MURDERED: Mary Yoder Part 2

13:40Brit Prawat:And eventually the account gets deleted altogether, but from her phone. Correct. But just staying with the office computer for one sec. In November 2015, so this is around the time the anonymous letters were sent, someone installed software on it to mask IP addresses. A way to hide like what sites had been visited. But it didn't work. The clinic's antivirus program logged the activity anyway. And what it recorded was that someone on that computer during business hours was downloading the masking software first, then using a private browser to log into that same Gmail account. So whoever did this took steps to cover their tracks before they ever pulled it up.

14:21Brit Prawat:Was trying to hide it in the first place. And listen, there's also a typewriter at the office, and the ink ribbon still had faint impressions of what had been typed, which matched the anonymous letters sent to the ME in the sheriff's office. Then, on Katie's phone, investigators found a deleted note with lines that read 1990 at lowercase g and capital A is gay. They figured that this was shorthand for the email address that's at the center of this whole thing, MrAdamYoder1990 at gmail.com, and maybe its password, which turned out to be Adam is gay. Now, that same email and password were also used to set up a document scanning app on Katie's phone, too.

15:11Brit Prawat:The app had been deleted by the time they got to it, but the cloud storage was still accessible. and in it were scanned copies of every document sent to the supplier, the order forms, the letter of intent, all of it. There was also a letter of recommendation that Mary had written for Katie with Mary's signature on it, implication being that that could have been used to forge the other documents. And there were other notes on Katie's phone that suggested she had been workshopping how to frame Adam, drafting the language for the letter, even references to legal standards like what police need from an informant's tip before they can use it to get a warrant.

15:58Brit Prawat:Now, contrary to the mountain of evidence they find on Katie's phone, when they search Adam's devices, those all come up clean. No poison research, no suspicious searches, no sign that he ever tried to buy colchicine. And the physical evidence tells a similar story. Katie's DNA is consistent with being a major contributor on the colchicine bottle, on the colchicine bottles wrapper and under the stamp on the letter sent to the medical examiner. Adam's DNA doesn't show up anywhere. So on February 5th, police bring Katie back in and Investigator Van Amey confronts her with something major. Starting a new business can be intimidating.

16:47Brit Prawat:I mean, the amount of tasks you have to juggle can get overwhelming quickly. And it's like you have to be an expert in everything all at once. I mean, you think when I started Crime Junkie, I thought I would be running a merch store one day? I know. But when that day came, before I could even hire help, I had to expertly run a merch store. And I did it with Shopify. And you know what? It doesn't matter how big we've grown, how many team members we have who are actual experts now. We still use Shopify. Shopify drives e-commerce whether you're a household name like AudioCheckNow or if you're a creator just getting started like I was eight years ago.

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19:03Brit Prawat:Quince.com slash crimejunkie. When Katie comes back into the sheriff's office in February, Van Amey doesn't just hit her with all the digital forensic evidence. Like, he's got her on that. What he wants is to tie her to the actual prepaid cards that were used to buy the drug. So he bluffs. He tells Katie that police have surveillance footage of her buying the prepaid credit cards. If you purchased them, you're involved in this.

19:40Ashley Flowers:I'm telling you, Katie, there's no way around this, okay? I've let you sit here. That's why I asked if I could show you this. OK, I let you tell me, I don't know how that got on my phone. OK, we're across from now. OK, because I know all along I don't ask a question I don't know the answer to. OK, you purchased those credit cards, didn't you? Yes, yes. So she admits to buying the cards, but she still insists that she didn't actually buy the colchicine.

20:11Brit Prawat:And the only explanation she can offer is that somehow Adam must have used them. even though, according to investigators, cell records show that Adam was nowhere near Katie on the day that she scanned the documents needed to make the purchase.

20:26Ashley Flowers:Those documents were scanned in your phone. I know that. And you were in possession of your phone. We're at a crossroad right now, Katie. And I'm going to be honest with you. You lied to me earlier when you said you don't know how those were scanned. I know for a fact that you were in possession of your phone when they were scanned. Yes. You're saying you purchased this credit card and it was immediately used for the payment within a day. Who did you give that credit card to then? If that's the road we're going to go down, let's keep rolling this snowmobile.

21:00Brit Prawat:That's not the only hole in her story. You see, investigators had found a draft of the anonymous letter saved on the Google Drive connected to that Gmail account. It had been edited in November, right before it was sent. So now, if Katie admits to writing that letter, she is also admitting that she had access to the Gmail account. And if she was the one using the account, she is the one who ordered the poison.

21:29Ashley Flowers:But what do you mean if she admits to writing the letter? I thought she already admitted to writing it.

21:35Brit Prawat:She did. But now she's saying that she didn't write this letter, the one that was drafted in November. What? Yeah, she claims she sent a different letter to police, like back in September.

21:47Ashley Flowers:We can prove without a doubt that it's typed in November. Okay. Okay? We know that. That's not even a question, okay? I'm telling you, in one of the last times I talked to you, you told me about sending the letter in November. No, in September. Katie, I'm telling you, there's no way you sent that letter in September. That's what you told me. You didn't send the letter in September. You're the one saying Adam told you that he did this. So if nobody else is involved in that, your letter, nobody else sent us a letter. We got one letter. You said you sent us a letter. That's your letter.

22:25Brit Prawat:I'm confused. The way my brain almost exploded as I tried to, like, untangle this. I mean, basically, if she wrote the letter, she owns the suspicious Gmail account. And if she owns the account, that's it. I mean, did police get a letter in September? No. The only letters anyone received were the two in November. One to the sheriff's office, one to the ME. So investigators are starting to develop a pretty clear picture of what they think happened, including a firmer timeline. Colchazine poisoning typically shows symptoms within eight hours. but a large dose can hit a lot faster. Their theory is that Katie laced Mary's afternoon protein shake around 1 to 1.30-ish on July 20th while they were both at the office.

23:12Brit Prawat:But why? Well, prosecutors theorize that it all goes back to Katie's tumultuous relationship with Adam. In their view, Katie is a scorned ex and Mary is just collateral damage, image, either revenge on Adam or some kind of twisted attempt to pull him back after he dumped her, supposedly for cheating on him. Either way, basically like if I can't have him, I'll hurt him or I'll be the shoulder that he cries on after, like if I secretly create a tragedy. They also say that this wouldn't be the first time that Katie did something dramatic to win Adam back, that she once faked an ectopic pregnancy.

23:52Brit Prawat:She said that she required a medically necessary abortion, which led to them rekindling their romance. And according to prosecutors, it worked again this time because after Mary died, Adam leaned on Katie and that's when they briefly got back together. It's a compelling narrative with compelling evidence to back it up, which is why nearly a year after Mary's death on June 13th, 2016, Katie gets indicted by a grand jury on charges of second-degree murder, falsifying business records, second-degree forgery, and petty larceny. The falsifying accounts are for the documents that she allegedly created to make it look like Adam bought the colchicine.

24:34Brit Prawat:And the other charges came out of the investigation. I guess the forgery is for a parking ticket that she supposedly signed with Bill's name, and then the larceny is for about$90 that the investigators say she stole from the office. Now, the assistant DA knows that most of the evidence that they have is just circumstantial, but she still firmly believes that the case is really strong. Except not everyone is convinced. According to ABC News, Katie's arrest sends shockwaves through their small community. The Yoders and the Conleys are both well-known families, and this case creates this real divide.

25:19Brit Prawat:In fact, some of Mary's own sisters side with Katie. They are still much more suspicious of Bill.

25:27Ashley Flowers:Even after all of this comes out?

25:29Brit Prawat:Yep.

25:30Ashley Flowers:I'm presuming not including the one dating him.

25:33Brit Prawat:Oh, no, yeah. So the ones who are suspicious are still the same trio that I mentioned before, Janine, Sharon, and Sally. And even though authorities say that there's no evidence implicating Bill, that is exactly the argument that the defense makes when Katie's first trial begins in Oneida County Court in April 2017. Katie's attorney, Christopher Pelley, says that Bill had something that Katie didn't have. Real motives. A troubled marriage. Money problems that went away when Mary died. And possibly an affair with Mary's own sister. Starting with the marriage, Pelley says that it wasn't as solid as Bill claimed.

26:13Brit Prawat:Before they even tied the knot, I guess Bill had suggested keeping things open, which they decided against. And Bill says that he never cheated on Mary. But at some point, he started disappearing to hotels on various weekends, those solo trips I talked about, supposedly to write. And so they kind of pose this question like, was that really the only reason he would take these trips? And then there's the Kathleen of it all. What kind of guy takes up with his dead wife's sister at all, let alone two months after your wife dies? And how do we know they even waited that long? I mean, sure, Kathleen and Bill say it all began in September, but a neighbor of Kathleen's testifies that she saw them on Kathleen's front porch all snuggled up looking very much like a couple the week before Mary died.

27:04Brit Prawat:And don't forget about the money. True, Mary didn't have any life insurance, but Bill had recently inherited that close to half a million bucks from his dad. And after Mary died, he told one of his daughters, Tamron, that while it wasn't enough for two people to retire on, it was for just one. And what's up with Bill's behavior after Mary died? Why did he ever cremated before anyone knew what the heck was going on? Why wasn't he more curious about what killed her? Why didn't he push investigators for answers? Because it sounds like he was moving on and was in love with someone else. Yeah, and it seems to be the thing that people have a problem with.

27:43Brit Prawat:There is also a strong possible link to the poison. Maybe Mary ordered it for gardening and Bill then used it against her. Or maybe he bought it. Either way, he would potentially know what to do with it. I mean, remember how Mary's sister mentioned that Bill had experimented with growing marijuana back in the 80s? Actually, the letter of intent to the supplier to get the colchicine was all about manipulating plant genetics. And that was Bill's world, not Katie's. So the defense is saying that she didn't know anything about that. I mean, sure, maybe she didn't.

28:21Ashley Flowers:But how do they explain away all of the digital stuff tying Katie to the colchicine?

28:27Brit Prawat:Like, there's so much. For our defense attorney, Pelley, he goes after that too. He says that the state's forensic expert is unqualified, uncertified, a college student who cherry-picked data to fit his theory. And he argues that the digital trail isn't as solid as it looks. I guess the Conley's home Wi-Fi, which Adam actually set up, wasn't password protected, so anyone nearby could have used the IP address.

28:53Ashley Flowers:So theoretically, they're saying someone could have been outside the Conley's house and connected to their Wi-Fi.

29:01Brit Prawat:Yeah, if the range was wide enough or somebody who would have been over at their house.

29:05Ashley Flowers:But didn't they check all of Bill's devices to see if he did anything like that?

29:09Brit Prawat:Eventually. I mean, they had his phone records pretty quickly. But here's the thing. When that Adam letter came and then they started looking at Katie, for some reason, checking Bill's devices got put way on the back burner, which I think comes back to bite them during this trial because apparently right after Mary died, Bill told his daughter Tamron, like, not to touch either of their home computers because they had viruses. But investigators didn't collect any of this until September 2016, and then some data couldn't be recovered at all. Plus, Bill was apparently no stranger to computers. He managed the network that connected all the chiropractic office computers for years.

29:52Brit Prawat:And a lot of the stuff was done on the office computer and with office supplies, right? Typewriter, envelopes. Yeah, sure, Katie used all of that the most. But the defense points out that it was Bill's office after all. Like he could use any of the equipment he wanted, including envelopes that Katie had pre-stamped. So they're trying to argue that even though her DNA was found under one of the stamps. That she could have done that at any random time. Yeah, and he just like grabbed one.

30:20Ashley Flowers:Is there any physical evidence pointing to Bill?

30:24Brit Prawat:So DNA results on the colchicine bottle were inconclusive. So the science could not rule him in or out.

30:32Ashley Flowers:I thought the DNA on the bottle was Katie's.

30:35Brit Prawat:It was, but there was actually at least three profiles. So Katie was the only one, like, or the only match that could be, like, fully identified. And they were able to completely rule Adam out. But for some reason, not Bill, just based on, I guess, the sample they had or whatever. And listen, there is also a problem with the prosecution's theory that Katie poisoned Mary's protein shake. Mary's medical records from when she was admitted to the hospital say that she had a protein bar and grilled chicken that day. There was nothing in there about a shake. Okay, but where's that coming from?

31:08Ashley Flowers:Like, did she tell them during intake?

31:09Brit Prawat:Yeah, this isn't like stomach contents or anything. She comes into the hospital. Mary's telling them herself. She was still, like, coherent when she comes to the hospital. And sure, right? Like, she's in, like, the worst position or, like, the worst spot. She's so sick. Maybe she misspoke. Maybe she had both. Maybe someone wrote it down wrong. But Pelley offers another idea that maybe Bill could have slipped the colchicine into Mary's food on the morning of July 20th and possibly given her a second dose while she was still at the hospital. So they're saying she was poisoned twice? Well, the experts can't rule it out.

31:45Brit Prawat:Apparently, there's no way to know exactly how much colchicine Mary ingested. But the fact that it was in her stomach fluid during the autopsy indicates that it got into her system orally rather than through like inhalation or injection. And keep in mind, this was after two days of vomiting. So the pathologist says that the levels in her system were actually rising when she died, like her body was still absorbing it. Now, the prosecution has an explanation for that. They say it has to do with the way that drugs can shift around in the body after death. And their toxicologist says a second dose would have triggered a fresh round of symptoms, which did not happen.

32:23Brit Prawat:But the defense pushes back. Mary was on anti-nausea medication at the hospital. So they are saying that could have maybe masked new symptoms. And so it's just like this ping pong back and forth at trial.

32:35Ashley Flowers:But you said in part one that Katie was at the hospital with Mary and the family. So if there was a second dose, who's to say who actually gave it to her? Like, what about it is tying Bill to this theory and not Katie?

32:51Brit Prawat:Well, because Katie wasn't there at the hospital until Wednesday, like closer to the time that Mary died. Bill was the only one there with Mary on Tuesday before she took a turn for the worse. And Mary wasn't supposed to eat or drink or anything while she was hospitalized. But Bill admitted that he brought her cough drops and an inhaler from home when she asked. So either one could have theoretically been laced, but it's not clear if those things were ever tested. Although as far as I can tell, they weren't. My head is spinning. I know, you're not the only one. This trial stretches on for over three weeks with dozens of witnesses.

33:31Brit Prawat:The jury goes on to deliberate for nearly 24 hours over five days, but they are hopelessly deadlocked. Reportedly, 10 to 2 in favor of acquittal. So on May 18, 2017, the judge declares a mistrial. No verdict, no closure. Katie is in legal limbo, still charged with murder. And prosecutors aren't about to let things go. Five months later in October, they bring Katie to trial again. Now, the theory is the same, but this time the prosecution has a new ace in the hole. As they prepped for round two, investigators re-examined Adam's laptop, and they realized that one of the phone backups on it wasn't from Adam's device.

34:22Brit Prawat:It was from Katie's. In August 2015, so just weeks after Mary died, Katie had plugged her iPhone into Adam's laptop. And without meaning to, she triggers a full backup, preserving everything on that phone at the time, including stuff that she later deleted. What they found painted a picture of someone doing their homework. In the fall of 2014, Katie started researching different poisons and screenshotting articles about how deadly each one was. By December, she seemed to land on colchizine. She was researching chemical suppliers, looked up the prognosis and treatment of colchizine poisoning, and then ordered it using those fake documents that she'd scanned with her phone.

35:09Brit Prawat:To prosecutors, this is a smoking gun and they're feeling good as everyone crowds back into the courtroom. But I don't think they are expecting the curveball that Katie's new lawyer is about to throw at them. Starting a new business can be intimidating. I mean, the amount of tasks you have to juggle can get overwhelming quickly. And it's like you have to be an expert in everything all at once. I mean, you think when I started Crime Junkie, I thought I would be running a merch store one day? I know. But when that day came, before I could even hire help, I had to expertly run a merch store. And I did it with Shopify.

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37:51Brit Prawat:Katie's defense attorney for trial number two is a guy named Frank Policelli. And he has a whole new approach. Instead of accusing Bill, Policelli lays the blame on Adam. This time the defense says that Katie actually tried to help investigators see what was really going on. But they were so focused on her, they dismissed everything she told them, including her claim that Adam had confessed to her. According to Policelli, here's what really happened. Adam was desperate, volatile, and had a strained relationship with his mother. And when he couldn't hold on to Katie, he concocted a plan to poison Mary in a way that would make sure Katie took the fall.

38:35Brit Prawat:Think about it from this angle. Adam actually studied computer science in college, and he had way more digital know-how than Katie. He had used her devices in the past. Was it really a coincidence that her damning phone backup was on his laptop? I mean, you gotta find a way to explain that new evidence. In Policelli's view, Adam could have planted or manipulated any incriminating data. He had access to the Yoder's office, too. He even had his own key, which he claims he lost. And when police searched his Jeep, they found goggles and gloves and a face mask, the kind of stuff that you would want if you were handling something toxic.

39:13Brit Prawat:But investigators never collected those things, let alone tested them. And yes, the relationship between him and Katie was toxic. No one disputes that. But Policelli says that Adam was the problem, not Katie. She had moved on. She had a new boyfriend. And she was making plans for a future while Adam couldn't let go. Apparently, over the years, she had lent him thousands of dollars that he never paid back. And she was scared of him. By his own admission, he had gotten physical with her, said that he slapped her in the face a few times at a party in 2013. If he's willing to do that in front of people, you know, what's happening when no one's watching?

39:54Brit Prawat:And then there's the sexual assault allegation from 2014 that Katie told the detectives about in their first meeting. Remember that? Now, Adam denies it, but he also admits that he was so drunk that night, he doesn't remember anything.

40:07Ashley Flowers:So how can you deny something you don't even remember? Well, here's the thing.

40:14Brit Prawat:Prosecutors actually don't even believe Katie about it either. She had given police photos of injuries that she said came from the assault. But when investigators pulled the data, capture times told a different story. Some were taken nearly a year before the night in question. Others were months after. None of them matched up with when she said, like, they were supposed to have happened. And so just like this, for almost every argument the defense tries to make, the prosecution comes back with a one-two punch. And they insist via expert witnesses who did the data extractions that there was no digital tampering or modification and nothing pointing to Adam at all except for Katie's word.

40:57Brit Prawat:They are confident that the right person is on trial. But they do start to worry that some jurors might believe Katie didn't intend to kill Mary, just make her sick. Like the way Adam got sick before from who knows what. Which, by the way, even back then, like when he got sick, he made sort of a joke, question mark, that Katie poisoned him? Because he said that he got sick right after taking some supplements that she had given him.

41:27Ashley Flowers:Can I just say that if that thought even crosses your mind when you're in a relationship, run. Get out. Yeah.

41:34Brit Prawat:But that half-joking, did she poison me thing, that's something that we know from Katie's original interview with detectives and messages that she and Adam exchanged. And at trial, the defense actually brings up Adam's illness too. But they suggest that Adam poisoned himself for attention and then later did the same to Mary. Or maybe he bought the colchizine to grow marijuana and then got sick while handling it. But either way, this ends up backfiring. Like I said, the prosecution is getting a little nervous. So they go and ask the judge, listen, instead of just guilty or not guilty for second-degree murder, can we give the jury an option?

42:13Brit Prawat:Can we add first-degree manslaughter? That way, it won't be an all or nothing on second-degree murder. Now, the defense tries to keep the lesser charge off the table, but they can't because by floating the theory that Adam poisoned himself and then Mary, they basically open the legal door and the state just walks right in. If Katie was behind both poisonings, maybe she just expected Mary to get better since Adam had gotten better.

42:47Ashley Flowers:So was it ever confirmed that Adam had colchicine in his system?

42:52Brit Prawat:Or could he have just been really sick, unrelated? We don't know. Investigators tested the supplements from, like, the ones he was taking when Adam got sick. Those came back clean. But they don't even know for sure if they were from the same bottle that Katie gave him. So, like, that part is all just still a big mystery. Either way, the question of intent is now in the jury's hands. And in early November, they start deliberating. At one point, it looks like they won't even be able to agree. And everyone's kind of like holding their breath, wondering if this is like going to be another mistrial.

43:28Brit Prawat:But they're able to work through it. And after two days of hashing it out, the verdict comes in. Not guilty of second-degree murder, but guilty of first-degree manslaughter. According to Observer Dispatch reporter Jolene Cleaver, Katie's bail is revoked and she is taken into custody. Even after two trials, some of Mary's sisters still don't believe that Katie did this. When she is sentenced in January 2018, they ask the judge for leniency. And on the other side is Bill with his and Mary's children, who all stand by the conviction. To them, Katie took Mary's love and repaid it with poison. And Adam's voice, you can hear it break as he talks about the guilt that he carries for bringing Katie into his family.

44:20Brit Prawat:A family who welcomed her because he once loved her. But not anymore. He tells the court he hates her for what she has done. But Katie maintains that she didn't do anything. And that the system got it wrong. Though the judge isn't moved. The fact is, Mary died in agony, never understanding what was happening to her. So he sentences Katie to 23 years. That was in 2018. So realistically, she could have been in jail until like 2041. But then an attorney named Melissa Swartz takes on her appeal. And she zeroes in on the warrant that police use to search Katie's phone. Law enforcement had permission to take the phone, but apparently they didn't have permission to dig through all the data inside of it.

45:14Brit Prawat:Swartz argues that Katie's trial attorneys should have fought to get that evidence thrown out. They didn't. And that failure cost Katie her freedom. And so just last year, the appellate court agreed. In late January 2025, Katie's conviction was overturned, and a few days later, she walked out of prison free for the first time in seven years. Now, you know this, overturned doesn't mean exonerated. Prosecutors can try again, and they're planning to do exactly that. But almost immediately, they shoot themselves in the foot. You see, when Katie was released, her attorney asked the judge to seal the case records, which Swartz told us is pretty standard for a conviction that gets tossed.

46:02Brit Prawat:What's unusual is that the DA's office didn't object. And so now all of the evidence, police reports, witness statements, digital records, all of it is locked away, not just from the public, but from prosecutors, too. Why wouldn't they push back on that? Dude, I don't get it. Maybe they figured that the seal only covered the conviction and not the actual evidence, which, like, not true. And they should have known. So even though they got like a whole nother grand jury to do the whole song and dance again, even get to the point where they call Swartz to schedule Katie's arraignment because they expect a new indictment soon, they get blocked.

46:44Brit Prawat:Because it's at that point which Swartz is like, wait, did you unseal the case first? Right, because like, what are you even going to bring to this grand jury? Because it's all tucked away. Yeah, and that's when the DA's office has this like, oh, moment. They had been using evidence that they had no right to touch. The judge orders them to stop and now they're just stuck. They can't even ask to unseal the records themselves because only law enforcement can do that. And they can only do that if there's an active investigation. but police have admitted that no one is currently working on Mary's case.

47:21Brit Prawat:So from there, it just spirals. The DA's office tries to get the judge removed, accusing the judge of bias, claiming that at some point she said that she thought Bill killed Mary. The judge denies it, refuses to step aside. Then the DA files multiple appeals, all of this back and forth over months, which brings me to right now. Oh, she's still out? Oh, yeah. This is active and ongoing. There is actually a hearing coming up in April. But Swartz says that the state has been fighting the wrong battles, that they have been focused on whether the judge was wrong when she ordered them to stop using the sealed evidence.

48:02Brit Prawat:But again, even if they win that, everything is still sealed. Yes. It's like arguing you shouldn't be able to stay out of a room that you, like, cannot get into in the first place. So they're not even getting at the real issue here. Plus, even if they do get the records unsealed, most of the evidence might be worthless. Because of the... The appeals court decided that the search of Katie's phone was illegal, right? They shouldn't, the evidence that's there shouldn't even be there, essentially. Yeah, anything that came from it, including the backup on Adam's laptop, the statement that Katie made based on what cops found, all of it can be tossed.

48:39Ashley Flowers:Wait, why the laptop backup? Didn't they have a warrant for his devices?

48:46Brit Prawat:They did, but there are a few problems with it. Like, for one, the only reason they even knew to look at it was because they had Katie's phone first. A fruit of the forbidden tree. Exactly. On top of that, there's a question of whether Adam should have even had the backup on his computer. But even if prosecutors can use it, it's weaker now. I mean, at trial, they verified the backup by comparing it against the physical phone, basically like matching digital fingerprints to like prove nobody had tampered with it. With the phone suppressed now, they can't have that. They can't even do that anymore.

49:22Brit Prawat:So you're left with like a backup file that they can't independently verify just sitting on Adam's laptop. And think about what the defense argued at Katie's second trial. Adam is tech savvy. Adam had possession of the laptop. Adam had every opportunity to manipulate what was on it. Without the phone to prove that those searches also existed on Katie's actual device, the defense can say that the only place this incriminating evidence lives is on the computer belonging to the guy that they think did it. So even in the best case scenario for prosecutors, that backup is nowhere near as powerful without the phone to back it up, for lack of a better term.

50:04Brit Prawat:Actually, it could even hurt their case. But no matter what the path they want to take is, the clock is ticking. Because unlike murder, manslaughter has a time limit. Swartz says that prosecutors have maybe three more years. And if they can't retry Katie before then, it's over. I mean, she got acquitted on the second-degree murder, right? They cannot go back without all they have is that manslaughter charge. And even if investigators wanted to take another look at Bill or at Adam, which they seemingly don't, they're out of luck because they both got immunity when they testified before the grand jury.

50:46Brit Prawat:What? I had the same reaction. Apparently in New York, that's routine. It doesn't protect you from perjury if you lie, but it does mean that neither of them can ever be prosecuted for Mary's death. which, as it stands, there doesn't appear to be any evidence for anyway. As of right now, the case is officially unsolved, but only on paper. Police are sure that they arrested the right person. Prosecutors are sure that the right person was on trial.

51:17Ashley Flowers:And what does Katie say?

51:19Brit Prawat:You know, she actually did an interview within the last couple of years with ABC News for that docuseries I mentioned in the first episode. And I will say, her attorney told us that she feels that when it came out, it lacked important context in how some of it was presented. But the way it was presented, there were parts that I found kind of odd. Like, producers ask her if she ever searched for lethal poisons on her phone. And instead of just saying no, she told them that she doesn't even have a reason to search for poisons because she's not the type of person who could do something like that.

51:53Brit Prawat:And her parents, who were also interviewed, said that when they asked her straight up, did you kill Mary? Again, the answer is not no. She basically told them, you know I want a family someday, so why would I jeopardize my future? Which again, not a denial. Like no is right there. I know. But to answer your question, Katie says that she goes back and forth. Sometimes she thinks it was Bill. Maybe Bill and Adam. She just knows it wasn't her.

52:21Ashley Flowers:Okay, I'm still confused about the anonymous letters.

52:26Brit Prawat:Oh my God. That's like, it's like the murkiest part to me. Does she admit that she wrote them or not? Some people think that her initial confession to police about writing those letters was coerced and that she didn't actually write them at all. Okay. But during her second trial, Policelli said that Katie did admit to writing it. But then when ABC News asked her about it, Swartz stopped her from answering. So you've got these, like, competing claims. Either Katie wrote the November letters, which ties her to the Gmail account and the Colchizine order, or she wrote the letters, but somehow the digital trail leading to the Colchizine isn't as airtight as investigators claimed.

53:08Brit Prawat:Or she wrote a different letter entirely that just never got to police. or she didn't write any letters at all and her confession was coerced. That clears up absolutely nothing. Welcome to my world. I'm honestly not sure anyone has a straight answer on all of the letter stuff. I mean, so much about this case is still up in the air. And our reporter Nina reached out to Bill and Adam, but we never heard back. What we do know, though, is that Mary's loved ones still feel her absence every day. and the divide between them may never heal. I don't know if Bill and Kathleen are still together, but Mary's other sisters that we've mentioned have remained some of Katie's biggest supporters.

53:52Brit Prawat:They even teamed up with the Conleys to fight for her release. But they live with the guilt of being the ones who pushed for an investigation in the first place, never dreaming that it would lead to a woman that they now think is innocent. Of course, the Yoders have their own burdens. Tamron told ABC News that she struggles with the fact that she once even suspected her own father. And she said that Adam, who didn't participate in the show, may never stop blaming himself for bringing Katie into the family in the first place. No matter what you believe happened, one thing is certain. And it's really the most devastating part of all.

54:27Brit Prawat:Mary wasn't killed by a stranger. She was killed by someone she loved, someone she trusted, and someone that she never saw coming.

54:50Brit Prawat:You can find all the source material for this episode on our website, CrimeJunkie.com. And you can follow us on Instagram at Crime Junkie Podcast. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode.

55:37Brit Prawat:Crime Junkie is an Audio Chuck production. I think Chuck would approve.

55:46Ashley Flowers:Okay, crime junkies, you know I absolutely love a twist and a turn, especially when it comes to people who turn out to be someone they're not. That's why I have been obsessed with the podcast Chameleon. Every Thursday, host Josh Dean deep dives into a scam so bizarre, it will leave you wondering, how did they get away with that? It is truly one of my favorite podcasts right now, and I've been listening for years. I think you'll love it too. Listen to Chameleon wherever you get your podcasts.