We Thought We Knew You

by M. William Phelps

  The way Katie wrote it in her text, she left Adam’s, took a shower at home, found his inhaler, and then drove back to his house and sat next to him on the bed as he lay passed out.

  Weeks later, close to November, Katie sent Adam a series of photographs, once again detailing the injuries she’d claimed to have sustained that night inside his bedroom. The photos showed an injury on her finger, a rather prominent bruise. The next was a large bruise on her left shoulder, about the size of an apple. The photos also showed a smaller bruise on her ankle, one on her wrist, and another on her foot.

  No cuts or bites.

  Adam texted back right away: “If you hang up on me during our conversations”—he was about to call her after seeing the photos—“I will not continue to meet with you and attempt to continue this friendship.”

  Adam called.

  Katie didn’t answer. She texted back.

  “I didn’t think even after it happened, that bruises show up so dark and soon. I would never want to live in fear of you. I guess you really did want to kill me then. You knew it was me. You said my name . . . Those are from you,” Katie said, making sure Adam knew the photos were from the night of the alleged incident. “It sucks.”

  “Done speaking . . . ,” Adam said. He’d called her twice in between the texts and she’d hung up on him both times.

  As serious as the injuries appeared in those photographs (all bruises, Katie’s face not visible in any of the photos), none matched up to the injuries she’d described in her text to Adam. Had she not photographed herself just after the alleged incident? Where were all the bite marks and neck bruises and facial injuries and cuts on her breasts? What about Adam biting her lip, causing it to bleed?

  As Adam looked at the photos she’d texted, he had one thought: She’s downloaded random photos from the Internet.

  * * *

  NOT HEARING FROM ADAM much after they’d discussed the text detailing the alleged rape, Katie called the sheriff’s office on November 1, 2014, to file a rape report. The impetus surrounding filing this report, however, was rather telling.

  “Katie was dating someone new,” two law enforcement sources explained. “For whatever reason (probably sympathy or some other control thing), she told the new boyfriend [that] Adam had raped her.” It was almost exactly what she’d done not long after meeting Adam: claim an ex-boyfriend had raped her. “But she was unprepared for the new boyfriend’s reaction, which was to put her in his car and drive her to the sheriff’s department and force her to report it.”

  Near 1:00 p.m. on November 1, OCSO investigator Fredrick Peck took a statement from Katie.

  At one point during the “deposition,” as Peck referred to the document, Katie broke down. She said she could not continue to talk about what had happened.

  Peck understood.

  Then, after a deep breath, collecting her thoughts, Katie said, “I do wish to pursue criminal charges.”

  Katie never went to the hospital after the incident, and the bathing suit she wore that night had been washed, Peck included in his report.

  What’s more, Katie never showed any of the photos of her injuries or bruises she’d sent to Adam to the sheriff’s office. Plus, she never told the OCSO investigators that the house where the alleged rape had occurred was full of people—Adam’s roommate and his friends—on the night of the assault.

  31

  DR. STEPHEN CLARK RECEIVED results from the initial testing after consulting with the PCC and confirmed Mary Yoder had died from colchicine poisoning. There was no question. The task was now to determine how the poison had entered her system.

  Meanwhile, Bill and Adam took a trip to Arizona to see Bill’s sister in the weeks after visiting Liana. Then they flew to California. Adam had played a part in a small independent film and flew back home on August 20 to attend the premiere. Bill stayed behind.

  When Adam landed in Syracuse, Katie picked him up at the airport and drove him back into town. Adam moved in with his cousin Dave King, a registered nurse, Mary’s sister’s son. Dave and Adam had been “close since third, fourth grade,” Dave later said. They’d lived together back in 2008 before having a “falling-out,” as Dave put it, and didn’t speak to each other for several years before reconnecting.

  Throughout September 2015, Adam continued a relationship with Katie. Now living at his cousin’s, Adam was communicating with—and seeing—Katie regularly. When he found out colchicine was the source of his mother’s death, Adam was determined to help locate the source. One day after school, Adam picked Katie up on campus and explained that he needed to do something.

  “We have to stop at the office.” Adam was wound up, anxious. Determined to get to the bottom of the colchicine source.

  “Okay . . .”

  After parking, “Look, I just need to run in and gather up anything that has . . . that had the potential to have been ingested by my mother.”

  “Oh?” Katie said.

  “Something was found in my mother’s system.”

  Adam insisted later that he never told Katie what specific toxin had been found in Mary’s system.

  They both got out of the Jeep. Adam’s key to the office was at home.

  “I have mine,” Katie said.

  Entering the building, Adam said, “I’m going to gather up every single box, unopened or not, and then bring all of it over to the medical examiner’s office.” Adam was referring to Mary’s Shaklee products and anything else he deemed a possible carrier for the toxin.

  Adam pointed to different items he wanted collected and brought to the ME. As he watched Katie, he thought, Why is she being so unhelpful gathering things?

  As Adam searched the office, he felt Katie hovering around him, almost keeping tabs on what he was doing.

  “Don’t look there,” Katie said.

  “Why not?”

  “There’s no chance,” Katie said.

  “So what.” Adam’s point was to leave no stone unturned; allow the ME to make that call.

  “Don’t grab that,” Katie said, referring to items in the immediate space around her desk. “Your mother would never go over there,” she said as Adam searched Katie’s desk.

  At one point, Adam became angry. “Look! I cannot tell you what’s going on yet. I just need help gathering the stuff. I do not care how much of a long shot it is. I want to bring it all over.”

  The conversation became so contentious, Adam stopped what he was doing. “Let’s go.”

  “What?”

  “Come on.”

  They left the office.

  Adam drove Katie back to SUNY and dropped her off. While he was in the office with her earlier, Adam had taken the key on the front desk. So he drove back to the office by himself.

  Before doing anything else, Adam called Liana from inside the office. He explained what was going on.

  “No,” Liana said. “There are HIPAA violations involved. Don’t touch anything.” She was concerned about Adam being around patient records. “Don’t do this now. Let Dad do it.”

  Adam left. Later that day, he was able to secure permission to go back. One of the items he grabbed was an opened carton of almond milk, a product Mary used in mixing her Shaklee powder. Adam brought it, along with everything else, down to the ME’s office.

  * * *

  BILL YODER FLEW TO Long Island from California on August 25, 2015. He’d left his car at Liana’s.

  “Hi, Kathleen,” Bill texted his sister-in-law. “Got into Liana’s late last night.” He mentioned how happy he was to see she had texted him. “I’ve missed you over the last couple of weeks and am looking forward to some time together soon . . .”

  In between the celebration and Bill returning to Long Island, Kathleen and Bill texted periodically. Most of it was innocent conversation, cheering each other up, wishing each other well, talking about getting together to talk.

  On that same day, August 25, Katie and Adam exchanged texts regarding the state of their relationship, which was
once again cracking. Katie had a rough time getting past the anger Adam displayed while they were in the office. She sensed things were off, pressuring Adam about the lack of time they had been spending together.

  Dealing with a lot of raw emotion after his mother’s death, Adam mentioned he could never seem to get hold of Katie when he needed her most. He’d just learned that day about the incident involving his mother falling the night before she died and how hospital staff had called his father with the news. Bill, however, had not answered the phone. This upset him, Adam told Katie.

  “So nobody got to the hospital until seven a.m.”

  It was more than painful for Adam to think his mother had fallen, needed someone, and yet no family member was available to console her. She was all alone.

  Then Adam brought up the new guy that Katie had been seeing. “I think about you constantly, Katie, and I only get pain back. I’m done. You only make excuses and give dishonest answers. You truly tricked me into believing you wanted to be an honest couple with me again.”

  “You think it happens instantly?” Katie asked. She then explained how she had been thinking about Adam for “days and weeks and months and years.”

  Adam said he needed someone “right now more than ever.”

  “You break me,” Katie said.

  “And you hopped back around with other guys while I stayed lonely . . . I’ve loved you for years, and I’ll love you for years more.”

  Katie mentioned how the current state of their relationship was not her choice. “You wanted me gone. You pushed me out. Forcefully. Do you remember this? You said it should be an open relationship. That I should go out because I couldn’t possibly know what I wanted.”

  “And I was right.”

  Katie called Adam “broken.” Then: “I love you, Adam.”

  “And I love you.”

  Adam further outlined how she could have had him back entirely if only she could find “the first stride in honesty.”

  Katie described the past month as “heaven and hell.” She added how Adam had taken “a swing” at her while bringing her home one night recently. She alleged that he’d thrown things at her. “Told me I was worthless . . . [and] that you didn’t love me. That you could not.”

  “Katie, I do not need any of your embellished stories from my drinking.”

  They bickered angrily for ten minutes, combing through the remnants of the relationship, bringing up the past. They blamed each other. Adam explained he needed someone there emotionally for him now. “No sex.” He wasn’t interested. And he was concerned that the Katie he knew was not the Katie he’d fallen in love with.

  Katie pleaded with him to help her be that person he needed.

  Adam said, “Be the person you want to be. Not the person I want you to be.”

  After another few rounds of shaming each other, Katie said, “Do you want to make plans to see me? Because I look forward to every teatime?”

  The love-hate, passive-aggressiveness continued: “I would love nothing more than plans with you.”

  That comment drew a cease-fire, as though they might be getting somewhere. But talking it through, they decided teatime was probably not a good idea.

  The next morning, Adam awoke to a text from Katie. He was now feeling like he didn’t want her in his life anymore. She asked Adam why he’d left her in the first place.

  “You have quite some balls,” Adam said. “Don’t send that shit to me like I’m an asshole that could have just gone to you.”

  “You couldn’t have?” Katie shot back.

  “Don’t put your bullshit on me!” Adam seethed. Then he yelled: “YOU HAD TO FUCK [my best friend]?!”

  Katie tried talking her way out of it, mentioning how Adam had shown “no interest” in her at the time. What was she supposed to do? Wait forever?

  Adam wouldn’t bite.

  “Your timeline is fucked. And you are a liar in general. Your brain is filled with bullshit.”

  She tried to justify her behavior, saying Adam had explicitly said he didn’t want her sexually—how she was “enough” for him, but also how she “couldn’t do anything right . . . and I still loved you?!!!”

  Adam had a simple reply: “You’re a cunt.”

  “You fucked some bitch and I never asked,” Katie wrote back.

  Adam accused Katie of not being able to “keep her legs closed” while he was away for two weeks with his dad. Nor was he certain how many guys she’d slept with.

  “I miss the you that wasn’t a slut,” he said, before mentioning how, out of all the people in the world that Katie could have slept with, she’d chosen not one of his “buddies,” but two.

  “Now it’s my turn to laugh,” Katie said. “They aren’t your buddies. Maybe once were. But they weren’t and aren’t.”

  She waited a beat. Then: “That number is true . . .”

  “You’re a mighty fucking bitch.”

  “So are you.”

  “You stay far away from me outside family matters,” Adam ordered.

  The conversation—and any type of relationship, even friendship—was over.

  Again.

  32

  AFTER BILL RETURNED TO Utica during the week of August 25, 2015, he still could not go back to work. He needed more time. The past month had been agonizing. He was lost. Part of the post-trauma was due to how Mary had died. Heading into September, after a discussion with Liana, Bill googled colchicine. The family had been told the rare toxin had been responsible for Mary’s death.

  “I’d never heard the word,” Bill said. He had actually spelled the word incorrectly the first time he tried to search for it. “It seemed like the symptoms I read about exactly matched Mary’s and it was always fatal.” The family was left with more questions, however.

  In September, the relationship between Kathleen and Bill took a turn. They had been leaning on each other rather innocently. On September 8, Kathleen texted she was just getting back from the orthodontist’s office. She wanted to say hello. Bill was on her “mind and heart” a lot these days, she admitted. She’d first typed the word “heart” without the rand realized it said “‘heat,’ which is true, too.” Their texting began to sound like two people who were dating, flirtatiously bantering with one another.

  Over the next several days, they gave each other gifts. Spent hours on the phone. Referred to each other as “sweetheart.” Still, within this new direction, Bill maintained a sense of loss and mourning for his wife. He was distraught and full of tears on certain days. Kathleen, it was obvious, was helping him cope.

  “I completely understand the waves of different emotions that are part of the experience of loss and change and healing,” Kathleen texted on September 17. “Have a peace-filled night.”

  Later, Kathleen explained: “Experiencing such profound grief intensifies all our other emotions.” She felt fully alive now, just over a year after her spouse had passed. She was going to a jazz concert that night. Socializing again. Looking forward to things.

  * * *

  ONE OF BILL’S GRANDCHILDREN has Down syndrome. On September 18, 2015, a Down syndrome celebration was held in New York City. Liana and her family were going. Adam and Bill drove in from Utica to meet everyone.

  “Colchicine,” Bill told Adam as they drove. “They’re certain now.”

  Details were trickling in. The ME’s office was keeping Liana updated. She relayed the information to the rest of the family. Dr. Clark had sent out samples of Mary’s gastric tract to test for colchicine. The result was positive. Since it was present there, it meant she had likely ingested the poison orally.

  Clark then did something clever. He had the ME’s office subpoena the hospital for a sample of Mary’s blood from when she was admitted. Those results were also positive for the toxin.

  This result proved that when she walked into the ER with Bill by her side, Mary’s fate had been sealed. There is no antidote for an overdose of colchicine. Once a certain amount of the poison enters your
system, you might be walking and talking, but you’re dead.

  33

  THROUGHOUT NOVEMBER 2014, DURING those days after Katie filed the rape allegation against him, Adam stopped communicating with her. He was terrified of what might happen, and he could not comprehend how he could have done what she’d claimed. The day after hearing this from Katie, Adam sat and went over the night. More important to him was what happened the day after the alleged incident.

  When Adam woke up the morning after Katie alleged he had raped her, Katie was next to him in bed. They talked. Adam was hungover and upset with himself for getting so drunk the previous night. A flush of depression washed over him.

  “I drank so much,” he explained later. “I needed to get out of the house. I felt horrible.”

  On the night in question, the house Adam rented a room in was loud and busy with people. Katie lived with her parents down the street.

  “Can I come over and get some sleep there?” Adam asked Katie, knowing her parents were out of town. Katie lay next to him in bed.

  “Yes, of course,” she said. “I’ll drive.”

  Adam slept a bit in Katie’s bed. When he woke up, he realized he had lost his inhaler.

  “I need my inhaler. I don’t have any money.”

  “I can go to the pharmacy and pick up a new one for you,” Katie suggested.

  “I’d so much appreciate that.”

  When she returned, Katie not only had the new inhaler, but she’d stopped and picked up food. They then got into her car and went back to his place. After arriving at Adam’s, they ate and had sex.

  “It was a shitty morning mentally because I had gotten so drunk the night before, I was pissed at myself,” Adam recalled. “Katie had gotten me a new inhaler and food. She spent the entire day and into the night with me.”

  As he thought about the night before and the day after, Adam considered: If I had done what Katie later alleged, seeing her naked that morning and later that day, I would have noticed all the injuries and bruises she’d described.

  On top of that, Adam was certain she would have said something about what had happened. Instead, she had sex with him twice and took care of him.