Original subtitles

[tense atmospheric music]

- No, I don't believe I'm a monster.

[laughs]

I don't think anyone would call me a monster.

- No, I think if the Yoders are being honest with themselves,

they--they know that

there are monsters in their family.

There are real monsters in their family.

♪ ♪

[intense music]

♪ ♪

- It was a complete mind-fuck.

I mean, I got the phone call,

and I was at my son's Christmas concert.

And I spoke with the investigator, Van Namee,

and he said, "Listen, we didn't tell you everything,

but we have this letter and we have your brother here."

♪ ♪

"We were not expecting this, but we just found the vial."

"And it's wrapped in cardboard and has the receipt with it."

- Well, when we were told about the anonymous letter,

and we were told that it was Adam,

I mean, I laughed.

I-I--I laughed.

I said, that's absurd.

- So everybody was kind of like, okay, it's here.

So we're like, okay, okay, th-the letter is accurate.

So whoever wrote this letter was right on that--

that colchicine was in Adam's car

and underneath the seat.

♪ ♪

So at this point, we asked Adam, okay,

we need to go back into our office now,

and we need to speak to you some more.

KAITLYN: We had been broken up for over a year.

When I found out that

the colchicine was found in Adam's car,

I said, oh, my God.

How deep was he in this?

Because it felt like, okay,

something happened.

And he knows more than he's saying.

It's in his car.

- We had to get a feel for Adam.

We wanted to either say, okay, Adam's our guy,

or Adam's not our guy.

MARK: So during the interview of Adam Yoder,

the part of the letter that we actually showed him...

"The colchicine container is under the front seat

until he figures out where he can dispose of it next,"

he's definitely in shock as I'm describing this to him.

♪ ♪

LIANA: I spoke with some attorneys

who very clearly told me,

you know, if you want to hire me for your brother,

you have to realize, he could have done this.

And it hit me--like...

You're right. All of us could have d--

it's like, that was when it really blew it open to me

that we really didn't know who did this.

♪ ♪

- This typed letter is interesting

for a number of reasons,

because it points out colchicine.

This is someone in the circle, all right?

None of this stuff has been publicized yet.

- There was only a few people that knew that Mary died

from colchicine--the family

and maybe some close people to the family that--

I mean, this isn't something that was out there.

♪ ♪

They had too much information.

And they had access to Adam's vehicle.

Adam is a suspect, but again, we can't just say,

okay, focus on Adam and not look at anybody else.

My instinct tells me, we need to start looking,

okay, at family members, at Bill Yoder.

In a lot of poisoning cases,

it comes back as being the spouse.

- You have to look at Bill if you're a detective,

and that's what they do.

- My mom has talked to me many times over the years,

is that she was so proud that they did the work

through the hard times in their marriage.

- We had the closest, most magical family--

f-from our memories, from my memories.

- There was some conversation in our briefings about,

is it possible that Bill is the one

who planted this evidence and wrote the letter?

♪ ♪

And it was very quickly, in our mind,

that would have to be an absolute stone-cold person,

willing to kill your wife and frame your only son

for a murder they didn't commit.

- Yes, I--I do think that Bill could have killed Mary.

I think he had it in him.

♪ ♪

It's a pretty sobering thought.

[intense music]

- I was Mary Yoder's hairstylist for 20 years plus.

Mary did not talk about any marital problems.

However, the last time she visited the salon here,

which was just a few days before she was murdered,

her behavior at that appointment was

so different from other times that it just--

her behavior stuck with me that day

because of her demeanor.

♪ ♪

Mary called her husband and said on the phone,

"No, we are not going to do that.

And no, that is not going to happen."

And I do not know what they were talking about,

but it was so out of character

for Mary to use the type of language

that it--it caught me completely off guard.

And I can't forget those words.

And then a few days later, I find out she's dead.

TAMARYN: I know the very first interview

I had with the sheriff's department, um,

they--they did ask me a lot of questions about my father.

♪ ♪

I did have to face the fact

that my father could have done this.

And it was terrifying and just horrifying.

- And I would stop by the office from time to time

when Katie was working there to either have lunch with her

or, you know, drop off a milkshake.

And, um, just very different vibes

between when it was Dr. Bill on or Dr. Mary.

♪ ♪

Can't quite put my finger on it, but I definitely--

I trust my gut, and I...

was never really fully comfortable around him.

[soft tense music]

KAITLYN: Bill would go on these weekend retreats

to other cities in New York,

and he wouldn't take Mary with him.

And he would leave and he would do things without her.

He would do things alone.

And that was weird to me.

♪ ♪

ROBERT: We had subpoenas out for phone records,

bank records, everything-- insurance policies.

We didn't want Bill to know that we were looking at him

as a possible suspect.

♪ ♪

- We basically had to lie to my father.

We had to pretend we knew nothing.

We couldn't tell him that we spoke to the sheriffs,

because they were thinking that, you know,

he was potentially responsible,

and they didn't want information getting back to him

about what they had or what they were thinking.

- They asked me about my father.

They asked me about his whereabouts.

And about a week or two prior, my father had sat down

with myself and my sister and my brother

and had told us about a-- a relationship.

We have no idea what's going on.

It was concerning to us.

When did this start?

So when I spoke with the police,

I let them know that information as well.

♪ ♪

TAMARYN: The police were tracking my father's trips

out to Cazenovia.

He was going there more often than he was staying home,

which me and my sister

and my brother did not know about.

So that was alarming to us too.

- So I first heard that Bill was dating someone else

in November.

So his wife had died in July,

and I heard that he wanted to spend Thanksgiving

with his new girlfriend

who happened to be his sister-in-law.

So that was a shock.

- He told us that he was in a relationship

with our Aunt Kathy.

[tense music]

♪ ♪

It was definitely...quick.

It--it happened very fast and was shocking.

ROCCO: There are some family members that believe

that this relationship between Bill Yoder

and Mary's sister, Kathy,

had already been in play when Mary died.

Doesn't it make more sense that he would want to kill his wife?

We're speaking with Janine Bakert King,

and she is the sister of Mary Yoder.

If anyone had motive, you feel that there was

one person that had motive, and that was--

- Yes. ROCCO: That was her husband.

- Right, he had financial and romantic motive.

♪ ♪

LIANA: My mom's sisters were very certain

that it had to be my dad, or maybe my aunt was involved,

or some combination of the two of them was guilty.

- Once the police learned that my father was now dating

my Aunt Kathy, that, you know, of course,

was a huge red flag for a motive for them.

So then we had to face the--

if my father did this, then did he also write

this letter to the sheriff's office?

Is he now trying to frame my brother?

Like, there was nothing in the world

that was making sense at that point.

♪ ♪

We made plans to get together with my father for Christmas.

And all I could think was that, if he was involved in this,

and I'm canceling my Christmas plans with him,

is he then going to think,

well, if I suspect him, then he needs to get rid of me?

LIANA: We hired security simply for the fact

that we could not sleep at night

not knowing who might be coming.

♪ ♪

I would wake up from sleep screaming.

All I kept thinking is, I'm gonna get

another phone call and someone else is gonna die.

[slow ambient music]

♪ ♪

[indistinct chatter]

- I can never see Adam doing it.

I can never see Katie doing it.

So I really--honestly, it's a little mind-blowing.

- I believe that the husband is now with a sister,

so it's, like, a little bit of conspiracy type of stuff there.

- Well, there was this poor young girl

who had a psy-- [splutters]

Wait, was he a chiropractor? Hold on.

- Never heard of a case like this.

Maybe in a thriller, maybe in a--a spy magazine.

- And the woman paid her to kill the husband.

However, this poor, innocent girl, you know, it--

it was actually the wife that did more than the poor girl.

- Mary and Bill were the salt of the earth.

They were sweet, loving, successful couple.

They were like a power couple in my eyes.

[tense music]

WENDY: There was some gossip about

when that affair could have started.

But I had heard that the affair had started

prior to Mary's death, and I think that's a--

a terrible thing to do to your sister.

In my opinion, Bill could have done this

because he is a very smart man.

When you have that opinion

that you are smarter than everybody else in the room,

it leads to being able to try to pull things off that,

you know, you think that nobody will ever find out about.

TAMARYN: My father had

horrible things said about him,

horrible accusations made against him,

flat-out completely made-up things.

It's absurd.

♪ ♪

- Once the investigation really got going,

we were introduced to three of Mary's sisters.

They approached the Oneida County sheriffs

and said, I think you need to look into Bill.

They truly believed that Bill had everything to gain

and nothing to lose from Mary's death.

He had the means and the opportunity.

♪ ♪

- Investigator Mark Van Namee received a phone call

one night from one of Mary's sisters down in Florida.

She's a nurse.

Once she heard that colchicine caused Mary's death,

she had some concerns about how Mary would get this.

They didn't put anything on the death certificate

as to the cause of death other than,

they knew it was colchicine.

- Who would have ordered colchicine?

Who would have had the ability to order colchicine?

Who would have known that it could be used to kill somebody?

♪ ♪

So in Mary Yoder's sisters' minds,

they believed that Bill Yoder was the suspect.

Talk of the Town, TALK 100.7 FM, Rocco LaDuca.

- So when Bill Yoder says he had never heard of colchicine,

he had no clue that it was used to grow marijuana,

the family members who know Bill

and know what colchicine is don't believe him.

They don't buy that.

♪ ♪

M. WILLIAM: When we talk about colchicine,

for one, I had a tough time pronouncing it,

looking at the word, 'cause I had never seen it before

when I first did this case.

This is a rare, rare toxic substance.

- Is it possible that Bill killed her

so that he could be with Kathy, and he could retire,

and he could keep all the money to himself?

That makes a lot of sense to me.

- Um, they--

[whispers] How am I gonna word this?

Adam's relationship with his dad

is definitely, you know, unique.

[intense music]

KAITLYN: Adam and his father had a strange relationship.

♪ ♪

It wasn't the kind of relationship

that I had with my own father.

My father is very supportive, and I know he loves me.

And he's always going out of his way to help.

And Bill and Adam didn't have that kind of relationship.

M. WILLIAM: There were times when they fought

and they argued because Adam dropped out of school,

drinking too much.

So his dad is upset with him.

Bill was very cold,

and he almost treated Adam like a stranger.

Like, he didn't seem to care what Adam did,

or if Adam was suffering,

he was okay with that.

♪ ♪

- Adam and Bill both are persons of interest,

one because they're the spouse of the deceased,

and the other because they're mentioned

in the anonymous letter, and as investigators,

our thought process is, you know,

which one of these guys could this possibly be?

ROBERT: Yes, and we were looking at Bill.

Is there some hidden thing we don't know about?

Is--is there an affair? Is there something else

going on that we don't know about?

♪ ♪

But we knew that Bill was definitely gonna be

one of the last people we speak to,

'cause we wanted to talk to everyone else

to gather information, and when we bring Bill in,

confront him with anything that we find in the investigation.

So let's talk to Kaitlyn Conley.

So we decide, she works in the office,

she may have information on Bill...

What the relationship between Bill and Mary was

and what goes on in the office.

♪ ♪

So investigator Van Namee calls in Kaitlyn Conley.

[soft tense music]

♪ ♪

KAITLYN: The police asked if I could come in

and answer some questions about the office.

So of course, I dropped everything

and I went right up there

and I started answering questions.

♪ ♪

- Katie seemed like a--

I don't know if I would say shy,

but just very meek, mild.

She worked in the office. She knew the family.

She had a relationship with Adam.

So we were raised

that the police are there to help you.

And I felt, again, if I was in a position to help,

why wouldn't I?

[intense music]

- During the interview, she keeps talking

about how suspicious Adam was acting.

You know, in my mind, all of a sudden,

she's pointing a finger at Adam,

similar to the letter.

♪ ♪

And that's when I came out and I asked her,

Katie, did you write us a letter?

She didn't answer it with a yes or no.

So I asked it a second time, and her answer was,

you know, you can't protect me.

♪ ♪

So I again said, Katie, if you wrote the letter,

we need to know that.

And it was at that point she admitted

to writing the anonymous letter.

I stepped out of the room.

♪ ♪

This is the moment that she goes from being,

you know, just another witness to the person responsible

for writing the anonymous letter.

We'd always said, you know, the person that wrote

this letter has definitely got to be considered

a suspect in our case.

♪ ♪

So we--we started recording

about halfway through that interview.

- I can't talk about that. I'm sorry.

[sniffling]

Sorry.

[hyperventilating]

INTERVIEWER: Are you all right?

[sobbing]

INTERVIEWER: Are you all right?

KAITLYN: [sobbing]

Sorry.

[hyperventilating]

[tense music]

[whimpering]

INTERVIEWER: Take a deep breath and hold it

and then blow out. Go...

[inhales sharply]

And... [exhales deeply]

[continues breathing deeply]

♪ ♪

Ah. Okay, sorry.

INTERVIEWER: Shake it out?

Thank you.

[sighing] Oh, man.

INTERVIEWER: Okay?

[laughs]

Okay.

- It's--it's just-- it's a lot.

It's a lot to live with every day.

I'm under a lot of pressure.

♪ ♪

- So now the decision was made to treat her like a suspect

at that point forward.

Every interview would be taped, recorded.

♪ ♪

When I went back in the room,

we started a conversation again.

- So he had told me that he had the bottle.

And without knowing that he did,

I thought it was another ploy for attention,

because that seems like something that he would say

for that attention, for that wow factor.

- He didn't come out and say that he killed his mother,

but he framed it as a question.

"What do you want me to say, that I killed her?"

♪ ♪

And I remember getting goosebumps

and thinking, no.

Nope, nope. No, I do not want to hear that.

I do not want to hear that. I do not want you to say that.

I don't want that to be true.

She definitely tried to paint the picture of Adam as being,

you know, as bad as possible.

- You know, I told Katie that, you know, statistically,

little boys don't kill their moms.

They'll ignore 'em all day long,

but they don't kill 'em.

And she came back with the response

that kind of caught me off guard.

MARK: Hm.

As I'm talking to Katie, and she comes back

with the response about, "Yeah, and they don't use poison.

That's a lady's weapon," with a smirk,

that was, like, maybe the light bulb moment.

We were convinced that, you know,

we had the right person.

♪ ♪

[door closes]

This is a girl who thought

she was smarter than everybody else.

And Katie Conley believed

that when we read that letter and it said, Adam--

Adam did it and here's why he did it,

she thought that was it.

We're gonna slap the cuffs on Adam,

and we're gonna arrest Adam Yoder for the murder

of his mother, and case closed and that's it.

That didn't happen.

♪ ♪

KAITLYN: I felt like I couldn't leave

until I told them what they wanted to hear,

and they knew what they wanted to hear.

They knew what they wanted me to say.

And I was really stuck there

until I cooperated.

She--she moved up the radar very quickly.

You know, all these things, you know, from,

you know, admitting to writing the anonymous letter

to, you know, the statement about,

poison is a lady's weapon.

You can't help but be like, this--

the person that is sitting across from me

is the murderer of Mary Yoder.

♪ ♪

KAITLYN: They were asking just very general questions,

and then they started asking questions

that made me sit back and say, whoa.

They think I was involved.

They think I did this.

And I felt like, no, no, no.

If I can only explain what happened,

then you'll see.

[intense music]

CATHY: Katie came down one night in December.

She came down to the kitchen with her friend and said,

"I've just come from the sheriff's office."

And we were taken aback at that.

Her friend said that she was being questioned

about the death of her boss, Mary Yoder,

who was a friend.

♪ ♪

We just couldn't believe. Like, why--

why are you being questioned?

What's going on?

- Katie approached us and said, you know,

"Oh, my goodness, you guys will never believe it."

You know, "They think I did this."

And I just remember being dumbfounded.

Like, how could you get it so wrong?

♪ ♪

- One of my friends told my father

that he thought I should have an attorney

because of the police presence.

And my father said, "No,

"because she didn't do anything wrong.

"And if she didn't do anything wrong,

she wouldn't need an attorney."

CATHY: And then they asked if Kaitlyn would go down

to the sheriff's office to sign a deposition.

And Katie said, you know,

"Mom and Dad, would you go with me?"

I said, yes, of course.

MARK: The hope is, every interrogation

or every interview, is to obtain--obtain the truth,

and that's what we hope for.

- We picked up Katie here at the house,

brought her up to the Sheriff's Office,

and they said, "It will probably be an hour."

- I felt that I need to go in there,

and I'm gonna start pushing things more.

♪ ♪

[door opens]

CATHY: So Katie was brought into a back room,

and Vin and I were kept in a small little room waiting.

Well, after an hour, she wasn't coming out.

KAITLYN: I got this feeling,

the police were playing a game with me,

and that they knew the rules and I didn't.

I really didn't know what was going on.

And I didn't like where they started to go.

- I realized that she was being interrogated.

That's when I said, wow, this is--this is serious.

CATHY: They're doing more than just

having her sign a deposition.

♪ ♪

VIN: I beat on the door.

CATHY: Yeah.

- I beat on the door, like, after six hours.

They knew I was there to bring my daughter home

or to get an attorney for her,

and they were still questioning.

- They wouldn't let her come out.

They said, "Well, she didn't ask for a lawyer,

so, you know, she's not going to have a lawyer."

- You know, Katie never asked for an attorney,

never asked for a lawyer.

You know, she-- she never invoked

her right to--right to counsel.

- Katie was put in a room with two middle-aged white men

who are bullying her.

♪ ♪

This was never even in the realm

of what we would anticipate would happen

to any of our daughters.

KATIE: [sobbing]

MARK: She was trying to work herself up

to a fake emotion and that kind of thing.

I think Nelson saw it clearer than I did.

He just kind of slides the garbage can over

and is like, whatever.

KATIE: [gagging and coughing]

KATIE: [hyperventilating]

- When they finally let me leave,

and I had to walk into the waiting room,

and my parents were there, and they said,

"The police told us that you-- you killed somebody."

And I looked at them... [choking up]

And they said, "We know you didn't,

but why would they say that?"

And I said, I don't know.

I don't know.

- The fact that Mary's sisters support me,

and that they know Bill and they know Adam,

they know I didn't do this, and that they support me,

that means something.

That means a lot to me.

I was absolutely blown away.

I just could not believe

that this young, 23-year-old girl

could have anything to do with this.

I mean, she just seemed like this sweet, quiet,

meek little thing. [laughs]

And I couldn't imagine

how they could be looking at her.

♪ ♪

SARAH: Oneida County sheriffs had railroaded

their investigation and locked eyes on who,

in their mind, it had to have been.

And they created a narrative in which Katie fit their story.

MARK: Katie is very calculating.

You could just tell that in-- in speaking with her.

What she tells you, when she tells you,

how she's gonna tell you.

And it doesn't come as any surprise that

when you look into her phone, her phone is the same.

KATIE: Okay, can I--

- Yeah, if I knew anybody that could go in

and find the information that was in these computers,

these phones, Tony would be the person for that.

- I'm the guy who tears apart someone's entire digital life

and learns way more about them

than they thought anyone would ever know.

- Kaitlyn Conley's cell phone is a treasure trove

of interesting artifacts for this case.

♪ ♪

To me, I immediately knew,

Kaitlyn Conley is a very different person

internally than the persona

that people were seeing externally.

[laughing]

[clears throat] Sorry.

Um, no, I did not kill Mary Yoder.

♪ ♪