One Deadly Dose From Murder

2015 in the small town of Utica, in upstate New York Drs. Bill and Mary Yoder ran a very popular practice in town called Chiropractic Family Care for 30 years. They had many long-time patients, some they’d cared for over decades, and having known them so long they were even friends with many of their patients, who referred to them as Dr. Bill and Dr. Mary. Bill and Mary had been married 40 years. They had 4 kids, 3 daughters and a son, their 3 girls were grown and married, they had a few grandchildren. They were well known, respected and loved in their community. Mary, who was 60 years old, was a very active and healthy woman. She made pottery, she did belly dancing. She was very fit. She was very particular about what she put in her body. She believed in holistic medicine, took herbal supplements, and grew some of the herbs she used in her garden. So it was unusual when on the afternoon of Monday July 20, 2015, Mary started feeling very ill. She was at the clinic seeing patients when she started feeling very sick to her stomach. Patients reported she was having to run to the bathroom. But she continues to feel worse and ends up canceling the rest of her appointments for the day and going home. She continues to be violently ill, vomiting and having diarrhea. Next morning Bill drives her to the ER. She’s severely dehydrated. Doctors can’t find an obvious reason for her symptoms. They admitted her and treated her for dehydration and ran tests. At first she showed signs of improvement. But around 10pm she falls at the hospital and she’s taken to the ICU where she continues to deteriorate. Her organs start failing. She has 8 heart attacks. Less than 36 hours after being admitted into the hospital, Mary dies. The Yoder family was shocked, Mary had been the picture of health. Since she was under hospital care and the cause of her symptoms is still in question, an autopsy is ordered When they ME performed her autopsy, they were puzzled to find her organs ravaged. They looked as though Mary had been thru extensive, long-term chemotherapy. They discovered her cells had been attacking each other. Her cause of death is listed as rapid organ failure, large scale cell damage and cardiac arrest. The only possible explanation was she had ingested some type of poison. But the standard toxicology screening came back negative. The ME sent her blood for further testing to a clinical toxicologist from the poison control center in upstate NY, Dr. Jeanna Marraffa, who suspected a possible contaminate in one of Mary’s supplements. But slowly each one was ruled out. Looking at Mary’s medical files, Dr. Marraffa noticed her symptoms lined up with an overdose of a drug called Colchicine (cohl-che-zine), which is used to treat gout (type of inflammatory arthritis that causes sudden attacks of severe pain, swelling and tenderness, typically starting in your big toe). Colchicine is used in very low doses because it works similarly to chemotherapy, so it’s closely monitored by doctors. Even therapeutic doses can be deadly. Mary’s blood was tested specifically for Colchicine. Not only was Mary’s blood positive for the drug, there was enough in her system to potentially poison 15 people. No one in the Yoder home suffered from gout. There was no reason for it to be in her blood. The ME listed her cause of death as homicide. In Nov. 2015, 4 months after she died, the sheriff’s office opened an investigation. Investigators began interviewing patients and friends and they were shocked to find out that Mary’s death was being investigated as a murder. That kind of thing wasn’t typical for Utica. One source reported that Utica had maybe 5 murders a year. It was determined that Mary would have started having symptoms about 3 hours after ingesting the Colchicine. She typically shake or smoothie for lunch at the chiropractic office around 1pm. Sometimes she brought it from home, sometimes she made it at the office. Mary’s patients reported her becoming ill around 4pm and she asked their receptionist, Katie, to cancel the rest of her day shortly after that. So Police thought it was likely that someone had put the drug into her shake. The first person police focused on was Mary’s husband, Bill. He would have the most access to Mary and her food. Investigators learned that Bill had been anxious to retire, but the Yoders were not financially able to. They had no savings. And there was no life insurance policy on Mary. But there were rumors that Bill was in a romantic relationship with Mary’s older sister, Kathy. Kathy was a widow. Her husband passed away the year before and had left her a large amount of money. Plenty for Bill and Kathy to retire comfortably together. This may have been his motive to kill his wife. And, as a doctor, Bill would have the means to acquire the colchicine. When he was interviewed, Bill denied being involved in his wife’s murder. And he insisted that he and Kathy only grew close after Mary died as they were comforting each other, now both being widows. Also, he was not at the clinic on the day she died. Then an anonymous, typed letter was sent to both the ME’s office and the sheriff’s office. In it the author stated that Mary had been poisoned using colchicine - this was information the police had not released. The letter also said it was Mary’s son, Adam, who was responsible for her murder. The letter went on to say that Adam killed his mother because she had cut him off financially. AND that the bottle of colchicine could be found wrapped in cardboard, under the passenger seat of Adam’s Jeep. Adam was in his mid 20s and it was true that Mary and Bill had stop financially supporting him 3 years ago. He would go to college for a while, then stop going then start again. After a while Mary and Bill had had enough. If he wasn’t going to stay and finish school, they were not going to support him. So Adam is called in for an interview. He was surprised to find out he was a person of interest and denied having any involvement. He had been in Long Island for several days, visiting his sister when Mary was poisoned and only came home when Bill called and told him that Mary was in the hospital. Police told Adam about the anonymous letter and asked to inspect his Jeep. He asked for an attorney, who advised him to consent to the search as he was adamant he was not involved. Adam was in the parking lot with detectives as they looked thru his Jeep. And he was visibly shocked when they found a bottle of colchicine, wrapped in cardboard, under the passenger seat of the Jeep exactly as described in the letter. Police noted that Adam was genuinely surprised, and obviously what killer would allow police to find the murder weapon in their car if they knew it was there. When the bottle of colchicine was found in the jeep in the cardboard, there was a receipt along with it. The prescription had been signed by Dr. Bill Yoder, the order had been shipped to Adam Yoder at Family Chiropractic Care. The email address listed was mr adam yoder 1990 @ gmail .com. Adam told detectives that he had 2 email addresses, and that that address was not one of them. Adam was adamant that he was being framed. And police agreed. They suspected the author of the letter was the killer. So the letters, their envelopes, the colchicine bottle, the cardboard and the receipt were all sent for DNA testing. And what came back, was the DNA of a female. And it wasn’t Mary’s. It was also determined that Bill’s signature on the colchicine prescription had been forged. Bill still insisted he had nothing to do with Mary’s murder and gave police access to anything in the chiropractic office that might help. They noted that there was a typewriter in the office, so police took it for analysis. They typewriter ribbon was taken apart and cut into 3 foot lengths and laid out on white posterboard. From there you could read every keystroke that had been typed. The addresses of both the sheriff’s office and the ME’s office had been typed on that ribbon. Only 4 people had access to that machine: Bill, Mary, Adam and their receptionist, Katie Conley. 22 year old Kaitlyn Conley was their receptionist/office manager. She worked for them for 4 years. She was also Adam’s ex- on again, off again girlfriend. She had become so close to the Yoder family that when Mary was dying in the hospital, she was there with the family in the waiting room. She was listed among Mary’s loved ones in her obituary. The day after Mary died, Katie made a Facebook post saying "If love could have saved you, you would have lived forever. God has gained the best angel. We love you." Police questioned Katie and the detective asked her directly if she wrote the anonymous letters. Her response was “you can’t protect me.” She said she was terrified of Adam. They had ended their relationship a year before. She said she knew only knew about colchicine from Adam mentioning it. In the meantime, police had contacted google and had gotten the IP address for the gmail account. The account had only been accessed by 2 devices. The computer Katie used at the chiropractic office and her cell phone. When Katie Conley’s phone was searched, they found that large amounts of data had been deleted in the months after the murder. However, it turned out that Adam and Katie had briefly gotten back together after Mary’s murder and during that time, Katie backed up her phone to his computer before she had deleted it, so they were able to recover searches on colchicine, and colchicine poisoning. Katie’s DNA was a match for the female DNA found on the colchicine bottle. In June of 2016, Kaitly Conley was charged with 2nd degree murder. Prosecutors showed that Katie had planned the murder out for almost a year. The searches on colchicine started soon after Adam had broken up with her. They argued that her plan was to not only get revenge on Adam, but also possibly drive him back into her arms as he grieved his mother. They also showed that thru high school, Katie had a history of getting back at her exes when they broke up. And several months before Mary’s death, Adam had gotten violently ill after taking supplements that Katie gave him to help him study. Katie’s defense team points the finger at Bill Yoder, saying he had the motive to kill his wife. He could have poisoned her shake at home and then avoided going to the office. Also, Mary appeared to be improving in the hospital until Bill visited her. There were witnesses who testified that his romantic relationship with Mary’s sister began before her death. And the defense claims Mary may have ordered the colchicine herself. In the 1980s, Mary came up with this mixture that included colchicine, and used to enhance the growth of plants, particularly marijuana. So Bill had access to the poison thru Mary. Also Mary’s 2 other sisters, Janine and Sharon, were convinced the Bill was the murderer and that it was Katie being framed. Her first trial ended in a mistrial when the jury couldn’t reach a verdict. In November of 2017 she was tried again, this time with a new defense team who pointed the finger at Adam instead of Bill. Adam and his mother had a falling out after he quit college and she cut him off finically. He was angry with Katie because she refused to get back together with him. The defense presented texts where Adam appeared to be begging Katie to take him back. There were messages where Katie told Adam she was pregnant and had an abortion and he was angry. Mary’s nephew, Adam’s cousin and roommate at the time he was dating Katie, testified that Adam and Katie had a toxic and sometimes violent relationship. Katie testified in her own defense that she financially supported Adam after Mary cut him off, that he believed he would get some kind of inheritance after her death. Katie was afraid of Adam, and he may have kept the colchicine in the car to use again. This time the jury found Kaitlyn Conley guilty of 1st degree manslaughter. At sentencing she maintained her innocence. Even Mary’s sister Janine pleaded for the judge to be lenient on her sentence. In the end Katie was sentenced to 23 years. Katie maintains her innocence and currently has an appeal filed. Mary’s sisters started a Free Kaitlyn Conley campaign with a website where the go into detail with their theories on Bill and Adam being responsible for Mary’s murder. Sources Forensic Files II, season 1 episode 10, “the letter” Someone you thought you knew, season 1 episode 6, “Pick Your Poison” Wikipedia True Crime Daily .com The cinemaholic .com