Original subtitles

- This is going to be an attempt

to remember the African dance from yesterday.

Well, some of the steps because I don't remember it all.

Bop.

[humming]

- The day Mary died, the world lost someone truly,

truly good and wonderful.

Now the whole world is a little darker without Mare here.

[tense music]

- I thought that the world was a good place,

that good things were gonna happen to me.

- I hate the defendant with every bone in my body

and every drop of blood in my veins.

I hate Kaitlyn Anne Conley

because Kaitlyn Anne Conley murdered my mother.

- I never thought that anyone would ever call me

a killer or a murderer.

♪ ♪

ADAM: I introduced her to my family.

I got her a job with my parents.

[sobbing]

And if I hadn't done those things,

my mother would still be alive.

KAITLYN: For this to happen,

I can't quite wrap my mind around it.

It's hard.

[sniffles] Sorry.

With all due respect

to the justice system,

I'm innocent.

I want to know, why am I here?

And what broke?

Why didn't they get the right person?

I want to know that.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

[somber guitar music]

♪ ♪

REPORTER: Today, another beautiful, warm, humid day,

I would assume at some point.

64 right now

to kick off our Wednesday here in Central New York.

- Pretty white girl standing trial for a murder

that she may have or may not have done?

It's a great story.

PERSON: People feel sorry for her.

But in reality, my personal take on it,

I think she's guilty.

- I've known the Conleys for 34 years.

Yeah.

Great people.

- She's trying to play the victim like,

"I was a 'doe-eyed,'" you know,

and I don't think that's true.

Well, I'm not buying this Little Miss Innocent game.

♪ ♪

- Kaitlyn Conley was guilty as sin.

I am willing to side with the juries.

- It's a crime of pure darkness.

It is a diabolical crime.

- Yeah, so it wasn't just a quick death, was it?

- Just because it's Sauquoit doesn't mean

that bad things can't happen in this small town.

[indistinct chatter]

- I'm good. I'm good.

I'm ready.

[laughs]

What, unburden my soul?

[laughs]

I don't know. I'm good.

I sleep fine at night,

besides being in prison.

I was sentenced to 23 years.

[soft dramatic music]

♪ ♪

I met Mary through her son, Adam.

I had dated him for a couple years.

They needed a receptionist at their chiropractic office.

They knew I was responsible, so they hired me for that.

Mary was very sunny, very beautiful.

Everyone loved her.

I think she saw me as, like, a daughter figure,

and that was nice.

We definitely got along well.

I was much closer with Mary

because there was always something about Bill

that I didn't feel comfortable with.

Bill was much more aloof,

and some people found him to be off-putting.

Mary was so outgoing and effusive and welcoming,

and people really gravitated to that.

TAMARYN: Everybody loved my mom.

She just-- she just was happiness,

happiness and love and light, just...

- My parents were very much in love, still.

They had gone through chiropractic college together,

and they started their business together.

[tense music]

♪ ♪

KAITLYN: It was a normal day at the office.

I got there first.

Mary got there a little bit after 8:00.

Everything was normal.

It was a normal busy day until the end of the day

when she started getting sick.

She was running to the bathroom.

And when it came time to close the office,

she just left very suddenly.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

- I received a text from my father

on a Tuesday morning,

and he said that my mom had been throwing up

and had some vomiting and diarrhea.

They thought that it just seemed to be

some kind of viral gastrointestinal illness.

♪ ♪

KAITLYN: I didn't know how sick she really was

until I got a text from Adam

that she was at the hospital.

We'd been broken up for about ten months,

but Adam had asked me to come to the hospital, so I did.

And the family was there.

And that's when I started to understand

how serious the situation was because she was in ICU.

♪ ♪

- [sighs] Went in and saw her, and it was--

she was--her eyes just looked terrified.

She had a trach tube in,

and she was trying to mouth around it,

but she couldn't really talk.

Her heart kept stopping.

- At that time, it really did seem like a mystery.

No one really knew what was happening or why.

- In less than 48 hours, my mom went

from her typical, happy, healthy self,

seeing patients in an office, to having died.

- I couldn't wrap my head around it.

I couldn't understand how she could possibly have died,

and they didn't know how or why.

And I wanted answers.

At the end of the day, when we were standing

outside the hospital doors in the parking lot,

I remember giving Katie and Adam a hug

and telling Katie, "Take care of him,"

thinking that he was gonna need

that emotional support from her.

And then--

[sighs] Of course--

oh, it makes me sick to think of it now.

KAITLYN: I miss Mary.

And I really hate

that this situation has kind of colored

my relationship with her, because I feel like

I can't really miss her

because I'm fighting for my own life.

So sometimes I look at all the cards on the table,

and I say, "Oh, my God, it must have been Bill."

And then I look at other things,

and I say, "No, no, no.

Adam must have been involved too."

But I know it wasn't me.

So if it wasn't me, who was it?

[gentle music]

♪ ♪

[laughter and chatter]

KAITLYN: I grew up with my three younger sisters.

We were always together.

We were thick as thieves.

[laughter and chatter]

We were always playing games,

you know, chasing the horses and chickens.

It was a great way to grow up.

♪ ♪

Katie is our oldest.

DIRECTOR: Is Katie a mommy's girl

or a daddy's girl?

- Daddy's girl. - She's daddy's girl.

[both laugh]

She's daddy's girl.

She was shy, and she was very quiet and helpful.

There is no way that she could have changed

and been a Jekyll and Hyde.

[somber music]

KAITLYN: I really thought that in my 20s,

I was going to work really, really hard,

find a partner, buy a house, have a career.

I met Adam for the first time

at my high school graduation party.

One of my friends brought him to my party.

- And we later found out that that was Adam Yoder.

He was not invited.

We didn't know him before.

Katie hadn't met him before.

And that was the first time

that we even knew that he existed.

[tense music]

KAITLYN: Obviously, I liked him.

I thought he was quirky and fun.

And it wasn't bad at the beginning.

- This was really her first adult relationship.

And, um, it-- it seemed really great.

He'd show up with presents and flowers,

and they'd go on dates,

sometimes even let us little kid sisters tag along.

- I mean, I think all of the family

kind of treated Katie

as if she was more or less Adam's fiancée.

Like, we all expected that she was going to be

part of the family.

But Adam was very private.

We didn't know about the turmoil

going on in the relationship.

Adam was pretty intense.

He was always telling me how in love he was,

how I was the best thing that ever happened to him.

And he would write these very long love letters.

And even at the time, I felt like,

"Oh, this is nice."

But it still made me uncomfortable

because I'm like, one, you just met me.

You don't know how great I am.

But he wouldn't stop.

♪ ♪

SIOBHAN: There were ones that were saying,

"I love you, I love you, I love you,"

written down 50-plus times on a sheet of paper,

him pleading to her about his love for her,

saying that, "you need me in your life."

So very just controlling.

It wasn't your typical, you know, "I love you" note.

It was very-- like, a dark twist to it.

- I would say that the first year

of my relationship with Adam was pretty good.

And then

he started...

I'm sorry. Um...

Then there was a noticeable shift in him,

and I didn't quite understand it.

- They both would work at Adam's parents' office

as office managers.

And a lot of that responsibility

ended up then falling on Katie

just because of how unreliable Adam was.

- Um, I think she did shelter me from a lot

of what was happening at that time.

You know, emotions were high at different times

for both Adam and Katie.

- They would break up and then get back together

and break up and get back together.

LIANA: The relationship had its ups and downs.

Then my brother found out about the cheating allegations.

He found out through messages that she had been sending

that she had slept with a very close friend of his.

I didn't cheat on Adam.

Adam got very paranoid.

He made me feel like he was dangerous.

[foreboding music]

♪ ♪

And then he started drinking

to the point of blackout drunk.

TAMARYN: He was just as toxic as Katie

as far as not being a healthy relationship

for either of them.

Adam drank a lot.

He clearly had anger issues when he was drinking,

if he wasn't blacked out,

if he was even able to still stand and speak.

Let me say something.

As a father, I wish--

I wish I expressed my feelings, right--

the first dinner I had with him across the table,

there was something wrong.

KAITLYN: After the first year,

whenever I started pulling back,

he would get really nasty.

He would get physically violent

if I was there.

He would stop me from leaving if I tried to leave.

He would call me

over and over and over and over again

to the point where I would turn off my phone

because I just needed a break.

I was scared of him,

but I still felt like it was something that I could handle.

And then something happens

that--it did, it changed everything.

Sorry.

[tense music]

♪ ♪

[line trills]

[exhales]

- It changed the way I see the world.

MARK: Rape allegations are definitely very serious cases.

And Katie made an allegation in this case

of a possible rape that was committed

that was looked into.

In fact, the investigator had Katie make

a controlled phone call to Adam.

I really felt

that Adam was going to do this again

to someone else.

And if he did, when he did,

that that was going to be on me.

- In the controlled phone call, he told her, "No, Katie.

"I don't know that I did that.

"You're saying I did that, but I don't

know if I can believe you."

- When that phone call was over,

Katie decided she no longer wanted

to pursue the rape allegation.

She signed off on the case.

- I didn't understand what victim shaming was

until I got there.

And they did nothing.

[ominous music]

♪ ♪

VIN: Katie came down and said that

she was really afraid for her life.

My wife was nervous to be in the house.

Katie was living in the house.

I called up the sheriff's department.

They refused to give me an order of protection.

That's when I started realizing this is more serious situation.

KAITLYN: Even though I had broken up with Adam,

he was still a part of my life.

He still lived about a half a mile from my house.

I had the same friend circle.

I still worked at his parents' office.

At that time, Adam had a very strained relationship

not only with his mother but with his whole family.

KAITLYN: I think Mary was very close to Adam.

She was his mother, so of course,

she loves her son, even if she knows

that things aren't quite right.

♪ ♪

- Before Mary's death, a lot of the stories that I would hear,

Adam would be very hot and cold towards Mary.

Just rude and demeaning at times.

- Adam had a relationship with his mother

that was complicated, I would say.

And it was emotional at times.

He would get upset with his mother.

His mother would get upset with him.

- Adam and his mom did have an argument on Mother's Day.

- Adam had gone over on Mother's Day.

They had kind of observed the holiday.

And then he got into an argument with her.

And, you know, they had exchanged some text messages

that were, you know, testy.

They were arguing.

You know, it'll always be that last Mother's Day

for Adam Yoder

because that's really the last time

he ever spent any quality time with her.

KAITLYN: And sure enough,

a few months later,

Mary died.

[somber music]

M. WILLIAM: This case here, I spent

probably a year and a half on it,

interviewing, I don't know, 50-plus people,

going through thousands of pages of documents,

thousands and thousands.

I mean, this is a mystery, right?

How did she die?

KAITLYN: It was shocking when Mary died

because she was so healthy.

So for her to literally be here one day

and gone the next

without any kind of warning,

it was Earth-shattering.

It really was.

[somber music]

♪ ♪

- My father was barely functioning to breathe

and just get through the day.

He just was, like, a shell that was, I guess, on autopilot

just to be--survive.

- I was grateful to Katie that she was there to help us.

Our family was in shock.

Katie put up a posting on Facebook honoring my mom.

And at the time, it was a very kind, long message.

She was gone.

There was no explanation for what happened to her.

And I wanted answers.

[tense music]

♪ ♪

M. WILLIAM: So they begin to do this autopsy on Mary.

And Dr. Clark, the pathologist, opens her up.

And what he notices right away is the color of her organs.

- We opened her up, and I was shocked.

I mean, her organs, the discoloration of her organs

looked like someone who had been decomposing.

There was areas of green and purple and brown and red.

That was very abnormal.

This cell death that's going on,

that's just screaming, toxin!

Toxin! Toxin!

It's just screaming at me like this.

Normally, we start testing for illicit drugs,

heavy metals, arsenic, lead.

There was nothing there.

- At that point, we're just waiting for answers,

waiting for anything.

- So now Dr. Clark decides to go

to the Poison Control Center.

What they have is a big, huge database.

And it starts to look for similar symptoms,

findings of the pathologist, and it puts things together.

- When the tests came back, I see colchicine--

not just toxic, at a lethal level.

I thought, holy fucking--

are you kidding me?

Colchicine?

What the hell is colchicine?

Colchicine.

I said, what?

The medication for gout, colchicine.

She didn't take colchicine.

She doesn't have gout.

TAMARYN: I just remember at that point thinking,

maybe the supplements that she takes,

was there a possible contamination

from the factory?

Or did somebody intentionally do this to her,

and why?

LIANA: I asked Katie, "Can you remember anything

"that she might have had?

Did a patient bring in something from home?"

And Katie said, "No.

"Your mom came back to the office,

"and she just had a shake.

That was it."

M. WILLIAM: So they're all kind of thinking,

where did it come from?

And to get it is not easy.

You have to order it from a company

who keeps it under tight lock and key.

And moreover, you have to be a doctor.

Bill Yoder is a doctor.

- When it came back that it was colchicine poisoning,

it was very, very weird to me

that Bill didn't contact the police.

♪ ♪

- Sauquoit, New York, is generally a safe town,

quiet rural town.

In October, I was at my desk

when I received a phone call

asking us to look into the death of Mary Yoder.

That phone call was made by Sharon Mills,

who would be Mary Yoder's sister.

She described her sister's death

as colchicine poisoning.

We'd never heard of colchicine before.

I actually asked her to spell it for me.

Mary's sister was looking for answers,

looking for what went wrong.

ROBERT: In the early part of the investigation,

we were looking at who had contact with Mary.

We knew it had to be somebody close to her,

at least that would have access.

So, again, we're looking at Bill.

In a lot of poisoning cases, the spouse is responsible.

So we always look at the spouse.

- I heard about Mary Yoder's death

by a phone call that Bill made to the salon

the day after she died

and that we were to cancel all of her future appointments.

I just inquired as to what could have possibly happened.

I said, was it a tragic accident?

And he did say to me on the phone

that she had gone into the hospital,

and things didn't go so well.

The answer that he gave me just didn't sit well with me,

unless it was extreme malpractice.

I walked over to my client at the time, and I said,

"I think he killed his wife."

I said, "I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think I am."

[light music]

PERSON: Sauquoit is a very small town.

Everybody knows everybody.

And, you know,

you will get an opinion on everybody as well.

I got the ears covered.

That keeps out some opinions but not all of them.

- My garden club is very divided.

We do not talk about this case.

The Sauquoit Valley Garden Club is very divided.

- I feel like everyone forms their own opinions

based off of who they know

and, like, maybe who they're closer in age with.

Maybe the older people have more sympathy

for the chiropractor,

and the younger people think she's innocent.

- I think everybody judges based on who you are,

who you look like.

People see me, and they might think

I'm a totally, completely innocent guy.

But who knows what I do behind closed doors?

[tense music]

♪ ♪

- How would Mary get this into her system?

They don't rule it a homicide.

They don't know it was accidental.

Was it suicide?

They don't know how this gets into Mary's system.

So we had a lot of questions.

So Investigator Mark Van Namee set up an appointment

to bring Katie Conley into the sheriff's office

to get some information as to what's going on

between Bill and Mary.

I thought it was a good thing

that the police were investigating.

I felt a responsibility to Mary and to her family.

I was going to help in whatever way that I could

because we wanted to know what happened to her.

MARK: Katie was a typical college kid,

worried about, you know, finals for the end of the semester,

very well spoken, very well dressed, very polite.

KAITLYN: They were asking me how the office was run,

how the day was when Mary got sick,

how Bill acted.

I didn't really understand that it was tipping

towards a homicide investigation.

And when they were asking, "Well, is it Bill?

Is it Adam?"

I didn't know what that meant.

MARK: She was very forthcoming, credible.

The best description we had of Mary's day was from Kaitlyn.

- Well, Mary had her routine for her supplements

that she would take, and she was into these

health shakes and other things.

She'd bring stuff to the office

and take it there.

So who would've had access to it?

We knew Bill did.

Could have Adam went over to the house, to the business?

Is it possible? Yes.

KAITLYN: Adam contacted me.

We had been broken up for over a year,

but he wanted me to give him the key to the office

so that he could go and get

some of the nutritional supplements

so that the ME could test them

and see if there was any kind of cross-contamination.

And I didn't feel comfortable giving him my key,

so I went with him.

He started just going wholesale through the office.

He was grabbing supplements, vitamins.

I just stood back, and I watched him

because I didn't really know what was happening.

- Adam said that if anyone was going to get in trouble

for this, it was going to be me

and that he was going to watch me burn.

And I really thought he was talking

about the patient files.

And now I don't think that.

[ominous music]

♪ ♪

I think Adam knows more than I do.

♪ ♪

- We just got the test results back from Albany.

All the supplements are negative.

I'm sitting in my office, and the secretary walks in

and says, "Dr. Clark, I have a letter for you."

I opened the letter, not thinking anything of it,

and I proceed to read.

And the letter starts by saying, "Dear Dr. Clark,

"I understand you're investigating

"the death of Mary Yoder.

"If you discover colchicine in her blood,

"I know who did it, and I know

where you can find the empty bottle."

I couldn't fucking believe it.

I got on the phone, and I called

Bob Nelson from Oneida County.

And I said, "Bob, you're not gonna fucking believe this."

ROBERT: So at that point, I go out to my mailbox.

I receive a letter. I go into my office.

I open the letter up.

And it's the same letter basically

that the medical examiner's office got

stating Adam killed his mother,

and the colchicine is in his vehicle.

News of this letter came in.

We didn't know what to think.

It was just--it was just crazy.

- Everything changed when we got this letter in the mail.

At this point, I say, OK,

now we're looking at a homicide.

- After I open the letter, it's a wrap.

It's a murder.

Now the question is, who wrote the fucking letter?

[ominous music]

♪ ♪

After my mom passed,

my brother was drinking very heavily.

But it was something that we expected

based on the severity and how depressed he was.

It seemed like his coping mechanism.

- But Adam really thought that after his mother died

that I'd be his girlfriend again.

And he was genuinely surprised and shocked

when I said no.

And that didn't make Adam happy.

♪ ♪

- Vin and I did not realize that Adam would

drive by our house and park outside of the house

at all hours of the day and night.

- So I started getting very nervous

because Adam knew where I was.

He knew if I was at a restaurant.

He knew if I was at a friend's house.

I didn't know what he was gonna do.

I didn't know what he could do.

I was scared enough that I started carrying

a pocket knife with me just in case.

ROBERT: Once we received the letter,

we had to come up with a plan

as to how we're going to approach Adam,

whether it be we pull him over,

and we try to search his car that way,

whether he's at school, and we go get a search warrant.

MARK: And the plan was hashed out.

We would call him out of the blue.

And the decision was definitely a gamble.

- Adam comes up to the sheriff's office.

Investigator Mark Van Namee takes him

into an interview room.

He just starts talking to Adam.

Again, Adam has no idea what we're looking at.

Adam is very intelligent, a very smart kid.

Dropped out of college a couple times.

He went back to college.

He also seemed to have some troubles in his life.

Investigator Van Namee tells him,

"We received a letter, and here's what it states,"

that he killed his mother

and that the colchicine is in his vehicle.

And this was just kind of thrown at him.

And he's like-- he didn't know what to do.

MARK: Once he agreed to let us search his Jeep,

we go out with him to where his car's parked.

ROBERT: It's an older Jeep Wrangler.

There is garbage and everything all over in there.

I mean, it's just piled with stuff in there.

MARK: I wanted Adam to be there

when we were searching his car.

I wanted to see his reaction.

So he's standing there smoking a cigarette.

ROBERT: The forensic investigators

get a garbage bag and start taking trash,

basically is what it is, out of the vehicle

so we could get to look

underneath the seat of the vehicle.

- In my mind, I'm like, there's no way

we're gonna to find anything in this car.

ROBERT: They look underneath the seat.

And right where it said it was in the letter,

there was a package.