Poison Twist

Summary

Dateline NBC – Poison Twist: A Comprehensive Summary

Introduction to the Case

Dateline NBC presents a gripping true-crime story in the episode titled "Poison Twist," released on March 25, 2025. Hosted by Lester Holt and Andrea Canning, the episode delves into the mysterious and tragic death of Dr. Mary Yoder, a respected chiropractor from Whitesboro, New York. The story unravels a decade-long investigation fraught with suspicion, family turmoil, and courtroom drama.

Mary Yoder’s Sudden Illness and Death

The narrative begins on a serene midsummer day in the Mohawk Valley when Mary Yoder, a 60-year-old chiropractor known for her vibrant personality and active lifestyle, suddenly fell gravely ill. On July morning, 2015, Mary was burdened with a full schedule at her clinic. By late afternoon, she was violently sick, experiencing severe vomiting, diarrhea, and intense abdominal pain. Despite a flurry of medical attention, Mary’s condition deteriorated rapidly, leading to her passing away a week later.

Andrea Canning recounts, “Mary was extremely healthy, fit, and beautiful. She ran triathlons” [04:12], highlighting the baffling nature of her sudden decline. Her sisters, Jeanine, Sally, and Sharon, were devastated, grappling with the inexplicable loss of a beloved family member.

Initial Investigation and Family Dynamics

Following Mary’s death, the Yoder family was thrust into a whirlwind of grief and suspicion. Bill Yoder, Mary’s husband, and their children, Tamaran and Leanna, sought answers. Andrea Canning expresses her confusion and disbelief, stating, “60 year old healthy people don’t just drop dead. This can’t be” [07:30]. The initial medical explanation suggested an infection, possibly colitis or ascending cholangitis, but the Yoder family remained unconvinced.

Detective Robert Nelson of the Oneida County Sheriff's Office was brought in to investigate further. The family soon discovered that Mary had been poisoned with colchicine, a drug typically used to treat gout but deadly in high doses.

The Role of Adam Yoder – From Suspect to Invisible Leaf

As the investigation progressed, suspicion initially fell on Adam Yoder, Mary’s son. An anonymous letter surfaced, accusing Adam of poisoning Mary, claiming, “I did it” [24:44]. The letter was discovered in Adam's Jeep, containing a receipt for colchicine linked directly to him. Andrea Canning questioned the plausibility, “If you killed your mother and you got the colchicine, you wouldn’t drive up to the sheriff’s office with the colchicine knowingly in your car” [30:43].

Despite the damning evidence, Adam maintained his innocence. Investigations into his whereabouts revealed that on the day Mary fell ill, Adam was over 300 miles away visiting his sister on Long Island, alibiing his non-involvement. This revelation led the family to question the validity of the accusations against Adam.

Katie Conley and the Anonymous Letter

The plot thickened with the introduction of Katie Conley, Adam’s ex-girlfriend and the office manager at the Yoder chiropractic practice. An unexpected twist emerged when Katie admitted to writing the anonymous letter accusing Adam. During an intense interview, Katie tearfully confessed, “Adam confessed to me. He poisoned his mother with colchicine” [38:39], although she expressed uncertainty about his intent.

Detective Nelson and the investigators shifted their focus to Katie, uncovering her digital footprints related to the purchase of colchicine and prepaid credit cards used to obtain the poison. Forensic evidence, including DNA on the colchicine bottle’s wrapper, implicated Katie further. Andrea Canning vehemently denied Katie’s involvement: “Katie did not do this. No way, Katie” [49:57].

Trial and Conviction

The courtroom became the battleground for this complex case. During Katie Conley’s trial, prosecutors presented a circumstantial case linking her to the murder, highlighting her opportunity and the forensic evidence against her. Andrea Canning testified, asserting her unwavering belief in Katie’s innocence and pointing fingers at Bill Yoder, Mary’s husband, as the possible true culprit.

Despite the prosecution’s efforts, Katie was initially convicted of second-degree murder and manslaughter, receiving a 23-year prison sentence. Andrea expressed a mixture of relief and sorrow: “There is an accountability. Yes, she did not get away with it” [81:18].

Appeals, New Evidence, and Release

However, the story did not end there. Katie’s legal team uncovered critical flaws in the initial investigation and trial, particularly concerning the search warrant used to access her phone. A private toxicologist challenged the timeline of the poisoning, suggesting Mary could have been poisoned up to 16 hours earlier than initially thought, broadening the scope of potential suspects.

In December 2024, the New York State Appellate Court granted Katie a new trial, dismissing the original indictment due to substantial procedural errors. Andrea Canning and other family members were stunned by the reversal, but they remained steadfast in their belief that Bill Yoder was the real perpetrator.

After seven years in prison, Katie Conley was released on February 5, 2032. Despite her release, the case left lingering questions about Mary Yoder’s true killer and the profound impact on the Yoder family.

Continuing Uncertainties and Conclusion

Poison Twist concludes with unresolved tensions within the Yoder family and the broader community. Andrea Canning remains convinced of her father Bill’s guilt, while the legal and investigative avenues continue to explore other suspects. The episode underscores the challenges of achieving true justice in complex, emotionally charged cases where evidence is circumstantial and family loyalties are tested.

Andrea poignantly reflects, “The world is not as wonderful a place as it was. Mary loved life more than anyone else I ever knew” [89:32], emphasizing the enduring legacy of Mary Yoder amidst the ongoing quest for truth and closure.

Notable Quotes

• Andrea Canning on Mary's Health: “Mary was extremely healthy, fit, and beautiful. She ran triathlons.” [04:12]
• Andrea Canning on Sudden Death: “60 year old healthy people don’t just drop dead. This can’t be.” [07:30]
• Andrea Canning on Adam’s Innocence: “Katie did not do this. No way, Katie.” [49:57]
• Andrea Canning on Family Beliefs: “We all called them and said, look, we hear there’s another suspect. If by chance that other suspect is Katie, please consider the possibility that she may be being framed.” [50:02]
• Andrea Canning on Mary’s Legacy: “Mary loved life more than anyone else I ever knew.” [89:32]

Conclusion

"Poison Twist" is a compelling episode that highlights the intricate dynamics of familial bonds, the complexities of legal investigations, and the elusive nature of truth in true-crime storytelling. Through meticulous investigation and emotional testimony, Dateline NBC invites listeners to ponder the depths of human motives and the relentless pursuit of justice.

Transcript

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[Andrea Canning]

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[Lester Holt]

I had no other option to do something. Catch up with families, friends and investigators on our bonus series after the Verdict. Ordinary people facing extraordinary circumstances with strength and courage.

[Andrea Canning]

It does just change your life. But speaking up for these issues helps me keep going.

[Lester Holt]

To listen to after the Verdict, subscribe to DATELINE Premium on Apple Podcasts, Spotify [e-mail] Tonight on Dateline, a stunning new ending in a deadly case of poison.

[Andrea Canning]

It didn't seem like it could be real. Like, how would this happen to me? People aren't waiting for facts to come out. I'm innocent and people want me to be guilty.

[Adam Yoder]

Mary was a chiropractor, very social, very active.

[Andrea Canning]

Healthy people don't just drop dead. Nobody, nobody could do anything.

[Adam Yoder]

Did somebody deliberately give this to Mary? Did somebody poison Mary?

[Andrea Canning]

So many things start gelling to make us suspicious. The poison is found in Adam Yoder's Jeep.

[Adam Yoder]

They'd ask me flat out, do you.

[Andrea Canning]

Think Adam could have killed his mother?

[Adam Yoder]

You always look at the husband.

[Andrea Canning]

They had found Bill to be with another woman. They were sure my father had done this. My wife is Pokemon. They're interrogating her for murder. If you could have seen what they.

[Lester Holt]

Put that girl through, why would she want Mary?

[Andrea Canning]

No explanation. She had a great relationship with Mary. Maybe this isn't the slam dunk case.

[Lester Holt]

That some people think it is. Who killed the chiropractor?

[Andrea Canning]

A dash of poison and a dramatic new twist.

[Lester Holt]

I'm Lester Holt, and this is dateline. Here's Andrea Canning with Poison Twist. It was early afternoon on a Tuesday in central New York's scenic Mohawk Valley. That's where a woman who cherished life and family lived on that midsummer day. She dropped by her sister Janine's house.

[Andrea Canning]

Well, she showed up at my house. I was really surprised. Mary and I would get together periodically, but never did she ever just pop in.

[Lester Holt]

Mary, who lived nearby, was a chiropractor, loving wife and mother of three. It seemed Mary had something to confide that day, something to share.

[Andrea Canning]

I had the impression she wanted to talk, but it was a time that I would usually be home Alone, working. But it just so happened my husband and son were there at the same time. I said, you know, I can take a little time off from work. You want to come upstairs, we'll have a cup of tea? And she said, no, no, I gotta go.

[Lester Holt]

And so Mary left. If she had a secret to share, her sister Jeanine would never hear it, because a week later, Mary Yoder was dead.

[Andrea Canning]

I got a frantic call from my sister telling me, did you hear about Mary? Did you hear about Mary?

[Lester Holt]

Soon, a murder investigation was underway, one that would tear a family apart. Why do you think there's such discrepancy between you two and your aunts?

[Andrea Canning]

They've never sat down and listened to the evidence. It's very hard to sit here and bite my tongue when I know that there's so much more going on than people are aware of.

[Lester Holt]

Then, just last month, a new ruling and new questions.

[Andrea Canning]

Maybe this isn't the slam dunk case that some people think it is.

[Lester Holt]

It was a July morning in 2015. Dr. Mary Yoder's Day began with a full schedule here at her Clinic in Whitesboro, New York. At 60 years old, the respected chiropractor was the picture of health.

[Andrea Canning]

She was extremely healthy, fit, and beautiful. She ran trieth one triathlons.

[Lester Holt]

Jeanine and her sisters Sally and Sharon say Mary was the shining light of the family. What was she like as a sister?

[Andrea Canning]

Loving, a darling. She was always upbeat and full of fun.

[Lester Holt]

But as that busy day in July wore on, Mary began to feel sick. By late afternoon, she had grown violently ill. And the next morning, Mary's husband Bill reached out to their daughters, Tamaran and Leanna, who was a doctor.

[Andrea Canning]

He's like, mom, you know, she was up all night with vomiting and diarrhea and abdominal pain, and she's just kind of list. I don't know if she's just tired. So he took her right to the hospital. That day, Tamarin called me, Mary's daughter.

[Lester Holt]

And told you Mary was sick?

[Andrea Canning]

Yes. She said, mary's in the hospital. And she was desperate on the phone. And I was like, well, Mary's the healthiest woman I know. It's got to be. I just said, tamron, everything will be fine. Everything will be fine.

[Lester Holt]

Doctors thought there was a possible infection.

[Andrea Canning]

And her CAT scan had showed some inflammation and possibly around the pancreas area, but they really weren't sure. And so it was just like, oh, okay, she has an infection of the gallbladder. Her having an infection or a sickness was not anything that would cause Serious concern, but okay, well, everybody gets this once in a while. She'll get the antibiotics or whatever if she needs them, and she'll be fine.

[Lester Holt]

Mary was anything but fine. By the time family members arrived at the hospital, she was fighting for her life.

[Andrea Canning]

We went to the hospital, and it was crazy. They had no idea what was wrong.

[Lester Holt]

Tamron was in the room as her mother began to code.

[Andrea Canning]

Every time her heart would stop and they would revive her, she would come back and she would be responsive again. And she was intubated, but she could still mouth I love you around it. They had everybody there trying to figure out what was happening. And nobody, nobody could do anything. They brought in so many specialists, they had no idea, you know, they just couldn't figure out what was wrong with this woman.

[Lester Holt]

This is a medical mystery.

[Andrea Canning]

Yeah.

[Lester Holt]

No one, no doctor is coming out and telling you, here's what she has, here's what power, what we're doing about it. Down in Florida, Mary's sister Sharon, a nurse, was getting updates.

[Andrea Canning]

Jeanine said that she had coded three times. And I just knew that wasn't good. So I called my husband, who has more experience working in the hospital than I do, and he said, you need to be prepared. This isn't good.

[Lester Holt]

The family kept vigil in the waiting room. Then came the awful news.

[Andrea Canning]

Jeanine ended up telling me, calling me and saying, sharon, she's gone. And I just remember, like, screaming and banging on the steering wheel. And I said, Jeanine, 60 year old healthy people don't just drop dead. This can't be. Yeah, it was. Yes. It just can't be true. I don't think you feel at that moment it really is just a shock. Yeah. I remember at the time saying, I don't understand this. If there had been a car accident or something, that I could understand, but I don't understand how healthy what happened for her body to just shut down because it made no sense at all.

[Lester Holt]

What killed Mary Yoder? Perhaps the real question was who?

[Andrea Canning]

From the moment Mary died, in our gut, we felt something's not right. We said, we'll do anything. We just want the truth.

[Adam Yoder]

Did somebody poison Mary? Did somebody deliberately give this to Mary?

[Andrea Canning]

Never, ever in your wildest dreams would you think that this would happen.

[Lester Holt]

A case that spanned nearly a decade, an unlikely suspect, two trials, and now a new day in court.

[Andrea Canning]

It all just really came out of the blue. I was like, holy cow.

[Lester Holt]

Mary Yoder's death was a sudden and devastating blow to her family.

[Andrea Canning]

I spoke with the medical examiner's office And I spoke with one of the doctors, and they said they were going to be doing the autopsy the following morning. At that point, the only things that we had that we were trying to use to kind of piece together was there was an infection of some kind. This was a very brutal death. Very, very.

[Lester Holt]

Mary was active. She was an avid gardener and a musician. Here she is singing a duet with her sister Sal. Her sisters say she was game for almost anything, even this. Oh, belly dancing.

[Andrea Canning]

We costumed and choreographed a dance for a local havla, which. It's an Egyptian dance. Yeah.

[Lester Holt]

Mary grew up in upstate New York in a family of six sisters and two brothers. While in college in Buffalo, she met her soulmate husband, Bill Yoder.

[Andrea Canning]

They chose to pursue holistic living and healthy lifestyle, spiritual growth.

[Lester Holt]

Bill and Mary both became chiropractors, opened a clinic together, and eventually started a family. Leanna is the oldest. Tamarin is the younger sister.

[Andrea Canning]

Two years later, I came along. And then 10 years after me, Adam came. Yeah.

[Lester Holt]

Tell us about Adam. What was it like having a little brother?

[Andrea Canning]

We adored him. Yeah. And he was ours. I mean, we. We cuddled him. We held him.

[Lester Holt]

After high school, Adam helped out at the family business. Then his girlfriend Katie took his place's office manager.

[Andrea Canning]

I would schedule patients and greet them.

[Lester Holt]

Katie says she had a particularly strong bond with Mary, considered her a mentor and a friend.

[Andrea Canning]

You couldn't help but to like her.

[Lester Holt]

Did you feel inspired by her at all?

[Andrea Canning]

Yes, I did. She always kept such a positive outlook, no matter what was going on or what was happening in her day, and that was really encouraging.

[Lester Holt]

Mary was a big believer in herbal supplements and often recommended them to her patients.

[Andrea Canning]

She was always trying to encourage people to live a better life.

[Lester Holt]

In 2015, after 30 years in the business, Mary was thinking about slowing down, but then she was gone. How did you get the news that Mary had died?

[Andrea Canning]

I heard from her sister. It was completely shocking. It was surreal, because how could this person who was so full of energy and so vibrant, just be gone so suddenly?

[Lester Holt]

A few days after Mary died, daughter Leona, the physician got a call from the medical examiner.

[Andrea Canning]

And he said, based on the severity of how quickly this illness hit her and the fact that it looked like it was an infectious cause, with the high white blood cell count and her gallbladder being inflamed, we think it's something called colitis or ascending cholangitis.

[Lester Holt]

And this is what you told your aunts?

[Andrea Canning]

This is what I.

[Lester Holt]

That you believed?

[Andrea Canning]

Yeah, exactly.

[Lester Holt]

The most you had to go on.

[Andrea Canning]

At that point, that was the most we had.

[Lester Holt]

Mary's sister, Sharon, the nurse, questioned the explanation.

[Andrea Canning]

I said, it makes no sense to me. But she told us that. So we accepted it. And it wasn't easy because we didn't understand it.

[Lester Holt]

She requested that the medical examiner do additional tests.

[Andrea Canning]

She did say that they are going to do the toxicology test that you asked for. I said, thank you.

[Lester Holt]

While the family waited for those results, Jeanine ran into one of Mary's doctors who made a stunning revelation. He didn't think Mary died of colitis. He said what killed her was still a mystery.

[Andrea Canning]

He goes, we have no idea how she died. He said, so many specialists were called in. We'd never seen anything like this in all of our years of practicing.

[Lester Holt]

You had no idea about any of this?

[Andrea Canning]

No, no. And so that's just so many things start gelling to make us suspicious. We always, from the moment Mary died, in our gut, we felt, something's not right.

[Lester Holt]

But identifying Mary's cause of death was proving difficult. The medical examiner sought the opinion of Dr. Gina Marafa at the Upstate New York Poison Center.

[Andrea Canning]

And that was really what they came to me with. Is there anything that you could think of that we could test for?

[Lester Holt]

It was a roll of the dice, but Dr. Marafa suggested checking for a drug called colchicine, normally used to treat gout, a form of arthritis. In a high enough dose, it becomes toxic.

[Andrea Canning]

And that toxic dose can result in anything from significant severe side effects to fatality. Her symptoms really led me down the line of thinking that colchicine was very high on my list as potential causes.

[Lester Holt]

Dr. Marafa's hunch was right. The M.E. called Mary's daughter Leona.

[Andrea Canning]

He's like, okay, we did get a cause of death back. It's colchicine. I said, what? He's like? He repeated, it's colchicine. I'm like, the gout medication. I was completely confused. I mean, the only capacity that I knew that was as a short term acute treatment for gout, which we knew our mother didn't have. I was like, what? Well, how did she get it? And she didn't know. So I said, so she was poisoned then? And she said, well, we have to find out how it got in into her system.

[Lester Holt]

Where's your mind going now? Are you thinking foul play?

[Andrea Canning]

I was the first one to take that leap. I was the first one. I was just getting all these bits and pieces of information and it was not making sense.

[Lester Holt]

Three months after Mary's death, Sharon decided to contact the Police Lieutenant Robert Nelson, now retired, was a detective with the Oneida County Sheriff's Office.

[Adam Yoder]

She asked if we would get involved in the investigation to determine how Mary got to in her system.

[Lester Holt]

Do you feel that this is something that would fall under your purview?

[Adam Yoder]

Yes. At this point, we're like, well, we need to get a hold of the ME's office to see exactly what they have. What did they rule as the cause of death?

[Lester Holt]

The detective learned there was nothing in Mary's medical history to explain why she'd be taking colchicine. Why would she have this poison, this.

[Adam Yoder]

Drug in her system that they didn't know? That's when they started looking at different things. She took all these supplements. They looked at supplement contamination.

[Lester Holt]

Anything there?

[Adam Yoder]

Never. We finally got the test back from there and nothing from there.

[Lester Holt]

Negative.

[Adam Yoder]

Negative.

[Lester Holt]

How much colchicine do you have to ingest for it to be deadly?

[Adam Yoder]

If you're talking gout medicine, it's like you'd have to take anywhere from 40 to 60 pills, depending on your size. You'd have to take it all at once to be a lethal dose.

[Lester Holt]

The notion that Mary intentionally took an excessive number of pills seemed impossible.

[Adam Yoder]

We talked to the family. We start talking to people we don't believe it's suicide.

[Lester Holt]

That left one other scenario, a chilling one.

[Adam Yoder]

Did somebody poison Mary? Did somebody deliberately give this to Mary? We sat down with the ME's office and went through everything, all their. The autopsy. At that point, we were looking at it as a homicide.

[Lester Holt]

Now began the hunt for a killer. And some of Mary's sisters thought they knew where investigators should be looking.

[Andrea Canning]

They had in fact, found Bill to be with another woman.

[Lester Holt]

It was late past midnight when they.

[Andrea Canning]

Broke into the farmhouse. Never in a million years would you think that you'd see your parents house taped off by that yellow tape and they said, you know, I'm dead. At being killed, they left behind a wall of blood and a clue that.

[Lester Holt]

Took a case of double murder on a long, strange trip.

[Andrea Canning]

She looked at me and she said, I'm screwed. Murder in the Moonlight, a new podcast from Dateline.

[Lester Holt]

All episodes of Murder in the moonlight are available now. To listen ad free, subscribe to Dateline Premium on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Dateline premium.com Every morning we choose how to begin our day.

[Andrea Canning]

This is today.

[Lester Holt]

I think about the people at home. They tune in because they are curious. They care about their world and they care about each other.

[Adam Yoder]

There's always something new to learn, whether.

[Andrea Canning]

A news event or a new recipe. And when we step through the morning.

[Lester Holt]

Together, it makes the rest of the day better. We come here to make the most of today. We are family. We are today. Watch the Today show with Savannah Guthrie and Craig Melvin, weekdays at 7am on NBC. Five immersive worlds, one amazing theme. Mark get ready to explore the all new Universal Epic Universe featuring the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, Ministry of Magic, Super Nintendo World, how to Train youn Dragon, Isle of Berk and Dark Universe. Epic Universe opens May 22 at Universal Orlando Resort. Our universe will never be the same. Tickets and packages on sale [e-mail] Months after Mary Yoder's death, investigators told the family they were convinced Mary had been murdered. What is that moment like when your mom is now, why a murderer?

[Andrea Canning]

There isn't even words for it. Your world flips upside down and nothing makes sense. And up isn't down and down isn't up anymore. So that was terrifying.

[Lester Holt]

And Mary's daughters believed their mother hadn't just been killed, she'd practically been tortured.

[Andrea Canning]

Colchicine, one of the hallmarks of stops your heart. It breaks it and it breaks it over and over and over again.

[Lester Holt]

There were actually a couple of TV shows that kind of echoed this case.

[Adam Yoder]

Yes, there was the TV show House, which had colchicine.

[Andrea Canning]

Colchicine does its damage in a very specific order.

[Lester Holt]

But this is real life now.

[Adam Yoder]

Yes. Did a patient come in that day and do something that we don't know about? Did they give Mary, you know, something to eat?

[Lester Holt]

Any obvious suspects, potential suspects? No, not at first, but Detective Nelson had to start somewhere. What about the person closest to Mary? Her husband. What was it that was leading you in Bill's direction at this point?

[Adam Yoder]

Basically, just because he was the husband. In these types of cases, it always seems to be the spouse is the one responsible if it's a poisoning case.

[Lester Holt]

Katie Conley was the office manager. She worked for both Bill and Mary. Mary ran the practice with her husband, Bill. Yes, it definitely sounds like Mary was the popular doctor in the office.

[Andrea Canning]

People did prefer her.

[Lester Holt]

Mary's sisters had known Bill for decades. If there were problems in the marriage, was Mary the type to share with her sisters?

[Andrea Canning]

She would talk about frustration in certain situations, but she tried very hard never to say anything negative about Bill. Yeah, she always put a positive spin on anything if she could.

[Lester Holt]

Still, her sisters never forgot a story Mary told them. It happened before her wedding, 38 years earlier.

[Andrea Canning]

They're out in my parents yard and Bill says to her, you know, this is to be an open Marriage, Right. And she was taken aback. She said to me, I had the strength to tell him, no, Bill, we're going to have to not get married, you know, if you can't commit to monogamy.

[Lester Holt]

He backed down.

[Andrea Canning]

Yeah. He came back and said, okay, I've thought about it and I can come in.

[Lester Holt]

But did he? It was no secret that in the years that followed, Bill would often disappear on weekends.

[Andrea Canning]

He'd take night trips to Albany, weekends to be by himself. He said to write.

[Lester Holt]

Jeanine kept wondering about that day. Mary dropped by her house out of the blue. Did she want to tell her something about her marriage?

[Andrea Canning]

I think she wanted to talk or she wanted to open up the door, you know, for us to start talking about something.

[Lester Holt]

And right after Mary died, she and her sisters were surprised that Bill didn't seem as distraught as they were.

[Andrea Canning]

Well, some of the things that we weren't comfortable with was that they didn't know what she died of exactly. But he had her cremated very quickly. He had her phone turned off very quickly.

[Lester Holt]

Too quickly.

[Andrea Canning]

Yeah, too quickly.

[Lester Holt]

Still, the sisters say the marriage looked pretty solid in recent years.

[Andrea Canning]

Our brother in law seemingly became a really good husband. You know, he was helpful in ways, letting her do things she wanted to do. I was just thinking, well, gee, Bill has really come a long way.

[Lester Holt]

And certainly no one wanted to believe that Mary's own husband would harm her.

[Andrea Canning]

When I was interviewed, I was not ready to say that I suspect my brother in law because I really had no real evidence. And I felt in all fairness to another human being, I'm not going to accuse him of something without evidence.

[Lester Holt]

Any fair minded detective would need that evidence too. Along with a clear idea of a motive. Did Bill stand to inherit everything that was Mary's? Everything in the marriage?

[Adam Yoder]

They had the business together, but there was no large sums of money that Bill would have gotten of Mary's death.

[Lester Holt]

Detectives told Mary's daughters not to talk about the investigation, especially not to their father.

[Andrea Canning]

Well, we weren't letting him in on the fact that we had been talking with the investigators.

[Lester Holt]

How did you take that knowing that the police were looking at your dad?

[Andrea Canning]

It was terrifying. Yep. But we didn't understand because there was nothing in their relationship that indicated that there was any trouble.

[Lester Holt]

Did you think it was possible?

[Andrea Canning]

Just we didn't know if our father was involved. We didn't know if it was a complete stranger. We had absolutely no idea.

[Lester Holt]

It had taken months for authorities to get involved in the case. And now that they believed it was a homicide, detectives Decided to quietly keep tabs on the husband. After a few weeks of surveillance, they called bill for an interview.

[Adam Yoder]

Bill's not an emotional person, so he didn't seem very upset. You know, he wasn't very outgoing in his emotions. So that was a concern. When we first brought him in and talked to him, we're like, he should be more upset.

[Lester Holt]

He's not shedding any tears or.

[Adam Yoder]

Well, we're not speaking to Bill till five months later.

[Lester Holt]

After Mary's death, Bill spoke to them for five hours, and he gave investigators permission to search the couple's chiropractic business, where deputies collected computers, a typewriter, and a fax machine.

[Adam Yoder]

He signed a consent. We went to the office, and he was very helpful. I mean, he was very forthcoming. He gave us everything we asked for.

[Lester Holt]

And they had a lot of questions for bill at the top of the list, Something they'd learned while they were tracking him. It turns out Bill was already dating again. In fact, it was Mary's mother who.

[Andrea Canning]

First called it shortly after Mary died. And my mother said, why is he always going out of town? And I said, I don't know, mom, maybe he needs some time or whatever. And she says, I think he's got a girlfriend. This is coming from 92 year old woman, 92. And she goes, I'm not feeling right about this.

[Lester Holt]

Detective nelson was the one to tell Sharon their mom was right.

[Andrea Canning]

He told me that they had, in fact, found Bill to be with another woman.

[Lester Holt]

Did he tell you who the other woman was?

[Andrea Canning]

No, he did not.

[Lester Holt]

As the detective took a deeper dive into Bill's relationship, A new lead surfaced, and it would change everything. You might have a smoking gun here.

[Adam Yoder]

Yes, There was a lot of detail in that letter.

[Lester Holt]

Detective Robert nelson was working Mary yoder's homicide when he learned that her husband Bill, had a girlfriend.

[Adam Yoder]

We begin to wonder, was there a relationship beforehand?

[Lester Holt]

Why is it important to determine now if this relationship started before Mary's death?

[Adam Yoder]

If it was before Mary's death, obviously, that would have been a motive. Then we would have had to say, well, bill now has a motive for this.

[Lester Holt]

That's kind of a big deal.

[Adam Yoder]

Yes. And that came up. That was an obvious red flag, and we were very concerned about it.

[Lester Holt]

Then an unexpected clue landed on the detective's desk, and it pointed the investigation in a whole new direction. It was an anonymous letter.

[Adam Yoder]

I received the letter stating that Adam did this, he was responsible. He told this person that he did it.

[Lester Holt]

Adam was Adam yoder, Marion Bill's son. The letter said he was the killer, the person who penned the letter claimed to be close to Adam, writing, he got a bottle of colchicine off online and put the toxin in one of her vitamins. When he was over at his parents house with a jolt, the letter dramatically shifted the focus of the investigation from father to son. You might have a smoking gun here.

[Andrea Canning]

Yes.

[Adam Yoder]

There was a lot of detail in that letter.

[Lester Holt]

Did Adam have any criminal history?

[Adam Yoder]

No, we didn't have anything on Adam.

[Lester Holt]

Adam was in his mid-20s, the youngest of the Yoder children. He had worked in the family practice as the office manager before he passed that job off to his girlfriend Katie. Katie's parents, Vin and Kathy, knew him well.

[Andrea Canning]

When he was dating our daughter, he would come to the house every day.

[Lester Holt]

And how did you feel about the relationship?

[Andrea Canning]

There was always something off, something we didn't care for. With Adam, he was kind of off, detached. We'd eat dinner as a family and Adam would sit across the me and he wouldn't make eye contact with you and he wouldn't really talk. The communication stopped a little bit between myself and him.

[Lester Holt]

Did you at any point feel like maybe I should say something or did you totally stay out of it?

[Andrea Canning]

No. We did mention to Katie that we didn't think there was something different with Adam and we didn't really feel comfortable about it. Her sisters also recognized that fact too.

[Lester Holt]

Shannon and Sarah Conley are Katie's twin sisters.

[Andrea Canning]

Things were good, it seemed good and we want her to be happy and she seemed happy. And then when things started to go a little south, I think she kind of realized it too, that it wasn't a healthy relationship to be in. So she kind of separated or tried to separate herself from it as much as as she could.

[Lester Holt]

Katie and Adam broke up and got back together a few times over three years.

[Andrea Canning]

Katie just had enough of him being up, being down, being up, being down. And just some of the things he would say just weren't right.

[Lester Holt]

Did Adam have any issues with his mom that you know of?

[Andrea Canning]

I know they definitely were not as close as our family was. He would just kind of talk down about his family. I was like, I don't get it. Like, I've met your mother, she's great.

[Lester Holt]

If there was any truth to the letter, what motive would Adam have? The letter itself seemed to have an answer. Why did it say he didn't?

[Adam Yoder]

He thought he'd gained financially if his mother passed away. He thought he'd have a financial gain. Also that there was arguments between him and his parents, that he was upset with his mother. So it listed that as two of the reasonings.

[Lester Holt]

And the letter told authorities something else. The colchicine container is under the front seat, passenger side of his Jeep until he figures out where to dispose of it next. What's your strategy going in with Adam?

[Adam Yoder]

We sat down, we talked as to how we want to go about with Adam. We said, let's bring him up here. If he comes up in his vehicle, the letter says the colchicine is in the vehicle. We'll talk to Adam. We'll see if he comes up here with the colchicine.

[Lester Holt]

Was this a bit of a test to see if Adam would show up in the Jeep?

[Adam Yoder]

Yes.

[Lester Holt]

And when Adam arrived to talk to the detectives, he was driving the Jeep in question.

[Adam Yoder]

We were trying to get a feel for Adam at that point to see, you know, is he responsible for his mother's death. So we spoke to him. We then showed him parts of the letter that said where this colchicine would be, in which he was taken back.

[Lester Holt]

What was his demeanor over that letter?

[Adam Yoder]

Shocked.

[Lester Holt]

Did you feel his reaction was genuine?

[Adam Yoder]

Yes, but we still had some concerns also by his reactions.

[Lester Holt]

In what way?

[Adam Yoder]

He was just hesitant to let us go look in his vehicle.

[Lester Holt]

Well, one detective talked to Adam. Another called his sister Leanna.

[Andrea Canning]

They're like, we actually have a letter. What do you mean you have a letter? Well, the letter is actually pointing the finger at your brother, and it says that he's got this in his car. And the poison. The poison in his car and his. What do you mean you have a letter that says my brother did it? They said, no, it's important. We gotta look in your brother's car. You gotta convince him to let us, you know, if you can talk to him, let him know, because if he leaves the station, this isn't gonna be good.

[Lester Holt]

Adam eventually gave investigators permission, and they went outside to the parking lot. Moment of truth. You've opened the vehicle door, and what do you find inside?

[Adam Yoder]

They go out there and they search the vehicle right where it says it's going to be in the letter. And we pull out a cardboard sleeve with the colchicine inside the sleeve.

[Lester Holt]

And just like that, the detectives seem to have the weapon right in his hand. That's your big moment in this case.

[Adam Yoder]

A big moment.

[Lester Holt]

The anonymous letter had been right. The colchicine used to kill Mary Yoder was under the front passenger seat of her son Adam's Jeep. It was a pure form of the drug, far more potent than what doctors prescribe. And Adam, what's His reaction, I think.

[Adam Yoder]

He was shocked at that point when he saw us pull that out.

[Lester Holt]

The poison is in his Jeep?

[Adam Yoder]

Yes.

[Lester Holt]

What's more, in the Jeep, along with the colchicine, there was a receipt for the drug. And on the receipt, they had an email address.

[Adam Yoder]

It also had Adam's name on there. And from there, the Mr. Adam Yoder 1990 Gmail account, which was very important to us, was listed on there.

[Lester Holt]

Adam said he'd never seen the colchicine before in his life. Someone must have planted it in that moment. What are you thinking at that moment?

[Adam Yoder]

We're thinking, would he bring the poison up here with him? I mean, it doesn't make sense. If you killed your mother and you got the colchicine, you wouldn't drive up to the sheriff's office with the colchicine knowingly in your car. You would get rid of it. But again, you have an honest letter saying he admitted to doing it and that the colchicine would be in his car. So you kind of have a split reaction as to which way are we looking at it.

[Lester Holt]

Could Adam really have poisoned his mother? When they looked into his whereabouts on the day Mary got sick, they discover Adam was. Was more than 300 miles away, visiting his sister on Long Island.

[Andrea Canning]

I knew at the time my mom got sick, he was with me, and I couldn't understand. Wait, how would he have been involved? My mother was my brother's biggest supporter. He turned to her first for everything the thought, them trying to say that he did. This didn't make sense.

[Lester Holt]

It didn't entirely make sense to detectives either. You let Adam go?

[Adam Yoder]

Yes.

[Lester Holt]

But I would imagine you're not crossing Adam off your list yet.

[Adam Yoder]

No, we were comfortable enough to let him go, but we didn't say absolutely he had nothing to do with it.

[Lester Holt]

The investigation led them to talk to Adam's cousin and roommate, David King. He's the son of Mary's sister, Janine. David told them that after Mary died, Adam was enrolled in college, but his life seemed to be falling apart.

[Andrea Canning]

He slowly started dropping all of his.

[Adam Yoder]

Classes, and he was pretty much staying.

[Andrea Canning]

In bed all day and drinking a lot.

[Lester Holt]

Were you really concerned about him?

[Andrea Canning]

I was. He had expressed to me that he was suicidal a couple of times, which was very concerning.

[Lester Holt]

It was only when detectives were interviewing David that he realized Adam was a person of interest in Mary's death. Did that just floor you?

[Andrea Canning]

I was absolutely floored. And at that time, they had asked me flat out, do you think Adam could have killed his mother?

[Lester Holt]

What did you Tell them at the time.

[Andrea Canning]

I said, no, I don't think he would.

[Lester Holt]

At the time. At the time, David would later wonder if his cousin's behavior was the result of grief or guilt. Adam's sisters, on the other hand, had no doubt Adam was innocent. They were convinced he was being framed. Who did you think could have framed him?

[Andrea Canning]

At that point? A possibility was my father.

[Lester Holt]

So you actually believed your father might have framed your brother?

[Andrea Canning]

It was very possible. The investigators were leaning very heavy onto it and pretty much telling us, without coming out right out and saying it, that they were sure my father had done this.

[Lester Holt]

It was impossible to wrap their heads around.

[Andrea Canning]

This can't be real. This can't really be happening. We had to reality check with each other because you're like, did it happen or did it not happen? Is this a dream? What's going on? You feel like all of a sudden somebody dropped you in the middle of hell and you can't find your way out. And every time you get an answer, it's worse.

[Lester Holt]

But detectives didn't have enough evidence to prove any of their theories.

[Adam Yoder]

It was frustrating. I mean, there was a lot of nights we were frustrated by this case. We looked at Adam, but yet nothing else was pointing the finger at Adam. It just wasn't fitting. And the same with Bill. We'd want to say, okay, Bill did this, but why did Bill do it?

[Lester Holt]

One possible motive. That new relationship. Bill began so soon after Mary's death. Had it actually started while she was still alive? In his police interview, Bill denied cheating on Mary. He said the relationship began after she died. And when detectives looked into his phone records, they seem to confirm it.

[Adam Yoder]

We were able to verify all this information that he wasn't having phone conversations, text messages with her prior to Mary's death.

[Lester Holt]

Looking for new insight, detectives turned to someone outside the Yoder clan. Katie, who dated Adam and worked for Bill and Mary.

[Adam Yoder]

He just wanted to speak to her to see if she knew anything about Bill, about Mary, other than, you know, outside of the office.

[Lester Holt]

Often, employees are the ones who to hear and see a lot. Katie was in the middle of final exams at college, but made time to come in for an interview. Did you wonder why?

[Andrea Canning]

I wondered what had started an investigation, and I wanted to help in whatever way I could. I just didn't know what they were getting at.

[Lester Holt]

Detectives thought Katie could tell them a lot about Mary and Bill.

[Andrea Canning]

They were alike night and day.

[Lester Holt]

In what way?

[Andrea Canning]

Mary was very outgoing and very vibrant, and Bill was more reserved. He was more about the business and less about being friendly with patients.

[Lester Holt]

She, of course, knew a lot about Adam, too. Things weren't perfect between Adam and Katie.

[Adam Yoder]

No.

[Lester Holt]

But they clearly had something because they kept going back to each other.

[Andrea Canning]

Yes.

[Adam Yoder]

They would talk on and on and off. They would text each other. They would get bad together. Then they would break up again.

[Lester Holt]

Did they have a lot of questions?

[Andrea Canning]

They did.

[Lester Holt]

Investigators talked to Katie three times over the next few days. By the third interview, she started telling them the same thing. Adam's cousin had said Adam hadn't been himself lately.

[Adam Yoder]

She makes some comments about Adam's acting strangely and isn't acting right.

[Lester Holt]

She worried about Adam, that maybe Adam had something to do with this.

[Adam Yoder]

Yes. She's kind of hinting that, you know, the way Adam is acting, that he may be responsible for his mother's death.

[Lester Holt]

As detectives listen to Katie talk about Adam, her ex, they wondered where this was going. A light bulb went off for investigators.

[Adam Yoder]

He took a shot and said, did you write the letter?

[Lester Holt]

And what did she say? She said, yes, they had found the person who wrote that letter pointing the finger at Adam. But the discovery was about to point them in a direction. That's a twist.

[Adam Yoder]

Yes.

[Lester Holt]

Now they had the final answer.

[Andrea Canning]

Or did they?

[Lester Holt]

Nothing has more suspense than a Dateline mystery. And no one wants to wait to find out what happens next. That's why everyone needs Dateline Premium, where listening is always ad free. You get the whole story and nothing but the story. Or do you? Yes, actually, you do.

[Adam Yoder]

Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or.

[Lester Holt]

Dateline premium.com hey, guys, Willie Geist here reminding you to check out the Sunday Sit down podcast. On this week's episode, I get together with Eva Longoria to talk about her rise from the small Texas ranch where.

[Andrea Canning]

She grew up to the heights of Hollywood as an actress, producer, director, and philanthropist.

[Lester Holt]

You can get our conversation now for.

[Adam Yoder]

Free wherever you download your podcasts.

[Andrea Canning]

Hey, everybody.

[Lester Holt]

I'm Al Roker from the Today show. Let's kickstart your wellness journey with the all new Start Today app.

[Andrea Canning]

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[Lester Holt]

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[Andrea Canning]

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[Lester Holt]

That are easy and delicious and so much more. It's built to fit your lifestyle and our experts will guide you every step of the way. Come on, let's do this. To subscribe, download. Start today from the App store on your Apple device now.

[Adam Yoder]

Terms apply.

[Lester Holt]

Cancel anytime through Apple under profile settings. Detectives had been trying to figure out who wrote that anonymous letter. Point pointing the finger at Mary Yoder's son Adam as the killer. Now, Katie, Adam's ex girlfriend, admitted it was her. They started recording the interview.

[Andrea Canning]

Are you okay? Yeah. I'm sorry. I'm scared. What? I'm scared.

[Lester Holt]

I understand that.

[Andrea Canning]

Look, I'm gonna be in here with you, okay?

[Adam Yoder]

And together we're gonna get through talking about this.

[Lester Holt]

Through tears, Katie went over the details in the letter. She said Adam confessed to her. He poisoned his mother with colchicine.

[Andrea Canning]

He had it shipped to the office.

[Lester Holt]

In the letter, she said Adam hid the poison in one of Mary's vitamin pills. But Katie wasn't sure if he really meant to kill his mother.

[Andrea Canning]

You said it may have been an accident.

[Adam Yoder]

Did you.

[Andrea Canning]

Did he express that he didn't mean to do this to you? Well, he said he regretted it. He regretted it.

[Lester Holt]

As for how she knew where Adam had stashed the poison, Katie said he told her when she was literally sitting on top of it.

[Andrea Canning]

You were in Adam's Jeep, right?

[Lester Holt]

He told you that he put the.

[Adam Yoder]

Colchicine under your seat.

[Andrea Canning]

Under his seat? Under my seat? Under your seat. He told you that?

[Lester Holt]

Katie and Adam had been friends since high school. But now she told the detectives she didn't know what he was capable of.

[Andrea Canning]

You think Adam's gonna do this again? Do I think he could do it again?

[Lester Holt]

She said she didn't report Adam sooner for one simple reason. She was afraid of him.

[Andrea Canning]

I know. You can't protect me.

[Adam Yoder]

We can protect you.

[Andrea Canning]

You can't protect me. Protect you from what?

[Adam Yoder]

Adam?

[Andrea Canning]

Yeah.

[Adam Yoder]

If you're saying Adam's response. Why would Adam come after you?

[Andrea Canning]

Why?

[Adam Yoder]

Yes.

[Andrea Canning]

Because if he knows that I. Like he knows that I came to you.

[Lester Holt]

Katie's admission that she was the letter writer seemed like the big break detectives needed. And it was. But not in the way you might think. You thought that possibly the killer wrote the letter?

[Adam Yoder]

Yes.

[Lester Holt]

Are you thinking Katie could be the killer?

[Adam Yoder]

Absolutely.

[Lester Holt]

Really?

[Adam Yoder]

Yes. Once she admitted to writing that letter, it was definitely a turn of events for us.

[Lester Holt]

As the interview went on, the detectives pushed harder.

[Andrea Canning]

What made you write the letter? You wanted us to know. Yeah. Or did you want to see Adam get in trouble? No. Like it's not to see Adam get in trouble.

[Lester Holt]

Is Katie starting to panic? Did you feel that?

[Adam Yoder]

Yes. I think at this point, she's becoming worried about where things are turning and how it's looking for her. Because if we didn't arrest Adam when we found the colchicine, now she knows we don't necessarily believe what's in that letter.

[Andrea Canning]

I'm afraid Adam's really smart.

[Lester Holt]

At one point, Katie told the detectives Adam had threatened to frame her at the office.

[Andrea Canning]

He said that if anyone was gonna get in trouble, it's gonna be me. Okay. For what? For being at the office. Yeah, like I'm connected to everything he said.

[Adam Yoder]

So anything we asked her, she says, I know things are pointing at me, but it's Adam. She always tried to point the finger back at Adam.

[Lester Holt]

She also said something they thought was just plain weird. She made an observation about who uses poison.

[Andrea Canning]

Guys also don't use poison. They say it's a lady's weapon. They say it's a lady's weapon? Yeah.

[Lester Holt]

Of course, that didn't prove Katie was Mary's killer. She was free to go. But she had not done much during that interview to dispel the detective's suspicions either. Far from it.

[Adam Yoder]

We wanted to speak to her again, but at this point now, we also had a lot more police work to do.

[Lester Holt]

They started to dig and quickly thought they were on the right track. For one thing, Katie had opportunity. She was with Mary at the office that day. Poison experts thought Mary had ingested the colchicine around lunchtime.

[Adam Yoder]

There's a kitchen area in the back where they would sit and have lunch and make their drinks. If Mary was out in this other room, a couple offices away, working on patients, Katie would have the time to go back there and do something.

[Lester Holt]

You think it's Katie, but where's your hard evidence? How do you now go about proving it's Katie? Because she's now your prime suspect, correct?

[Adam Yoder]

Correct. Once we learned Katie was the author of this letter, we got a search warrant for her house, for her cell phone. We also, we had the computers from the office that we had already secured. We wanted to get all those items and send them out to the forensic lab, to the computer lab to have them analyzed and see what data was on.

[Lester Holt]

Those digital records showed that it was Katie's computer, not Adam's, that had logged into that Gmail account, the one used to buy the poison.

[Adam Yoder]

Katie had accessed the Mr. Adam Yoder account from not only home, but from the office.

[Lester Holt]

In fact, the entire digital trail seemed to lead detectives right to Katie's doorstep. On her phone, they found several searches for the word colchicine.

[Adam Yoder]

All this evidence comes in against her. Nothing's coming back on Bill, and nothing came back on Adam.

[Lester Holt]

But there was a gaping hole in their theory. If Katie really was Mary's killer, why had she done it? By all accounts, this seemed like a very nice relationship between a younger woman and an older woman.

[Adam Yoder]

Yes.

[Lester Holt]

A mentor relationship.

[Adam Yoder]

Yes.

[Lester Holt]

So was this very surprising to you then?

[Adam Yoder]

Absolutely. What would motivate her? What would this. Why would this girl kill Mary? I mean, what would be the reason behind him? We started looking at the relationship between Adam and Katie.

[Lester Holt]

The only person who could answer that was Katie herself. It was time for another conversation, and this one was going to get intense.

[Adam Yoder]

Why did you do it, Katie? Help me understand.

[Lester Holt]

Katie Conley, just 22 years old, was now a prime suspect in the poisoning death of her boss, Mary Yoder. The only thing detectives say they didn't have was her motive.

[Adam Yoder]

We had all the other evidence leading to that point that she purchased it. She's the one that poisoned Mary. We wanted to know why.

[Lester Holt]

The conversation started with pleasantries about Katie's family farm.

[Andrea Canning]

How's the chickens? Good. Yeah.

[Lester Holt]

But the detective quickly got down to business. Us.

[Andrea Canning]

Here's where we're at a crossroad in this case. Okay? We've. We've kind of done a lot of work, okay?

[Lester Holt]

And we know that your.

[Andrea Canning]

Your phone is used quite a lot for items in this case. Okay? You're the one that purchases coaches. No. Help me. I didn't tell. But you're never gonna believe me. Nobody else will believe you.

[Adam Yoder]

Her story changed so many times. We caught her in a lot of lies. Now you lied to me.

[Andrea Canning]

I didn't mean to lie to you.

[Adam Yoder]

But you did.

[Lester Holt]

After a while, they got to the point.

[Adam Yoder]

That's the only thing we need at this point, is why you need to tell me whether you wanted to hurt her or did you want her to get sick or what we need to know.

[Andrea Canning]

I wouldn't try to hurt her.

[Adam Yoder]

Okay?

[Andrea Canning]

I wouldn't hurt her.

[Adam Yoder]

You wouldn't hurt Mary?

[Andrea Canning]

No.

[Lester Holt]

I know killers come in all shapes and sizes, but Katie does not look like a killer.

[Adam Yoder]

No, but again, it's poison. And she had made a comment earlier that it's a lady's weapon. It's not a question anymore of who, Katie. It's why. Please, just tell me why, Katie. That we can help you, is the only thing left.

[Andrea Canning]

My life is over.

[Adam Yoder]

What drove you to do this, Katie? Was it Adam?

[Andrea Canning]

I go to jail, I'll go to jail forever.

[Lester Holt]

At one point, she appeared to get sick.

[Adam Yoder]

Take some deep breaths. Take some deep breaths. Help me understand.

[Andrea Canning]

I wouldn't risk my life for this.

[Adam Yoder]

At the end, I had her saying a lot of things, but she wouldn't admit to actually why she did this. She would state her life was over, but again, she would try to throw it back on Adam. But at this point, everything was pointing to her.

[Andrea Canning]

I have people who love me.

[Adam Yoder]

I have a family.

[Lester Holt]

Katie's family was right there at the sheriff's office with her. Her parents had driven her there, thinking investigators needed her to sign a quick deposition, an hour at most.

[Andrea Canning]

And I went to the window and I said, my daughter is with signing papers. She's supposed to be out half an hour ago. I want to talk to and I want her out. I mean, what's going on?

[Lester Holt]

Her parents had no idea she was being interviewed as a suspect. But as the afternoon wore on, they're not.

[Andrea Canning]

Sign a deposition. Signing a deposition. They're interrogating her for murder. They're interrogating her. So then the door's locked. To get to my daughter, I beat on the door. Wow. And finally, the sheriff came in. And I said, my daughter's in there. I says, I want her out now, or I want to go in there. Something's wrong here.

[Lester Holt]

It was evening when a detective appeared.

[Andrea Canning]

He comes back out. Kathy and I are at the door. Katie's not with him. And he said, katie will not be going home with you tonight. She is responsible for Mary Yorder's death. She killed. We know she did it. She'll be spending the night in jail. My wife passed out. She did everything but passed out. I caught her. And then he closes the door.

[Lester Holt]

Was this the most helpless you'd ever felt in your lives as parents?

[Andrea Canning]

That you can't help your child, that you are not in control, that you have absolutely no way to put your arms around her and tell her everything's going to be okay?

[Lester Holt]

Despite what the detectives said, they didn't charge Katie that night. She came out badly shaken. The Conleys helped each other to the car and headed home.

[Andrea Canning]

Katie was sitting in the backseat. And don't ask me. This is the hardest question I've ever asked anybody in my life. Okay. I says, katie, did you kill Mary? Did you kill Mary, Katie? And without hesitation, she says, dad, I loved her. I won't kill anybody. As a mother, you always think that you're going to get a phone call, that your child has been in a car accident or that there's an illness. But never, ever in your wildest dreams would you think that this would happen at all. It's not our daughter.

[Lester Holt]

Katie's sisters felt the same way.

[Andrea Canning]

Katie had nothing to gain from her death and everything to lose. She lost a mentor, a best friend. No motive, no gain. I know her. I know my sister. Katie did not do this. No way, Katie. They can't be looking at Katie.

[Lester Holt]

Mary's own sisters, who had roped the authorities into the investigation, agreed.

[Andrea Canning]

We all called them and said, you know, look, we hear there's another suspect. If by chance that other suspect is Katie, please consider the possibility that she may be being framed.

[Lester Holt]

Even Mary's daughters were at a loss.

[Andrea Canning]

How could this be? How could she? What do you mean? It was just shocking. It was the hardest person to even wrap your head around that could be involved.

[Lester Holt]

What did your dad say when he heard Katie was being looked at as a suspect? He didn't believe it, but detectives were convinced. Were you confident you had the killer?

[Adam Yoder]

Oh, absolutely. That we had the right person. Everything we had, we had the right person.

[Lester Holt]

Though Katie Conley was charged with second degree murder, ladies and gentlemen, hell hath.

[Andrea Canning]

No fury like a woman scorned.

[Lester Holt]

Vengeance, thy name is Caitlin Conley. Auto insurance can all seem the same.

[Andrea Canning]

Until it comes time to use it. So don't get stuck paying more for less coverage. Switch to USA Auto insurance and you.

[Lester Holt]

Could start saving money in no time. Get a quote.

[Andrea Canning]

Today, restrictions apply.

[Lester Holt]

A true crime story never really ends. Even when a case is closed, the journey for those left behind is just beginning.

[Andrea Canning]

Since our DATELINE story aired, Traci has harnessed her outrage into a mission.

[Lester Holt]

I had no other option. I had to do something. Catch up with families, friends and investigators on our bonus series after the Verdict. Ordinary people facing extraordinary circumstances with strength and courage.

[Andrea Canning]

It does just change your life. But speaking up for these issues she is helps me keep going.

[Lester Holt]

To listen to after the Verdict, subscribe to Dateline Premium on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or@dateline premium.com it was late past midnight.

[Andrea Canning]

When they broke into the farmhouse. Never in a million years would you think that you'd see your parents house taped off by that yellow tape. And they said, you remember d up being killed. They left behind a wall of blue and a clue that took a case of double murder on a long, strange trip. She looked at me and she said, I'm screwed. Murder in the Moonlight, a new podcast from Dateline.

[Lester Holt]

All episodes of Murder in the moonlight are available now. To listen ad free. Subscribe to Dateline Premium on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Dateline premium.com so you can obviously come to the fence.

[Andrea Canning]

I can come to the fence.

[Lester Holt]

When we met her, Katie Conley had been living under house arrest for several months, confined to her parents farm, tethered to an ankle monitor. So your home has kind of become your own Prison? In a way, yes. Katie's lawyer wouldn't let her answer our questions about the evidence in the case?

[Andrea Canning]

No?

[Lester Holt]

No. Okay. But she did tell us how much she missed Mary Yoder, her boss and friend. Would you ever have any reason to do anything to Mary?

[Andrea Canning]

No. No reason. Ever. We never had so much as a crossword with each other.

[Lester Holt]

Did you poison Mary Yoder?

[Andrea Canning]

No.

[Lester Holt]

At times, Katie seemed overwhelmed by the upcoming trial.

[Andrea Canning]

I'm sorry.

[Lester Holt]

Yeah.

[Andrea Canning]

You're okay. You're okay.

[Lester Holt]

Is it. Is your anxiety about just what's coming?

[Andrea Canning]

It's hard to know that I'm innocent and still feel like people want me to be guilty.

[Lester Holt]

You do feel that way?

[Andrea Canning]

I feel like people aren't waiting for facts to come out, and they're ready to believe whatever they're told.

[Lester Holt]

Oneida County Assistant DA Lori Lecy was confident that the facts would speak for themselves. We knew it was a circumstantial case, which means it's always an uphill battle, but we felt like we could connect all the dots. The evidence will show that Caitlin Conley Leci told the jury she had overwhelming evidence that would prove Katie poisoned Mary. Starting with the timeline. One by one, Mary's patients from her last day in the office took the stand.

[Andrea Canning]

Was Dr. Mary appearing to be ill at all in the morning? No, she wasn't.

[Lester Holt]

Those who had appointments with Mary before lunch said she was her usual vibrant self. But her patients in the afternoon didn't.

[Andrea Canning]

Have the big smile on her face. And it is very apparent that she.

[Lester Holt]

Was not well or something was wrong. All the patients had agreed that Katie was the only other person at work that day. So the prosecutor suggested she was the only one with the opportunity to poison Mary. And the toxicologist had estimated Mary was poisoned around noon.

[Andrea Canning]

And that brings you right at lunchtime.

[Lester Holt]

Which is when Kaitlin Conley would have had the opportunity. The office doors were locked. There were no patients there.

[Andrea Canning]

I think she coded, like, six or seven times.

[Lester Holt]

Bill Yoder, Mary's husband of 38 years, told the jury about Mary's agonizing last hours in the hospital.

[Andrea Canning]

She had a huge tube down her throat, tubes everywhere. She just looked absolutely terrified.

[Lester Holt]

The prosecutor wanted to quash any lingering rumors that it was Bill who killed Mary. So immediately after your wife passed away.

[Andrea Canning]

What did you do? I remember walking out of the hospital.

[Lester Holt]

Door into the sunlight.

[Andrea Canning]

And the next memory I have after that was I was sitting on my bed in the dark, just crying and crying. It hurt so much.

[Lester Holt]

Leana testified for the prosecution that he was A broken man. After her mother's death, I couldn't tell.

[Andrea Canning]

You the last time I ever saw my father crying. But since then, every day, pretty much, I saw him cry.

[Lester Holt]

The prosecutor said it couldn't have been Bill. There was so much evidence Katie bought the poison. She was the one who searched for colchicine on her phone. And both Katie's work computer and work typewriter had been forensically linked to the order. Imagine that you're purchasing colchicine to kill your employer, and you're doing it while you're at work.

[Andrea Canning]

That, ladies and gentlemen.

[Lester Holt]

Is cold. It was for one gram of colchicine, is that correct?

[Andrea Canning]

Yes.

[Lester Holt]

And this witness, a sales rep for the company that supplied the colchicine, said she spoke on the phone with someone at the Yoder's practice. Can you describe that individual's voice?

[Andrea Canning]

It was a female's voice. It was soft. It was this soft, sweet voice.

[Lester Holt]

Sound old or young?

[Andrea Canning]

Young.

[Lester Holt]

Soft, sweet, young. Who else could that be? Asked the prosecutor. But perhaps the most damning evidence was something Katie told detectives. The colchicine was purchased with prepaid credit cards. And in Katie's police interview, she admitted to buying those cards.

[Andrea Canning]

You purchased those credit cards, didn't you? Yes. If you purchased them, you're involved in this.

[Lester Holt]

But the question hanging over the courtroom was why? Maybe the email account used to order the port poison offered a clue. MradaMyoder1990mail.com the name of her ex boyfriend, Kaitlin Conley, wanted Adam Yoder back. And I submit to you, she poisoned Adam Yoder's mother, her boss, in hopes of bringing Adam Yoder back to her.

[Andrea Canning]

Your Honor, people call Adam Yoder.

[Lester Holt]

Adam testified he and Katie were broken, but stayed friends in the year before his mother's murder. He called Katie on his way to the hospital when his mother got sick.

[Andrea Canning]

And why did you call Katie? Because I was panicking. And Katie knew my mother.

[Lester Holt]

The prosecution said if Katie's plan was to woo Adam back, it worked. After his mother passed away, he and Katie got back together. Did you have sexual relations with Kaitlin Connolly on July 2020 5th, 2015?

[Andrea Canning]

I did.

[Lester Holt]

Was she helping you through your grief?

[Andrea Canning]

Yes.

[Lester Holt]

But the relationship collapsed a couple of months later. And the prosecutor said that's when Katie came up with a new plan. Frame Adam for the killing. Because, ladies and gentlemen, hell hath no.

[Andrea Canning]

Fury like a woman scorned.

[Lester Holt]

Vengeance, thy name is Kaitlin Conley. The prosecutor said Katie planted the bottle of colchicine in Adam's car. Then Tipped off authorities. Something she denied in her interview.

[Adam Yoder]

So if we say, did you place this under Adam's seat? Your answer to that is going to be what?

[Lester Holt]

No. A forensic scientist testified Adam's DNA was not on the bottle's wrapper.

[Andrea Canning]

Katie's was the major contributor. That cardboard wrapper matched the DNA profile from Caitlin Conley.

[Lester Holt]

Her ultimate revenge was not only to take away his mother, but to make.

[Andrea Canning]

It look like he was the one responsible for it.

[Lester Holt]

Mary's daughters thought the evidence against Katie was convincing. Do you believe Katie Conley killed your mother?

[Andrea Canning]

Absolutely, yes. There is no doubt.

[Lester Holt]

But Katie's defense said they were wrong. Far from being a criminal mastermind, it was Katie who had been framed. What's going through your mind when you learn of this relationship?

[Andrea Canning]

Unbelievable.

[Lester Holt]

On DIS on day 11 of Katie Conley's trial, the defense began its case. Rooting for her were some unlikely supporters. She's on trial for murdering your sister, and you're standing behind the defense.

[Andrea Canning]

I know it is a very unusual situation. Right. But we just felt like this is the last thing our sister would have wanted.

[Lester Holt]

But there was another one of Mary's sisters who wasn't sitting on the defense's side. A sister they didn't talk to anymore. Her name is Kathy, and it turns out she is the woman Bill started dating so quickly after Mary's death. What's going through your mind when you learn of this relationship?

[Andrea Canning]

Unbelievable. Yeah. I mean, that's when we really started thinking seriously that Bill did it. You will find motive through the testimony on the part of William Yoder in question.

[Lester Holt]

Katie's attorney, Christopher Pelley, told the jury that Mary's killer wasn't Katie. It was Bill.

[Andrea Canning]

He really is the only person that I can in good heart and faith, say had motive to actually kill his wife.

[Lester Holt]

According to the defense, Bill was no grieving widower.

[Andrea Canning]

Do you remember the first time that you had sexual relations with Kathy Richmond? I don't remember the date, no. I wasn't keeping the journal.

[Lester Holt]

Bill said the romance with Kathy started after Mary died. Kathy told the jury the same thing.

[Andrea Canning]

The romantic relationship began sometime in September. Late September, Mid September.

[Lester Holt]

But this woman, one of Kathy's neighbors, told a different story. She said she'd seen the two kissing on Kathy's porch a couple of weeks before Mary's death.

[Andrea Canning]

Bill was holding Kathy, and he was kissing her and looking in her eyes, and it was very intense.

[Lester Holt]

The defense said not only did Bill have a new relationship, he just received a big pile of money, too.

[Andrea Canning]

I have to Ask you how much you inherited in total from your father's estate. About $400,000. Mary had been the primary breadwinner for quite a long time. He'd gotten an inheritance. Now he no longer needed Mary.

[Lester Holt]

So if Bill had motive, did he also have opportunity? Bill denied he was in the office the day Mary got sick. Remember, her patients hadn't seen him. But Katie's defense said that didn't mean he wasn't there. This witness used to work with Bill at the office.

[Andrea Canning]

Do you remember specifically ever being told, I don't want anybody to know that I'm here? Sometimes he might say, you know, don't tell the patient I'm here because they might want to see me.

[Lester Holt]

The defense also suggested Bill had a second opportunity to harm his wife when he was by her side. At the hospital, toxicologist Gina Marafa told the jury she couldn't rule out the possibility that Mary got a second dose of poison.

[Andrea Canning]

If there was a second dose dose, then there's no possibility, no possibility that Kaitlin could have been involved because she didn't have access to Mary at that particular time.

[Lester Holt]

Did you feel that this case was just swimming in reasonable doubt?

[Andrea Canning]

I felt like I was drowning in it.

[Lester Holt]

Katie's DNA may have been found on the colchicine bottle, but the defense said she handled all the deliveries to the practice. As for the sales rep who said she talked to a woman with a sweet young.

[Andrea Canning]

Dr. Marioder is rather soft spoken and young sounding and very vibrant herself.

[Lester Holt]

And think about this. The defense attorney told the jury Bill had access to Katie's work computer and office typewriter. If Bill were to frame Katie, you believe it wouldn't be all that hard.

[Andrea Canning]

No, I mean, Katie worked at the office. He would have been able to control these very, very important circumstances that led to her being charged.

[Lester Holt]

Bill told us he did not poison Mary and had nothing to do with her death. He served as a witness at Katie's grand jury hearing. And in New York State, all grand jury witnesses are given automatic immunity from prosecution, no matter what happens. Is he protected for life forever?

[Andrea Canning]

For life forever.

[Lester Holt]

But what about those searches for colchicine on Katie's phone? How do you get around that she's looking up this very rare drug that I had never heard of until I started working on this story.

[Andrea Canning]

The prosecution couldn't say that Katie searched this particular term prior to Mary's death. It appeared that it was afterwards.

[Lester Holt]

The defense said the idea that Katie killed Mary to get back together with Adam was absurd. According to her sisters, she Was the one who initially dumped him.

[Andrea Canning]

Finally, she just had enough. She didn't want to be with him anymore.

[Lester Holt]

As for the anonymous letter pointing the finger at Adam, the defense never explained why Katie wrote it. If Bill was the real killer. But he wanted the jury to see the lengths Katie had gone to help the investigation. Enduring hours of intense questioning. You wanted the jury to know how cooperative Katie was with the authorities.

[Andrea Canning]

Yes, I did. She had the opportunity on, I believe, seven different occasions to say, you know, I think I want an attorney. But instead, she continued to cooperate and be subjected to some pretty severe interrogation tactics. Then if you didn't do it, you knew who did it? I don't know. I wouldn't risk my life for this.

[Lester Holt]

Her attorney said detectives lied to Katie, falsely claiming to have footage of her at the store buying those prepaid credit cards, the ones used to purchase the colchicine.

[Adam Yoder]

They sent us two DVDs from the.

[Andrea Canning]

Dates and times those were purchased. Who is not on these DVDs? That's not Adam.

[Lester Holt]

Who purchases the prepaid cards?

[Andrea Canning]

I don't know.

[Adam Yoder]

You got them.

[Andrea Canning]

You purchased those credit cards, didn't you?

[Lester Holt]

Yes. That's why the defense said the jury should ignore anything Katie said during that interview.

[Andrea Canning]

Do you think that your daughter, your 23 year old, could give an accurate statement under those conditions? I think not.

[Lester Holt]

Detectives say their techniques were by the book, But Mary's sister Sharon, couldn't believe what Katie went through at that point.

[Andrea Canning]

I wish that I had never called for an investigation.

[Lester Holt]

Sharon was more convinced than ever that Katie was innocent and Bill guilty. She said as much in open court.

[Andrea Canning]

It is still my theory that he killed my sister.

[Lester Holt]

What if you're wrong? What if she really did do this? Have you thought about that?

[Andrea Canning]

We just every once in a while, and it's just. Just so not. We have tried to wrap our heads around it a thousand ways to see if there's any way possible that we think she could have done this. And it just doesn't make sense. We don't believe she did this.

[Lester Holt]

But what would the jury think? Every morning, we choose how to begin our day. I think about the people at home. They tune in because they are curious. They care about their world and they care about each other.

[Adam Yoder]

There's always something new to read, whether.

[Andrea Canning]

A news event or a new recipe. And when we step through the morning.

[Lester Holt]

Together, it makes the rest of the day better. We come here to make the most of today. We are family. We are today. Watch the Today show with Savannah Guthrie and Craig Melvin. Weekdays at 7am on NBC. Hey everyone, I'm Jenna Bush Hager from the Today show and I'm excited to share my podcast Open Book with Jenna. It is back for season two. Each week, celebrities, experts, friends and authors will share candid stories with me about their lives and new projects. Guests like Rebecca Yarros, Kristin Hannah, Ego Wodom and more. Like a good book, you'll leave feeling inspired and entertained. Join me for my podcast Open Book with Jenna. Listen now on Apple Podcasts.

[Andrea Canning]

Join me, Jacqueline Coley on a brand.

[Lester Holt]

New podcast seen on the screen presented by Make It Universal and Rotten Tomatoes. Meet the innovative people at NBCUniversal as they share their journeys, inspirations and the.

[Andrea Canning]

Movies that shape them.

[Lester Holt]

Each episode is an intimate and fun conversation about the impact of film seen on the screen.

[Andrea Canning]

Is available now.

[Lester Holt]

You can find it on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you find your favorite podcast. It was up to a jury to decide if Katie Conley was Mary's killer. In the courthouse, Mary's divided family waited. Her husband and children on one side, three of her sisters on the other. Still in Katie's corner, Jeanine and I.

[Andrea Canning]

Both have daughters in their 20s. We were totally terrified for her. Thank you.

[Lester Holt]

But defense attorney Chris Pelley was confident Katie would be acquitted.

[Andrea Canning]

I actually thought that after I gave my closing that we'd have a verdict in 15 or 20 minutes of not guilty.

[Lester Holt]

What was it like waiting for the verdict?

[Andrea Canning]

Oh, well, the first 20 minutes were okay, but then it went on for day one and day two.

[Lester Holt]

Two days became three. What were they talking about in there? The detective hoped the jury would see past the pretty put together young woman in court. Was Katie really what she seemed?

[Adam Yoder]

Katie, I believe, has another side to her other than this side that everybody sees from her, that she presents to everybody.

[Lester Holt]

If this is true, this is a diabolical side.

[Adam Yoder]

Yes, an evil side.

[Lester Holt]

Mary's daughters agree.

[Andrea Canning]

There was another side of Katie that we had not known was there.

[Lester Holt]

The jury deliberated all through day four. And on day five, they passed a note to the judge.

[Andrea Canning]

This will be a hung jury.

[Lester Holt]

There was no verdict. The crowd went silent. Mary's daughters were devastated. They'd hoped that a guilty verdict would be justice for their mother and also vindicate their father.

[Andrea Canning]

It was just one militia attack after another. My dad had never attacked anyone in his life. He was just a broken 70 year old man that was barely functioning.

[Lester Holt]

Now they prepare to sit through it all again. There was no hesitation. We were going back. We were retrying the case. We needed to get justice for this family and for this woman. Five months later, everyone filed back into the Oneida County Courthouse for trial number two.

[Andrea Canning]

All right.

[Lester Holt]

The prosecutor's case was virtually the same. The evidence will show that all roads lead to Caitlin Conley. But Katie had a new defense attorney and a new twist to her strategy. He said, yes, Katie was innocent, and yes, Katie was framed. But this time, her lawyer was pointing the finger. Not at Bill, but it's someone else, ladies and gentlemen.

[Andrea Canning]

It was Adam. It was Adam.

[Lester Holt]

Adam, Mary's son. Defense attorney Frank Policielli argued that the crime happened just the way Katie described in that letter.

[Andrea Canning]

He put the Colgicine in her supplements when he was over there. Either Mother's Day or Father's Day when he had a falling out.

[Lester Holt]

As for how Katie's digital fingerprints ended up on everything related to the colchicine transaction, Katie's attorney suggested that could easily have been Adam.

[Andrea Canning]

How do you know, first of all, that she was the one that was researching the poison, since Adam had total control of all of her electronic equipment anytime he wanted it.

[Lester Holt]

A key witness this time was Adam's cousin and former roommate, David King. In the years since Mary's death, David had come to doubt Adam and defend Katie. Do you believe Katie had anything to do with the murder of Mary Yoder?

[Andrea Canning]

No, not at all.

[Lester Holt]

On the stand, David told the jury Adam was no novice with computers.

[Andrea Canning]

You're familiar with Adam's expertise in computers?

[Adam Yoder]

I. I helped him build a computer in the past. He was going to school for computer science.

[Lester Holt]

Katie's attorney said Adam could have hacked her devices or maybe he didn't need to. David testified he saw Adam with Katie's laptop.

[Andrea Canning]

And how do you know he had her laptop? I had asked him about it, since it was in a flowery laptop sleeve, and it had a picture of a Victorian background, and that just didn't suit Adam's character. So I asked him about it.

[Adam Yoder]

He said it was Katie's.

[Lester Holt]

And the defense said Adam had access to Katie's work computer, too. David testified that years earlier, he and Adam used to drop by the office when no one else was there.

[Andrea Canning]

I had helped Adam clean the office.

[Adam Yoder]

A number of times.

[Andrea Canning]

Don't think that Adam didn't have full reign of that office, ladies and gentlemen. He came and went as he pleased, anytime he wanted to. Okay.

[Lester Holt]

And the defense said there was something else, something important. Remember in her interview with detectives how fearful Katie said she was of Adam?

[Andrea Canning]

You can't protect me.

[Adam Yoder]

Protect you from what, Adam?

[Lester Holt]

Yeah. Katie's attorney said there was A good for Katie to be afraid.

[Andrea Canning]

He beat her, he hit her, he.

[Lester Holt]

Raped her, he used her.

[Andrea Canning]

Why wouldn't she be scared of him?

[Lester Holt]

A year before Mary's death, Katie filed a police report accusing Adam of rape. The defense read a text message Katie wrote to Adam.

[Andrea Canning]

You grabbed my right wrist and said you'd snap my wrist and break every one of my fingers. I'm going to kill you. I'm going to kill you, Katie. The way you said it, the way you looked at me. And then I was afraid.

[Lester Holt]

Adam denied the allegation, and Katie dropped the complaint. But the defense hoped the jury would see Katie as a victim, not as a killer.

[Andrea Canning]

There's no motive in this case. She loved Mary Yoder, and there's nothing in this case to indicate that her actions were anything other than loving Mary Yoder. The people call Adam Yoder to the standard.

[Lester Holt]

Adam Yoder had given his side of the story to detectives early on. What would he say now?

[Andrea Canning]

Did you ever cause colchicine in any way, accidentally or intentionally, to be ingested by your mother?

[Lester Holt]

At the first trial, the defense said Katie had been framed by Mary's husband, Bill. But at trial number two, the alternate suspect right from the start, was Mary's son.

[Andrea Canning]

Ladies and gentlemen, it was Adam. It was Adam.

[Lester Holt]

Did it feel like your brother was on trial?

[Andrea Canning]

Oh, yes, absolutely. And it just was one allegation after another.

[Lester Holt]

Now in court, Adam took the stand to respond to the defense first. Good morning.

[Andrea Canning]

Good morning.

[Lester Holt]

Adam told the jury he did not plant evidence on Katie's computers or phone. A prosecution computer expert said Katie's devices had never been hacked. And Adam told the jury he was hardly the hacker Katie's side portrayed.

[Andrea Canning]

Do you have hacking skills? Are you able to break into systems? No, I do not, and no, I am not.

[Lester Holt]

To the defense's claim that Adam physically abused Katie, he did it admit to one incident.

[Andrea Canning]

I snapped, and I slapped her a few times. I regretted it immediately. I left the house.

[Lester Holt]

But as for the alleged rape, no charges were ever filed against Adam. And he told the jury he had zero memory of the night it supposedly happened. He'd been drinking heavily.

[Andrea Canning]

So was this essentially a blackout period? Yes, it was.

[Lester Holt]

He said the next morning, things seemed fine between them. It wasn't until about three months later that Katie accused him in that text message.

[Andrea Canning]

I was in shock. I didn't know how to react. I was panicking. Ultimately, I had drank enough to black out that night, so I couldn't defend myself. I didn't have a version of the story. To say to her in response.

[Lester Holt]

As Adam testified, an accusation against Katie emerged. Adam suggested Katie might have poisoned him, too. A couple of months before his mother's death, he said Katie handed him a bottle of supplements to help him get through final exams.

[Andrea Canning]

She told me it's to help basically focus, boost memory. She said, make sure I take it consecutively and consistently because it works better over time.

[Lester Holt]

After taking the pills, Adam said he had to go to the ER with symptoms similar to his mother's.

[Andrea Canning]

The vomiting and the pain. I started experiencing severe abdomen pain and eventually severe back pain as well.

[Lester Holt]

Do you believe that Katie gave him something that made him sick?

[Andrea Canning]

Absolutely.

[Lester Holt]

The prosecution's suggestion was clear. Maybe Katie tried out the colchicine on Adam first.

[Andrea Canning]

I asked her if she had poisoned me in a joking way. And what did she say? No, she would never hurt.

[Lester Holt]

Katie's defense said she had nothing to do with Adam's illness. And a lab test on the remaining supplements found no contamination. In fact, the defense had been the one to bring up Adam's illness in court, suggesting that he made himself sick handling colchicine he bought for the murder.

[Andrea Canning]

Ten days later, on April 21, he gets sick with the same symptoms of colchicine poisoning that Mary got sick with. Okay.

[Lester Holt]

Like his father, Adam also testified before the grand jury and received full immunity from prosecution. He was also cleared by authorities.

[Andrea Canning]

Did you ever cause colchicine in any way, accidentally or intentionally, to be ingested by your mother? No.

[Lester Holt]

And there was one last discovery that pointed away from Adam. The state's computer experts had gotten their hands on a digital backup of Katie's phone. In the files, they found evidence of more incriminating searches they said were done several weeks before the colchicine was ordered. Before she actually honed in on colchicine, she looked at arsenic, she looked at thallium, she looked at cyanide. I submit to you, ladies and gentlemen, that the evidence is clear and that the common denominator is this defendant, Kaitlyn Conley. Katie's defense disputed the timing of those searches and said there was no way to prove she was the one who did them. After both sides rested, Katie's fate was once again in the hands of a jury.

[Andrea Canning]

It's inconceivable. No one can ever say that this is what she did. This is not her. She's the same nice, nurturing, nurturing, helping person that she was and always has been.

[Lester Holt]

The charge was second degree murder, but this time around, the judge allowed the jury to consider a lesser charge of manslaughter. To convict, the jury would only have to find that Katie intended to hurt Mary, not kill her. A day passed without word. On day two, the judge received a note.

[Adam Yoder]

The note reads hunger.

[Lester Holt]

It was looking like another mistrial.

[Andrea Canning]

We almost got to the point where we were like we were. Is this all ever going to be worth it?

[Lester Holt]

The judge encouraged the jury to keep trying. I urge that each of you make every possible effort. And just two hours later, the record.

[Adam Yoder]

Will reflect that the jury has re.

[Andrea Canning]

Entered the courtroom indicating that they have reached a verdict.

[Lester Holt]

First, the most serious charge, murder in the second degree. How do you find the defendant? Guilty or not guilty?

[Andrea Canning]

Not guilty.

[Lester Holt]

Not guilty of second degree murder. As for manslaughter, guilty or not guilty?

[Andrea Canning]

Guilty.

[Lester Holt]

As Katie absorbed the news, her mom ran out of the courtroom in tears. Katie tried to reassure her family, but her sisters were distraught.

[Andrea Canning]

Katie, we love you. We love you.

[Lester Holt]

Katie was sentenced to 23 years in prison. Was justice done with the guilty verdict?

[Andrea Canning]

There's an accountability. Yes, she did not get away with it.

[Lester Holt]

But that wasn't the end of it, not at all.

[Andrea Canning]

I get a text message on my phone that says news alert.

[Adam Yoder]

All rise.

[Lester Holt]

This term of Oneida County Court is now in session. There's always more to the story to go behind the scenes of tonight's episode, listen to our talking Dateline series with Andrea and Josh, available Wednesday. Katie Conley was in New York's Bedford Hills correctional facility serving 23 years for poisoning Mary Yoder. Journalist and radio host Rocco Ladueka followed both trials and says not everyone agreed Katie belonged there. In the small community where Kaitlin lived.

[Andrea Canning]

There'S signs that said, free Caitlin Conley.

[Lester Holt]

Caitlin Conley's innocent. Among those calling for her release, three of Mary's own sisters still on her side.

[Andrea Canning]

There'll be an appeal and we'll be involved in that and, you know, do whatever we can.

[Lester Holt]

So you're going to keep fighting for Katie?

[Andrea Canning]

I have to, definitely.

[Lester Holt]

Katie did file an appeal but lost. That's when she reached out to attorney Melissa Swartz, a specialist in post conviction motions.

[Andrea Canning]

So what's actually really fascinating about this case is Katie's extremely bright.

[Lester Holt]

Katie had a job in the prison law library, and through that position, she just worked tirelessly on her case.

[Andrea Canning]

And she said, listen, I'm really focused on this issue regarding the search warrant for my phone.

[Lester Holt]

A quick look at the warrant and Melissa saw red flags. What was the problem that you could see and Katie could see with the search warrant?

[Andrea Canning]

I mean, just the warrant on its face is probably the most insufficient, facially insufficient warrant that I've ever came across. They believed that that was a warrant to take her phone and look in it. But what it needs to be is two separate warrants. One to take her phone and then one to actually search the contents of her phone. And the warrant needs to say what they're looking for, what crime they think.

[Lester Holt]

It'S going to help them establish, and the timeframe the warrant didn't include any of that. Melissa agreed to represent Katie and began digging into what happened at both of her trials.

[Andrea Canning]

I thought it was strange that in this really extremely rare poisoning case that neither attorney that represented her at the two trials would have hired a toxicologist to at least consult with on that type of poisoning.

[Lester Holt]

The state's toxicologist told the jury that Mary was poisoned around noon, leaving Katie, the office manager, the most viable suspect. Melissa hired her own toxicologist, who believed that Mary could have been poisoned up to six, 16 hours earlier.

[Andrea Canning]

That significantly expanded the potential time frame where Mary Yoder could have been poisoned. And because it expanded the timeframe, it expanded the other potential people that could be responsible for the poisoning.

[Lester Holt]

She identified another mistake she says Katie's defense made bringing up Adam Yoder's alleged poisoning. Remember, Katie's second lawyer wanted the jury to think Adam accidentally poisoned himself with colchicine.

[Andrea Canning]

His defense was that Adam Yoder committed the crime, so he wanted to get.

[Lester Holt]

The poison in Adam Yoder's hands. And then, of course, the prosecution runs with this, that this is Katie poisoning Adam. Correct.

[Andrea Canning]

It blew my mind that that was a strategy.

[Lester Holt]

This defense that the attorney was launching just backfired, spectacularly, brutally backfired. Melissa says it added up to ineffective assistance of Counsel. And in 2022, she filed what's called a 440 motion.

[Andrea Canning]

It kind of is like this last.

[Lester Holt]

Recourse in order for a court to scrutinize your criminal case. 440s are extremely challenging to win. The trial judge reviewed the motion and granted a hearing.

[Andrea Canning]

Would you say that you've diligently reviewed the warrant at this point? I would say no.

[Lester Holt]

On the stand, Katie's first lawyer, Christopher Pelley, admitted. Admitted he made a mistake by not challenging the search warrant for Katie's phone.

[Andrea Canning]

Did you argue that the warrant was overbroad? No. Why not?

[Lester Holt]

I didn't see it as an issue.

[Andrea Canning]

As in you didn't identify it, or you don't think it's an overload? I didn't at the time. I see it as an issue. I didn't recognize it I failed to recognize it.

[Lester Holt]

Her second trial lawyer didn't challenge it either. How important is that cell phone evidence in all of this?

[Andrea Canning]

The cell phone evidence in and of itself was extremely important. They said that she had searched colchicine on her cell phone.

[Lester Holt]

They questioned her.

[Andrea Canning]

They interviewed her, using information they found in her cell phone to derive statements from her.

[Lester Holt]

In the end, the motion was denied. But that wasn't the end of this. Correct.

[Andrea Canning]

I would say about 2 to 5% of criminal defendants get permission to appeal from the denial of a 440.

[Lester Holt]

And Melissa succeeded. In December 2024, she argued Katie's case in front of the New York State Appellate Court.

[Andrea Canning]

Kaitlin Conley has this right to the effective assistance of counsel.

[Lester Holt]

Just a month later, the Appellate Division.

[Andrea Canning]

Ruled in Katie's favor, granted her a new trial, and ultimately dismissed the indictment against her. I think I screamed. I ran around my office telling everybody that we had won.

[Adam Yoder]

All right.

[Lester Holt]

This terminal at Ida County Court is now in session. Days later, a judge ordered Katie's release. Once a defendant's conviction has been reversed and the indictment dismissed, the appropriate remedy is discharged from custody.

[Andrea Canning]

Ms. Conley, you're released. Courts and adjourned. All right. You could see tears were dripping down Kaitlyn's face. And you could just see the father.

[Lester Holt]

Just reached over and said, come here.

[Andrea Canning]

And give me a hug.

[Lester Holt]

And they kissed and hugged. And then she hugged all the other family members, her mother and one of her sisters. On February 5, after seven years behind bars, Katie Conley was released from prison. Did she do anything special after getting out? Did she go anywhere on the drive home?

[Andrea Canning]

I asked her, where are you going to eat? And she said, well, I got a McDonald's milkshake.

[Lester Holt]

The current district attorney could refile charges and try Katie again. He told Dateline he's reviewing the case.

[Andrea Canning]

The ruling from the appellate court says you can't use anything on Kaitlin Connolly's cell phone.

[Lester Holt]

You take the cell phone out, what's left?

[Andrea Canning]

Is it bare bones?

[Lester Holt]

Is there still meat out there that.

[Andrea Canning]

They can lock onto? Or is this totally going to make it very, very hard to argue that Kaitlan Connally did this again?

[Lester Holt]

Whatever the DA Decides, Katie's release is not an exoneration. The decision did not say Kaitlan Connally's innocent.

[Andrea Canning]

It did not say the evidence was all wrong. What it said was there was a legal mistake in the trial that violated Caitlin's constitutional rights.

[Lester Holt]

It still doesn't change that someone was searching for, you know, poisons on Katie's phone. What is her story on that? Is she saying that someone was using her phone?

[Andrea Canning]

So Katie's always maintained through the first and second trials, or her lawyers did that. You know, potentially there's other two other suspects.

[Lester Holt]

As all sides process the news of Katie's release, Mary's daughters still mourn the family they once had. So many lives shattered. This destroyed an entire family.

[Andrea Canning]

Yeah, multiple families. Not just our family. It destroyed her family. It destroyed so much. We're hoping to finally be able to go back to the good memories and not have to relive the worst one. We want to be able to actually celebrate her life.

[Lester Holt]

Mary's loved ones may be divided over who killed her, but there's one thing they can agree on. It's not how Mary died that should be remembered. It's how she lived.

[Andrea Canning]

She was there for you no matter what, no matter when you called, no matter what you needed your mom for. The world is not as wonderful a place as it was. Mary loved life more than anyone else I ever knew. And she made a point of loving it. She really did. Yes, she did.

[Lester Holt]

That's all for this edition of Dateline. We're off next Friday, but we will see you again in two weeks at 9, 8 Central. And of course, I'll see you each weeknight. For NBC Nightly News, I'm Lester Holt. For all of us at NBC News, good night. Auto insurance can all seem the same.

[Andrea Canning]

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[Lester Holt]

Restrictions apply.