Transcript
VRBO Announcer (0:00)
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Ashley Flowers (0:58)
Hi crime junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers.
Britt (1:01)
And I'm Britt.
Ashley Flowers (1:02)
And the story I have for you today is more like 10 stories in one, with twists and turns and betrayals that sound like they've been ripped from a screenplay. Because it starts in the most ordinary way. A woman goes to work, feels sick, and everyone assumes it's just a bug. But within two days, she's dead. And what initially seems like a medical mystery unravels into a murder investigation. And that divided a family and a community. This is the story of Mary Yoder. In late August 2015, a woman named Janine is taking her mom to a doctor's appointment in central New York, near Utica. This should be a routine visit, but it's anything but. You see, Janine had just suffered a devastating loss. Her sister, Mary Yoder, had died suddenly and unexpectedly just the month before in that very same medical complex. And truly, when I say suddenly, her 60 year old sister went from being totally fine, like Chipper, working a normal day at her chiropractic office, to being violently ill, put in the ICU and having to be revived seven times until her heart finally gave out and she died. All within less than 48 hours.
Britt (2:47)
Did she have heart issues?
Ashley Flowers (2:49)
No. Mary was strong and healthy. The only medical conditions she had were mild asthma and high cholesterol. Nothing that should have caused her death. So you can imagine the trauma that this medical complex holds for Janine and how difficult this appointment is for her. Because not only is she right near where her sister died, but her mom's doctor Actually was the one who was Mary's regular doctor. He had overseen her care when she was hospitalized. So, naturally, at this appointment, Mary comes up. Now, Janine and her mom and siblings were under the impression that Mary died of ascending cholangitis, which is this infection of the bile ducts. But according to Janine, when she mentioned that to the doctor, he looked kind of taken aback, like, confused even. And he told Janine that was never a real diagnosis, just one of the many possibilities tossed out, like earlier, early on, after Mary came in, like when they couldn't figure out what was making her sick or why her heart kept giving out. All they really knew at that point, even when she's coming there to the doctor, is that they didn't know how she died. And they were still waiting for toxicology testing to tell them more. But before Janine left, the doctor asked her something. Where's the husband? The implication feels clear to Janine in that moment and the whole drive home, her mind is just spinning. And that's when something hits her. Bill Yoder, Mary's husband, had her cremated just days after she died, even though no one knew what killed her, and she just can't make sense of things. Bill and Mary's daughter Leanna, who's actually a doctor herself, had been telling family that Mary died of that infection. So she contacts Leanna again, and when she presses her on it, Leanna confirms, no, that is not what killed her. And, yes, she's been cremated. But that was after samples were taken. The toxicology testing that Mary's doctor mentioned was still underway. And as it turns out, that testing was extensive, because from the second that the pathologist, Dr. Kenneth Clark, began Mary's autopsy, he knew something was very wrong. Her organs were discolored, almost like her body had already started decomposing while she was still alive. And under a microscope, her tissue showed signs of a massive toxic attack, as if she had undergone aggressive chemotherapy, which she hadn't, like, ever. So Dr. Clark tests for all the usual poison suspects, right? Like arsenic, cyanide. But when those come back negative, he works with poison control resources, trying to match Mary's symptoms to something in their database. And this stretches on all the way through August and into September. But finally, nearly two months after Mary's death, they figure it out. Mary died from an overdose of colchicine.