there, we thought that maybe this family was finally going to be listened to,
that they were going to get helped because we were told that that was going to be the case.
However, it seemed like it was all for publicity and to frankly shut
all of you up, which made me so mad that after so many people reached out, this family
was continuously ignored. And there still is no justice for Jessica Easterly to this day.
So I had to go down to New Orleans myself and see what the hell is going on down there.
And wow, was I blown away? I can't wait for you all to see it.
Like I said, it's coming out before the end of the year.
I will have an exact release date very soon.
And then really quick, I just wanted to mention
that it is that time of year again
and I will be matching all of your donations
to the National Center for Missing Exploded Children
from now until the end of the year.
There is a link to make a donation in the description box
if you would like to do so.
We would so appreciate it. Alternatively, you can always buy some of our NeckMech merch, which is
always available at kennelrate.shop. Specifically, our newest hoodie is my absolute favorite. I am so
excited about the quality of this hoodie. We have never done a hoodie for NeckMech before. I really
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And I can't tell you how appreciative their team is they are amazing people. I love being partnered with neck mech and
Thank you all for your support truly because of you. We have now raised over
$241,000 we are very close to hitting a quarter of a million dollars,
and I'm very proud of all of you for that.
But without further ado,
and I know I had a lot of announcements,
let's go ahead and jump into this case, okay,
because we do have quite a bit to go over.
So let's start with a background on Mary Yoder.
She was born March 18th, 1955 in upstate New York
and grew up with her two brothers and five sisters.
And coming from such a large family herself, family just became a really important pillar
in her life, both from a young age and as she grew older.
Now, anyone lucky enough to have known Mary would know that she was the type of person
that you'd walk away from feeling instantly better, even if nothing was wrong.
She just had a way of impacting people.
From the way her loved ones and people she knew describe her, Mary had a warm, contagious
energy that just passed on to you if you were in her presence.
Every bone in her body and fiber of her being was just good, and people loved her and gravitated
to her. Like I said, family was extremely important to Mary. And in the 70s while attending
college, she met her future husband and the future father of her children, William, or
Bill Yoder, and the two of them were a little bit different, you could say. While Mary
was extroverted in spiritual, Bill was introverted and intellectual,
but their differences just seemed to align perfectly. A year after getting married, they had their
first child, a daughter, her name was Leona, and she was followed by their second daughter,
Hammerin, two years later. They were a family of four or four, a handful of years,
and then eight years later, Mary became pregnant with her third child, a baby
boy named Adam.
The Yodors were always a very close-knit family, and from what I can tell, they were living
a very happy, normal life.
And Mary and Bill were actually both chiropractors, and they had opened their own business called
Chiropractic Family Care in White Spurrow, New York.
And to live together, have children together, spend tons of time together,
and then also work together, I really admire that about them, as someone who does the same thing,
I am pretty much with my husband at all times. And it became more of a family business over the years,
when their son Adam eventually worked on and off at the business, helping where he could.
And then eventually, Adam's girlfriend, Katie, was introduced to Mary and Bill,
and she quickly blew them away
with her hard work ethic and eagerness to help.
So she ended up being hired for the front desk,
and it didn't take long for her
to be promoted to office manager.
Now it's unclear when exactly Katie started
working at the office, but what is clear
is that her relationship with Mary remained consistent
even after her and Adam ended up breaking
up. And let me explain that a little bit more. So she and Adam met in 2011. They met at a high school
graduation party and over the course of the next four years, they seemed to have a very on-and-off
relationship. You know, they're breaking up, they're getting back together, and it just kind of
continued in that cycle. For example, one of those times that they had broken up, they're getting back together, and it just kind of continued in that cycle.
For example, one of those times that they had broken up,
they ended up getting back together
because Katie told Adam that she was pregnant,
but it was an ectopic pregnancy.
And for those of you who don't know in simple terms,
an ectopic pregnancy is when the egg is fertilized,
but in the fallopian tube, which is not where it's supposed
to be, and can be very dangerous.
So she told him that unfortunately she would have to terminate the pregnancy and that she would need his support during that time,
and they ended up getting back together.
And even through their struggles, Katie remained loyal to the family business.
It's been said that she really looked up to Mary, and overall just had a lot of admiration for her.
And honestly, I don't see how you couldn't admire Mary. Mary was such a kind person that even if
someone couldn't afford her services, she would barter with them for things like eggs and other
random ingredients and give them chiropractic care in exchange. On top of her emotional warmth and
kindness, Mary was also a badass when it came to her own personal health.
At 60 years old, she was still doing triathlons, frequently outside,
tending to her extensive garden, and for fun, she took up things like belly dancing, kayaking,
and so much more. She was just very active and lived life to the fullest.
She may have been 60, but she had the heart, spirit, and energy of someone far younger,
which she attributed to her holistic lifestyle. Mary was always taking supplements and was a big
believer in natural medicine. And it's actually because of this, the fact that she was kind of the
epitome of health, that makes what happened to her so unbelievably confusing. So that brings us to Monday, July 20th, 2015.
And it was quite literally like any other day.
Mary got up early, got ready for work,
and headed out to see her first client of the day.
And one by one, all of her morning clients came in that day,
had their appointment with Mary,
and said that everything seemed completely normal,
that Mary seemed completely normal.
So then around lunchtime, Mary leaves the office
to go and check on her mother.
And then she comes back to work, has some lunch,
and then continues on to see her afternoon clients.
And it's been reported that the lunch that she had
was a protein shake, which was pretty typical for her.
So she has her shake and gets ready
for the next round of afternoon clients. But it wasn't long after Mary started seeing these afternoon clients that she
realized something was wrong. Almost out of nowhere she was feeling horrible and was in and out of
the bathroom with uncontrollable vomiting and diarrhea and one client even said that she saw a
red ring around her eyes.
And it got so bad that Mary knew she just had to go home.
She couldn't continue to see clients,
so she canceled her last few appointments and went home to rest.
But once she got home, her condition became drastically worse
and just continued to worsen throughout the night.
And by the next morning, it was so bad that her husband Bill
knew he needed to take her to
the ER immediately. So on the morning of Tuesday, July 21st, Mary was admitted to the ER and they're
actually in it of being a handful of hours where she seemed to be improving. And during all this,
Bill is keeping his children up to date on her condition, especially his daughter, Liana, because
she was a doctor herself. Unfortunately,
though, any improvement that Mary was having was quickly overshadowed by her sudden rapid decline.
That night, around 10 pm, Mary is standing up in her hospital room when suddenly she just
falls to the ground. And after that, she was immediately admitted to the ICU. And from that point forward, things just kept going downhill.
On the morning of July 22nd, Mary ended up suffering her first heart attack
and ended up having seven more that day.
You can imagine what having eight heart attacks in one day would do to your body.
She was an excruciating pain at that point. Mary was just suffering. She was
fighting as hard as she could, but in the end, she couldn't fight any longer. And that day, 60-year-old
Mary Oder, who was the picture of health, really, was pronounced dead. And nobody at the hospital
could understand or explain why. And as you can imagine her family was shocked to say the least
absolutely devastated and wanted to know what really happened because none of
this made sense. And obviously the first steps here to figure out what happened
to Mary was to conduct an autopsy. So her body was sent to the medical
examiner and hopes that they could get an explanation as to why this otherwise
healthy woman went from fine to very much not fine in such a short period of time.
Leana, her daughter in the doctor of the family, says that the medical examiner contacted her a few days after her mother's death and said that based on the severity and speed in which this illness came on and then killed her, he suspected that whatever it was,
that it was infectious, something like ascending colonjitis.
Leona then passed this information to the rest of her family, her father, her siblings,
and her aunts.
Now her three aunts are Mary's sisters, and you're going to hear me talk about them
quite a bit.
Their names are Sharon, Sally, and Janine, And three of them ended up playing a really big role
in this entire case.
For many reasons, but initially it's because
they were the ones who pushed for an investigation
in the first place.
Sharon, who's a nurse, said that when she heard
about the medical examiner's initial theories
on her cause of death, that something just
didn't seem right to her.
And she did trust what her niece, Leona, was telling her, but she asked if Lyanna could
ask the medical examiner if they could run a toxicology test.
And that wasn't an issue at all because the medical examiner wanted to run one anyway.
And it turns out, while looking at some of Mary's cells under a microscope, he could see
that the cells were attacking themselves, leading to an entirely
new conclusion on her death. Mary was poisoned. But the thing is, after he ran a bunch of tests on
all the most common types of poison, arsenic, cyanide, etc., all of them came back negative.
And while he wanted to continue running tests for more types of poison,
he wasn't able to do so.
Because by this point, a month or so had already gone by,
and all they had left to marry was one vile of blood,
because her husband Bill had her cremated.
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So they had already tested everything else they had available to them.
So now they just had a single vial of blood and had to be very careful about what they decided to use it to test on.
And because their theory still definitely was that Mary had been poisoned,
the medical examiner sent that one last vial of blood to a poison control expert in upstate New York.
And after the expert carefully
considered the circumstances of Mary's death,
there was only one thing she thought it could be,
culture seen. Now, culture seen in small doses can be
prescribed by doctors to help treat people with
gout, but in large doses, it's known to be incredibly lethal.
And after testing that last vial of blood,
which was their only vial of hope at that point,
it did in fact come back positive
for colgisine toxicity.
And not only that,
it was at an amount high enough to kill Mary 15 times over.
And by this point, three months had passed.
And now Mary's family had some answers
that they were looking for,
but they didn't have an investigation going as to who gave her the culture scene. Her sisters in particular
felt like nothing was being done about this, that there was no investigation going on
to figure out who did this to their sister, Mary, and they could not let someone get away
with this. They couldn't just sit back and let that happen. So Sharon took
measures into her own hands and went down herself to the O'Nighta County Sheriff's Department where
she helped kick off the investigation. And to no surprise, it didn't take much convincing.
I mean, how did this happen? How could this health conscious woman,
ingest enough Colchocene, to kill herself 15 times over? There was nothing to suggest that this was a suicide.
There was no evidence that this was some sort of tragic accident.
In fact, Adam and Katie were tasked with collecting all of Mary's supplements,
as well as some items from her office for police to test to see if, you know,
maybe there had been some type of freak-cross contamination accident,
but nothing was found.
It was very obvious that the way that she ingested the culture scene had to have been given to her in a way that was deliberate.
This was a cold-blooded murder, but the glaring question here is who and why?
And so the first person that investigators looked into was her husband Bill, of course.
Statistically, we just know that you are far more likely
to be murdered by your spouse than anyone else.
So he was the first on their list,
and when it came to how Mary's sisters felt about him
as a suspect, they felt like it would make sense.
In their eyes, Bill did not grieve Mary's death
the way they felt he should have.
And they also thought it was strange
that he had gotten her cremated so soon after she passed,
especially with unknown circumstances like this.
And it turns out that even before Mary and Bill got married,
her sisters had some conflicting opinions about Bill.
Right before the two of them got married,
Bill had told Mary that he expected her to be okay
with their marriage being open.
And of course, Mary was like, um, absolutely not,
and Bill agreed eventually to be monogamous,
but the whole thing put a strange taste in her sister's mouths.
They felt like he was always taking too many weekends
away from her to be alone,
and that it was possible maybe he was cheating on her during those times.
And to be fair, they did feel that at times
he was a good husband to their sister.
But following her death, they felt and still feel
that Bill had every reason to benefit from his wife's death,
but I'll get to that.
Now, when it came to investigators
looking into him as a suspect,
they just didn't think he was their guy. I mean in their eyes, they felt like Bill really
didn't have anything to gain from her death, like inheritance or something like that.
It just didn't seem like he would have any motive to want her dead, plus when he was brought in,
he was incredibly forthcoming. He spoke with investigators for five hours
and gave them access to anything they wanted, including computers from the office, a typewriter,
a fax machine, and more. No matter how many questions they had, Bill sat and answered them all,
even the uncomfortable ones like if he had ever cheated on his wife. Now, Bill does deny any
accusations of cheating on Mary, but he did start dating someone
else very shortly after she passed.
And I think if you took several guesses as to who Bill ended up dating, you probably
wouldn't guess right.
It turns out that after Mary died, Bill began dating, wait for it.
One of her sisters, that's right, not Sharon, Sally, or Janine, but Kathy, her older sister, who I haven't told you about yet.
Now, when I first learned this information, I was absolutely stunned. I mean, jaw on the floor. Because when you find out he is dating one of her sisters, so shortly after she died, it definitely makes you rethink everything.
Because obviously, a love interest maybe gives Bill a motive.
But before you make up your mind, let me continue to give you all the facts here, and by the
end of this, you can come to any conclusion you want.
So at this point, investigators are keeping tabs on Bill, but they're just not convinced
that he is their guy even after finding out that he had started dating Mary's sister.
But they didn't know who else could have done it.
But luckily for them, their next suspect, or should I say suspects, honestly, fell into their laps.
Towards the end of 2015, the medical examiners received an anonymous letter from someone claiming they knew who killed Mary. They immediately called
the Sheriff's Department to let them know, and it just so happened that that same day,
they received the exact same letter. Now this letter accuses Adam, Mary's son of killing her.
So let's take a look at part of this letter. It reads,
When I saw him a couple days ago, he appeared agitated and said that he was the reason for her death and wished he could take it back.
Then he said he got a bottle of culture scene off online and put the toxin in one of her vitamins
when he was over at his parents' house. He said his mom noticed he seemed disturbed at the time,
and that she thought it was since he was drinking at their house. Adam told her no,
the beer was not the reason
he was disturbed and to just drop it.
He said he apologized to his parents
for ruining the holiday, Father's Day, and left.
Adam was upset people weren't paying more attention to him.
He felt he deserved more attention
and he thought people'd be nicer to him.
He acted resentful and belligerent to his immediate family
and became visibly irritated people
kept talking about his mom.
He said he expected a financial payout after her death, which did not come.
So this letter not only gave investigators a who, but also a why.
If Adam was his mom's killer, like it claims, it was because he wanted more attention
and was upset with his mom and also because he thought he'd get some type of payout.
Now whoever wrote this letter claimed to have been very close with Adam, which would explain why he was so comfortable telling him or her all of these things.
And get this, the letter writer claimed to be close with Adam, which is why he was comfortable enough to say all of this around him or her.
The letter writer also said that the Colchester scene could be found under the passage or seat of Adam's jeep.
That's where he said it was until he figures out
where to put it or dispose of it next.
I asked him to show me where it was kept currently
and said no, but described it as a small glass bottle.
So obviously the next course of action here
is to bring Adam in for questioning.
And he was brought in on December 9th, 2015.
And Adam came in without hesitation, and for hours, talked with investigators about
his mother and the circumstances surrounding her death.
And investigators finally just came to a point with him where they decided to just tell
him about the anonymous letter to one, see what he thought about it, and two, to allow
them to search his Jeep, hopefully,
if he was okay with that.
And right off the bat, Adam said that he was completely fine
with them searching his car,
but before that, he wanted to get in touch
with his lawyer just in case, which is understandable.
And after doing so, he signed a form
that allowed investigators to have full on access
to his vehicle, and it only took a few minutes
to find what they were looking for. Under the passenger seat of his Jeep was a bottle of
culture-seen wrapped in cardboard. And Adam was totally shocked. While they were searching his
Jeep, he was watching, smoking a cigarette, and it apparently almost fell out of his mouth. He
could not believe it was there. And two investigators, it seemed like genuine
surprise. But that wasn't all that they found. Also in his car was a crumpled up receipt related to
the purchase of the Colchocene, with the email Mr. Adam Yoder 1990 at gmail.com has the buyer.
And right away, Adam tells investigators that that's not his email. He's never seen or heard of it before,
and that he was sure that someone planted in his car.
And interestingly, investigators were inclined to believe him.
And not because they thought his response
to it always genuine,
or they were just inclined to believe him,
but because why on earth, if he actually did this,
would he then come to the police station
with the murder weapon in his vehicle?
Riddle me that.
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At that point, it had been four months since his mother's death. You're telling me he just kept
it in his car
and then drove himself to the police station
where he knew they were gonna search his car
and they find it, of course.
I mean, unless he was really dumb enough to do that,
it makes no sense.
Anaviscators also had to consider
that Adam was nowhere near his mom
on the day that she was poisoned.
He had a solid alibi.
He was visiting his sister
300 miles away. So it all just made no sense for Adam to have been involved. And with this information,
there was just no reason to hold Adam for any further questioning and he was given permission
to leave. Just like his father, investigators decided to, you know, keep tabs on him, but it
didn't seem like he was their guy. But who else could it be?
And before going, Adam agreed to give them his DNA in case it was needed for the future,
and also handed over his text communications between himself and his father, as well as himself
and Katie.
Yup, remember Katie, Adam's on and off girlfriend, who also worked at Bill and Mary's office
as office manager.
Well, she was also brought in for questioning.
In the eyes of investigators, what better person to talk to than someone who worked for the
family and knew them personally and professionally and was at the office the day Mary first got
sick.
So Katie came into the station and not only gave her insights on Mary and Bill as a couple
and as business owners, but also gave her insights on Adam and his relationship with his mother.
And slowly, she started revealing that Adam and his mother didn't always have the best relationship,
and that he hadn't been acting like himself lately, and a few other things that made
investigators wonder, could Katie have been the one to write this anonymous letter?
So they decided to just straight up ask her if she wrote the letter and at first it didn't come easily
but the more they pushed her on it, she told Mark. We'll meet you at the letter.
You wanted us to know.
Or did you want to see Adam get in trouble?
No.
I can't see.
I'll get in trouble.
Here's some issues I still have.
You got to look at it from my point of view.
We're looking at one of three people here.
This husband, Adam, or you.
You said the man had been an accident and he expressed that he didn't mean to you, that's to you.
Oh, he said you were proud of him.
You were proud of him.
I think you had him say this again.
I think he could say what he had.
Like, whether it's a crime or not. Are you okay? Um, fucking fine, I'm just're this. I think we're this.
I think we're this.
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That was great.
I don't know who these are.
She even said that Adam told her he was going to frame her.
And that guys don't use poison.
It's a ladies weapon.
And hearing that was definitely concerning to investigators. And not because they thought that Adam was framing her the way that she said he told
her he was going to do.
It concerned them because Katie bringing up the fact that poison is a lady's weapon just seemed strange.
And by this point, investigators heard what they needed to hear and they let Katie go.
But they were far from finished when it came to questioning her. Because here's the kicker.
Since receiving the letter, investigators were
actually suspicious that whoever wrote that letter was actually Mary's killer. And after
hearing everything that Katie said, investigators were more confident than ever that she was the
one who killed Mary and was trying to frame Adam, not the other way around. So like I said,
they let her go, but in the meantime, they were gathering evidence
to prove their suspicions.
Investigators got the digital records back
from Katie's work computer,
which if you remember,
Bill allowed investigators to seize,
and boy did they find things.
Oh my God.
It turns out that on that computer,
Katie's work computer,
the email, Mr. Adam Y Yoda 1990 at gmail.com,
had been accessed and used on multiple occasions. And it wasn't just accessed on her work
computers, also accessed on her home computer. So that's not looking good. And it gets worse,
because cell records also show that Katie looked up, cultising on her phone. However, I do want to make note that it's
unclear when she looked it up, and that actually does matter. Yes, it could have been before the murder,
which is obviously very incriminating, but it could have also been after. After all, this is someone
that she claimed to have really admired, and I can totally see a world where you would want to
look up something that could
have potentially killed your boss.
Now, I'm not saying this is the case or defending her, I just want to report the facts in full.
And if we look at the other facts, we find out that Adam had never accessed that account
the Mr. Yoder 1990 at GMO.com on any of his devices.
Which says a lot.
In a deposition on January 7th, 2016,
this is what Adam had to say about the email address.
It has recently come to my attention
that someone has established an email account
using my personal information.
I have learned the email account is through Google
and the email account name is Mr. Adam Yoder, 1990,
at gmail.com.
This is not my account.
I never set it up,
nor did I give anyone permission
to establish this account in my name.
So here they have a digital trail
that only points to Katie's devices,
but what they don't have is an understanding
of why she would do this.
We know that she was at the office that day,
which definitely gives her the opportunity to do it,
but why?
And Motive is just so important.
So investigators had no choice but to bring her back in.
And when Katie came back in for questioning,
this time investigators were not messing around.
For six hours, they interrogated her
and asked her outright, why did you kill Mary?
And Katie was very distressed during the interrogation.
She frequently repeated, my life is over.
And at one point, she even began throwing up in a trash can.
Back to how they get told you.
We know you got on Adams accounts.
Why did you get on Adams account that night?
These are all things we know.
Like Pete comes back to your house.
We took the credit card and we were trying to tell him that we know what day credit card was
ready to be used for.
Right by time I will pass it to me.
Okay.
So it's either you did this alone or someone else involved with you because you got the
credit cards.
Is that my violinist with you because you got the correct parents. Is that my father in this with you?
It's not with me. I'm not in this. You bought the two cards. I did. Okay. So you did this
alone or somebody helped you or you helped them. It's one of the other. It's not it. If you're
involved, we know you're involved. You're a set. You got the kind that breaks their ties into the
purchase of the Colts. You're in the office got the kind. That break their ties into the purchase of the Colts.
You're in the office, the day Mary's there.
Did somebody else want to hurt Mary?
And you helped them?
What does it come down to at this point, Katie?
You need to help us, because like I said,
if this is a dumb deal, we know all this stuff.
You know, we know, because we're in the outfacts
left and right for you.
Now the bottom line is,
what, where, we already know that is the why.
It's the only thing that, why Mary could be understanding.
We've kind of done a lot of work, okay?
And we know that your phone is used quite a lot for items in this case, okay?
You're the one that purchase approaches?
No.
I'll meet you.
I didn't like that one.
I can't.
But you never go up to meet me.
Nobody else will leave you.
You liked me?
I didn't mean to lie to you.
But you did.
That's one thing we needed.
This one is why you need to tell me whether you wanted to hurt her or did you want her
to get sick or what you need the tomi. Whether you wanted to hurt her, or did you want her to get sick, or what?
You need to know.
I want it, try to hurt her.
I want it hurt.
You want to hurt back?
No.
Why?
And I'm pleased just how you like it,
that we can help you.
So anything left.
I'm not going to let this fall. I'm sure we I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. And ultimately she was allowed to go home that night, but her arrest was inevitable.
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On June 13, 2016, Katie Conley was arrested on charges
of second degree murder.
And when word got out that Katie was the prime suspect
and that she had been arrested,
there was a large group of people
who really rallied around
her. Her mom, dad, and twin sisters have believed in her innocence since day one. And obviously,
it's not a huge shock to hear that her own family supported her. The real shock is that three of Katie's
biggest supporters have actually been Mary's sisters, Sharon, Sally, and Jeanine. It is their
belief that Bill and Adam framed Katie and she is
suffering the consequences of the murder that they committed. Because in their
minds Katie had absolutely no reason to want Mary dead. So Katie remained on
House arrest, living at her parents farm in upstate New York from 2016 when
she was arrested all the way until her trial began in 2017.
And obviously because this is a case that's entirely based on circumstantial evidence,
the prosecution knew that they were facing an uphill battle.
Nobody could place the culture scene physically in Katie's hands and definitively say they saw her try to poison Mary with it.
But the circumstantial evidence they had was on their side.
I mean, everything pointed back at Katie.
For one, as we've been over, all of the devices that were logged into this Mr. Adam Yoder
1990 at Gmail.com account work, Katie's.
Her phone, her personal computer, her work computer, nobody else's.
Plus, the timeline pointed back to Katie.
It's believed that Mary was poisoned right around lunchtime, on July 20th, right before
she began presenting symptoms.
And Katie was the only person with access to Mary during that time.
And one by one, clients who came to the office that day took the stand to make the point
that before lunch, Mary was fine.
But after lunch, she was not.
Every patient who testified said that Katie was the only other person they saw at the office.
And Bill also took the stand and got emotional as he talked about his wife's final hours.
On the stand, he attempted to shut down any rumors that he was somehow involved with his
wife's death.
Although there are still people like Mary Sisters who think he is responsible.
And during the trial, we also learned
that Katie's work computer was the one that was used
to purchase the drug.
The prosecution even brought out the woman
who sold the culture scene used to kill Mary to the stand.
She testified that she spoke with the buyer on the phone
as is protocol for any potentially lethal drug
and said that the person she spoke with was a woman
and that they were soft spoken and sounded young. And on top of that, we also learned that the culture scene was paid
for using prepaid credit cards. During those initial interviews, Katie had with detectives,
she told them that she bought those cards. Plus, and this is huge, Katie's DNA was found on
the cardboard sleeve that was wrapped around the culture scene bottle found in Adam's car.
I do want to know, however, that there was additional DNA found on the sleeve,
but not enough to make a full identification. I do want to point out, however, and this is also
something that the defense pointed out as well. Katie was the office manager. She opened dozens of
boxes a week, and they said that her DNA being on the cardboard sleeve was just a coincidence.
The prosecution was able to show that pretty much everything pointed back to Katie.
But there were times like this cardboard, for example, where the defense had a strong
rebuttal, and that made it especially crucial for the prosecution to drive home the motive, the why.
Why the hell would Caitlin Conley want Mary Yoder to die?
A woman who she looked up to respected, loved.
While prosecuting attorney Laurie Leesee would argue
hellhath no fury like a woman scorned.
Or in other words, it all goes back to Adam.
She would say that Katie, who was not dating Adam
at the time, killed his mother
to get him back. Adam even took the stand and said that if this was her plan, it worked.
He said that he called Katie on the way to the hospital because he knew that she looked
up to his mother and that he wanted her to be there. Adam said that Katie helped
him through his grief. And that only a few months later things fell apart again and
they did break up once again.
What's interesting though, in the prosecution pointed this out, the anonymous letter just
so happened to appear right after the two of them split up for the final time.
According to DA Leesey, this breakup is why Katie wrote the letter in the first place.
She argued that Katie felt if she couldn't have him after her original plan
failed, the he deserved to go to jail. When it came to the Defences argument, attorney
Christopher Pelley, who represented Katie, made the overarching argument that Katie was
being framed. And the person they were pointing the finger at, Bill Yoder, who I should mention
was given full immunity before the trial even began. Even though the defense would argue that he killed Mary,
he could never be charged with her murder.
Regardless, they knew they had to point the finger away from Katie.
So they argued that Bill was the only person in all of this
who actually stood to gain something from Mary's death,
including a new relationship and a substantial amount of inheritance money.
I'm sure you haven't forgotten that very
shortly after Mary passed, Bill began dating her sister, Kathy. Now, while he claims that their
relationship started after Mary's death, sometime in September of 2015, specifically, the defense
argued that it began before. One of Kathy's neighbors even testified that she saw the two of them
kissing several weeks before
Mary's death. And then of course there's the money. The circumstances are a little unclear,
but Bill supposedly inherited $400,000, and the defense argued that he killed Mary,
because he no longer needed to rely on her financially. But what's confusing about this to me
is they owned a business together. Why would he need to rely on Mary for money anyway?
There is mention that the two of them were in some debt,
but again, I don't see how killing Mary would have
got him out of debt anyway.
It was their debt.
Maybe there's just some details that we're all unaware of,
but that's what the defense argued.
Bill had two reasons to want her dead
and that his motive made the most sense, not this woman's scorned motive. In fact, Mary Sisters, who have spoken out a lot on Katie's
innocence, say that Katie was the one to dump Adam, and that she was in a relationship leading up to
Mary's death, which is why in their eyes, she would have no reason to want Mary dead.
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But going back to Bill's motive,
that alone doesn't prove murder.
They also had to prove opportunity.
And that would be a little bit more difficult.
But the defense said that they did have a couple of scenarios in mind that would have given
Bill the opportunity to kill Mary.
The first being that Bill was in and out of the office that day, but no patients had seen him. He could have been just in his back office and never had
come out. He was definitely the less social one of the two of them. So who's to
say that he wasn't just, you know, in the back working most of the day. The
second scenario that the defense presented is the possibility that Bill
poisoned one of would marry supplements,
which he could have done at any time,
not just on the day she first got sick.
And in that instance, it wouldn't have mattered
if he was there the day that she actually got sick.
And something that we haven't really talked about,
but it's very important to note,
is that no one knows exactly how Mary was poisoned.
It could have been an assoupliment, it also could have been mixed into her protein
shake that day, it could have been given to her and some other
way we just aren't aware of. Either way we don't know how it
ended up in Mary's system. And so whatever methods were being
pitched by both the prosecution and the defense were really
just guesses. And for the defense and the defense were really just guesses.
And for the defense, the theory about Bill poisoning Mary went further than just a one-time
thing.
They said it was possible that Bill poisoned Mary not just once, but twice.
Christopher Pelley argued that Bill could have first put the poison in her supplement,
but then when she was in the hospital and appearing to get better, he hit her with a second
dose. If you remember, when Mary first got sick, she was vomiting, she was having diarrhea,
she overall just felt terrible. But when she first got to the hospital, it seemed like her symptoms
were clearing up. And then they suddenly just got so much worse out of nowhere. Then she declined
so rapidly that she had heart attack after heart attack after
heart attack. And there were many moments that Bill was alone with her. Is it possible he realized
he hadn't given her enough the first time around and gave her more? The defense argues yes.
Mary Sisters also say yes, and they've pointed out that at one point Bill left the hospital and
wasn't heard from for hours. And when he returned, he
had brought Mary some cough drops and her inhaler, even though he wasn't supposed to give her anything
that didn't come from the hospital. They also say that when Bill was asked to hand over the
inhaler and the cough drops to the medical examiner for further testing, that he couldn't produce
either of them and said he didn't know where they were. And in the eyes of Mary's sisters, they believe this is when he could have given her a second dose of poison.
Now I have no idea actually if this was mentioned in trial because only some of it is available,
but I think for the sake of fairness, it's worth mentioning.
But going back to the trial, the defense attorney, Christopher Pelley also had to make an argument
for why the digital trail led to Katie if she wasn't responsible, so he brought up the
fact that Bill was someone with complete access to Katie's work computer.
I mean, it was, after all, his business.
At any point, he could have logged on using her credentials to make it look like she
was the one placing the order for the Colchocene, and she was the one who made that fake email in Adam's name.
What this doesn't explain is why the seller of the culture scene remembers confirming
it the purchase with a soft-spoken email.
But actually, there might, might, be an explanation for this.
And right off the top, I want to mention that I'm not sure, again, if this was mentioned
in the trial, but I do think it's an important piece of information that's worth mentioning.
Back in January of 2015, about six months before Mary died, a letter of intent was written inside for both Mary and Bill for the purchase of Colchocene.
I don't want to go off in a long tangent here, but it turns out that Bill liked to grow his own marijuana.
And I didn't know this, but Colchocene can actually be used to enhance
THC production. And dating back to long before Mary died, Bill was using Colchocene to help grow
his weed. Again, I cannot confirm or deny if this was brought up in trial, but for the sake of
being thorough here, I wanted to at least mention it. Because this information does throw some doubt
into who that woman was actually speaking to on the phone
when she heard a soft spoken female because Mary was also a soft spoken female. What I'd be curious
to know is when the culture scene was purchased. Was it purchased in January,
soon after the letter of intent was signed by Mary, was it before, was it after this information
would definitely be useful to know. Now, going back to the trial here, the defense did push back on the prosecution's motive
that Katie did this to get Adam back by saying she was the one who dumped him.
And the letter.
How could they argue that Bill was responsible for all of this if Katie admitted to writing
the letter?
Well, the defense would say that she was pressured into a false confession. However, a false confession doesn't explain why Katie's DNA was underneath the stamp that was used on the letter, but I digress.
One of Katie's supporters, Mary's sister Sharon, even took the stand and testified that she believed that Bill was responsible.
And just think about the weight of that.
The victim's own sister is in support of
the defendant. Sharon Sally and Jeanine sat on Katie's side of the court through all of this,
and I'm sure that that weighed heavy on the hearts of the jury members. But in the end,
after a two week trial, the jury took five days to deliberate, and they were hung. They could not
come to a conclusion. Katie's lawyer said that he was absolutely shocked
by this outcome, and genuinely believed
that they would have reached a not guilty verdict
in under 15 minutes, but that was in the case.
And so it was back to the drawing board.
And DA Laurie Leasey wasted no time
and immediately began preparing the paperwork
for a second trial.
And in the meantime, investigators continued to collect
evidence, and I think you'll be pretty interested to hear what they found. Adam's computer became a major focus for evidence collection,
leading up to trial number two. One of the things they found on his computer was a backup from Katie
cell phone from the time period shortly after Mary was killed. And after looking through Katie's
search history, they learned that the phone had been used to conduct searches on types of lethal poison.
Her phone had also been used to look up mathematical equations to calculate how much
Colchocene it would take to kill someone that weighed the same as Mary.
Plus, her notes app had the words under seat, typed out in a note, which some people believe
was Katie planning out where she was going to hide the bottle.
And get this, investigators uncovered the password
to the Mr. Adam Yoder 1990 at gmail.com account
and it was, Adam is gay.
That was the password, Adam is gay.
And during the second trial,
this is something that the DA argued just screamed,
hell, half no fury like a woman scorned.
So let's just talk about this second trial before I give it all away.
Just like the first time around, the prosecution's argument was that Katie killed Mary in some
revenge-type plot to try to bring Adam closer to her.
And while the DA stuck to the same story and same strategy as the first time around, the defense did not.
This time, Katie was being defended by Frank Pichelli, who was no longer pointing a finger
at Bill, but now pointing the finger at Adam, who by the way also has complete immunity.
And part of the defense's tactic was emphasizing Adam's computer skills, specifically that
he would have been capable of accessing Katie's computer from afar.
And one of their star witnesses was Adam's cousin, David,
who at one point was living with him and testified that Adam was really good with computers.
He said that Adam went to school for computer science and that at one point he saw him using
Katie's laptop at their house. Plus, according to the defense, Adam could get access to Katie's
computer anytime he wanted. All he would have to do is use his own key to lend himself into the building and log on.
And lastly, and this is a big one, the defense worked hard to paint Katie as a victim of Adams.
And that's when they dropped the bomb that she had been raped by Adam.
Now, Adam took the stand and addressed this accusation and admits that he could not be very
helpful because he said that on the night that Katie says he raped her, he was blackout drunk. He does, however, admit to
slapping her on one occasion and calls his actions regrettable, but says he has no memory of the
night in question. What he does say he knows for certain is that he did not order the cul-je-scene,
he did not kill his mom, and that he did not plant evidence or do anything to frame Caitlin Conley. But then it gets crazier because he tells the jury that in April of 2015, he thinks
Katie tried to poison him. That's right. He says that while he was studying for finals,
Katie gave him a supplement called Alpha Brain, which I'm sure a lot of you have heard of,
and she said it would help him with some information retention. After taking this supplement a few times, Adam said that he became extremely sick,
so sick that he had to go to the emergency room. Now, I can't say whether or not Katie did try
to poison him, but I can say that that bottle of alpha brain was taken and tested, and there was
no poison in the alpha brain. So it could have been a really, really bad stomach bug
or it could have been something sinister.
It's just not something that I have the answer on
and it's something that you're gonna have to come
to your own conclusion on.
And as for the jury's conclusion,
well, they didn't come to one easily.
In fact, after two days of deliberation,
they came back the same way they did during the first trial.
Completely hung. But Judge Dwyer, the judge from the first trial as well, basically told them to
try harder and come back when they had an answer. So after two more hours, the jury came back,
and they came back with a guilty verdict. Not for the charge of second-degree murder, but a lesser
charge, manslaughter. During the sentencing, in January of 2018, Judge Dwyer listened
to many people when it came to making his decision on her sentence. First he heard
from Mary's daughter, Tamarin.
My name is Tamarin Yoder. Mary Yoder is my mother. On July 22, 2015, my mother's heart stopped
feeding because of this defendant. I have tried to find the words to describe how my mother's murder has impacted our lives,
but none feels strong enough to convey the complete devastation.
The level of pain, fear, and anger are indescribable.
My mother was a glowing light in this world with a heart full of love to share.
She was one of the most genuinely kind and loving people
that you could ever know.
She truly cared about people and saw the best in everyone,
help them see the best in themselves.
She wanted to live.
She wanted to enjoy life with her family and friends
and to watch her grandchildren grow up.
When we learned after the autopsy that there was a toxin
found in my mother's blood, the world flipped upside down again.
The possibilities didn't make sense.
Her supplements were tested for possible contamination.
Food and drink were sent in for testing.
Then we had to face the fear that someone had intentionally poisoned her. This defendant, Caitlin Conley,
claimed to have loved my mother and looked up to her as a mentor. Yet, through this
entire ordeal, she has not shed a single tear, has shown no emotion at all, as
we've relived over and over the agony of my
mother suffering in her final days. As one by one her organs and her body died.
She has not shown a hint of regret or remorse for what she has done. She placed
no value on my mother's life except to use it as a means to destroy a family. My family now has a life sentence of anger and loss and fear and pain.
Caitlin Conley has not shown any compassion and this certainly shows no remorse for her actions.
I believe she should be shown the same level of compassion as she's given us.
And I asked the court, please consider the maximum sentence. Thank you. He also heard from Bill. Everyone who knew Mary or even
briefly met her said that she was one of the kindest most loving caring
persons they'd ever met. When she was part of your day your day was better. Your
day had more light and more energy, more joy.
Often when Mary and I were walking around a grocery store, I would lag behind a bit just
to watch her.
Whenever she would pass someone, she would smile, perhaps say a word or two, maybe put her
hand on their arm.
When she'd walk away, that person just looked happy and radiant.
In the 40 years I knew Mary, she was the essence and center of my life, sharing life with
Mary is what gave meaning to all the moments of my life.
Even when she wasn't with me, I couldn't wait to get back together and share everything
with her. We'd
just love spending time together even if it was just snuggling on the couch. I always
felt that I was the most fortunate person on the earth. Mary was my wife. Every day I felt
blessed and grateful that she was in my life and that she had chosen to share life with me and she often told me she felt the same.
We felt like the two luckiest people in the world to have found each other.
It somehow makes it worse for me and my family knowing Katie was knowing that Mary was murdered for such a trivial reason.
It's frightening to think how little it took to push her into such a horrible act.
She had a fight with her boyfriend and so she murdered his mother to get even. She killed
someone who loved her and treated her with kindness. And she's never shown any regret or
remorse at all.
Quite the contrary, anyone that was present at the trials often saw Katie smiling.
Even while poison experts were describing the terrible effects of Coltracing and witnesses
were talking about Mary's horrible suffering in her last hours.
Smiling.
We saw her smirking at various law enforcement agents as they walked by the defendant's table
because she thought she'd gotten away with it.
The pain, the suffering, the murder, none of it seems to bother her.
It's like it's all a lark for her, a game of wits.
Today she's being sentenced for the cold blood of premeditated killing of another human
being.
A murder carefully designed to cause terrible pain and suffering.
And anyone who watched her carefully during the trials knows she's not really all that
sweet.
She seemed to find Mary's suffering and death somehow funny and amusing, something to smile
about.
But there's nothing amusing about heartlessly killing another person.
There's absolutely nothing amusing about Mary's death.
I'm not a judge, and I don't have the legal expertise or wisdom to make this decision.
But today I have been asked to give my opinion about this.
Given all the facts, I think 25 years
would be the minimum appropriate sentence.
I'm asking for the maximum sentence,
not out of vengeance or hatred,
but out of justice.
And lastly, for the prosecution,
Judge Dwyer heard from Adam.
My name is Adam Yoder.
I am the son of Mary Yoder. My mother is the best person I've ever known
and the best person I will ever know. I wish I could continue my mother's legacy of love and
kindness and forgiveness and patience for my family. But the shoes to fill are so big that I do not know where to start. Hopefully
in time I will find some answers and be able to partially remedy the blessing of the angel
that was stolen from the people I love most. I introduced Katie Conley to my family.
And because I loved her, they all accepted her and treated her as family, as blood.
But making no mistake as much as I hate her, which is more than I ever thought I would
be capable of hating anyone, I hate myself infinitely more.
I introduced her to my family.
I got her a job with my parents. And if I hadn't done those things, my mother
would still be alive. And I lived with that pain and the torture of that truth. There hasn't
been a single day since the first trial where I haven't suffered from that. And I promise
every person in this courtroom that I will carry that with me for the rest of my life.
Then it was time to hear from the defenses side. And the person who spoke out on behalf
of a lighter sentence for Katie was Mary's sister, Janine.
Dear judge, your lawyer, Mary Younger was my sister. I think one statement that
Caitlin Khan, me as ben convicted,
affers to bring man's lotter in my sister's death.
Although I've really bleeped she is innocent,
I must respect the decision of our courts.
With their pain said,
I am writing to you to plead for mercy and leniency
as you decide on Caitlin's hands.
I didn't know Caitlin well before my sister died.
I do what her mostly through the things
my sister said about her, all good things.
In my heart of hearts, I don't leave the Caitlin
without her marriage.
It is my belief that Caitlin wants only to live a good,
productive life and would never intentionally harm anyone.
I believe that she has been wrongfully convicted
and that in this instance, this is an instance
where our justice system has failed.
This may not be the heart of losing my sister
almost unbearable.
As I said earlier in this letter,
I do understand that I must be respectful
of the courts
for it. And therefore, and therefore also accept that he will be sentenced. I pray that
he will show mercy as you decide at her sentence.
Katie herself also spoke and gave a brief statement saying that she was innocent.
But in the end, Judge Dwyer decided that a harsher punishment was necessary due to the excruciating pain that Mary was in in her final hours of life.
And so out of the 25 years that Katie faced, she ended up being sentenced to 23 years.
Not only that, she was also given an additional five years of supervision.
And Katie's story doesn't end there
because since she was sentenced,
she and her new lawyer and her team of supporters
have began to rally around overturning her conviction.
In December of 2020, a Zoom hearing was held
in regards to Katie's first attempt
at appealing her conviction.
However, after several months of deliberation,
the conviction was upheld.
A second attempt to appeal came in September of 2021, but once again, the appeal was denied.
Then most recently, in August of 2022, her attorney filed a motion stating that Katie was
inadequately represented by each of her two previous lawyers. The motion to overturn was sent to
judge Dwyer, and a hearing was scheduled to discuss the motion in July of 2023.
But when that time came, Katie's attorneys changed their focus.
Rather than wait for Judge Dwyer's decision on whether or not her conviction would be overturned,
they asked that he recuse himself completely.
And this will only be a decision that he gets to make, and as of the time I'm recording
this, a decision has not been made.
Right now, Katie is serving her 23-year sentence at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in West
Chester County, New York, and will be eligible for parole in 2037. I have to tell you that covering
this case was extremely difficult. I wanted to make sure I did a fair job for everyone involved.
Honestly, just the sheer sadness that this family has been through is such a tragedy.
And I've spent time reading dozens of comments and threads on the internet about, you know,
what the public thinks when it comes to this case. And it seems everyone's pretty divided.
There are people out there who think that Katie was wrongfully convicted and framed
by people who were closest to her. While there are others who believe that she is guilty
and that this conviction is true justice for what happened to Mary. And I know I say this
every time, but especially with this case, I really want to know what you all think. It's
really hard when a victim's family is split
with what they think. I mean, that makes it just so much more difficult, but I really want to hear
from all of you. So let me know in the comments below, who do you think killed Mary Yoder and why?
Mary had a lot of life ahead of her and was such a loved person. By so many people in her lives and her death
is an absolute tragedy.
I know though that she will be remembered
by all her loved ones and all of her clients
and people in the community as someone who truly loved
what she did gave back when she could
and did her best to be the best person she could
that she was full of life.
And yeah, it's just sad
that that was all taken away from her.
That is going to be it for me today guys. Thank you for joining me for another episode and
make sure you follow the show on Spotify and Apple podcasts. It really does help me out.
If you want to watch the video version of this show you can find it on my YouTube channel which
will be linked or you can just search Kendall Ray.
I will be back with another episode soon, but until then, stay safe out there.