We Thought We Knew You

by M. William Phelps

  More puzzle pieces.

  Why was the CamScanner app important to the OCSO investigators? A mountain of inculpatory evidence pointing to Katie setting up a shell company—Chiro Family Care—to order the colchicine was inside the app. Another document she had inside her iPhone was titled “Diagnosis and Treatment of Colchicine Poisoning,” downloaded from the Official Newsletter of the California Poison Control System. The article covered everything from diagnosis, treatment, epidemiology, and pathophysiology.

  The OCSO investigators also recovered a text from Katie to Adam on August 7, 2015, in which she wrote: “Can you please delete my phone backup?” Thus, a few weeks after Mary’s murder, Katie demanded all the contents of her iPhone be deleted from Adam’s laptop, which she’d suddenly realized had been downloaded after she’d plugged her iPhone in to download an audiobook.

  Beyond several other items forensically recovered, there was also a photo of Adam and Katie together at a restaurant. Cheek to cheek, Adam held up a beverage. He looked incredibly uncomfortable and sad. Katie is smiling ear to ear, looking happier than she’d ever been. This photo was taken, the OCSO investigators learned, not long after Katie had made those rape allegations against Adam.

  Even more evidence of her guilt, Katie had a W-9 filled out in Bill Yoder’s name under the Chiro Family Care company she created, with Mary Yoder’s stamped signature. In the account settings of the CamScanner was the Mr. Adam Yoder 1990 Gmail account, so the CamScanner itself was registered to that specific e-mail address. All of the documents sent from Katie’s iPhone to Rosa Vargas to order the colchicine had the CamScanner logo on the bottom. That watermark was visible only to the recipient of the documents.

  59

  AS THE INTERVIEW CONTINUED, the New York State Police Forensic Investigation Center (NYSPFIC) was testing the DNA sample, which Katie had willingly given, against potential DNA found on the colchicine bottle and receipt inside Adam’s Jeep. The bottle had been wrapped in a piece of corrugated cardboard, rolled up around it, and stuffed under the seat. It was part of the packaging the bottle had been delivered in. On the wrapper itself—a fact VanNamee did not know during this interview—the NYSPFIC would soon find a match to Katie’s DNA.

  Still, what they did not find on the wrapper, bottle, or receipt became as equally, if not more, important.

  Adam Yoder’s DNA.

  Even though the OCSO did not have the DNA results back from the NYSPFIC, VanNamee and Nelson felt Katie Conley planted the bottle of colchicine inside Adam’s Jeep. In a matter of days, they would have the science to back it up.

  Katie looked at all of the evidence VanNamee placed in front of her, taking it in.

  “Katie, twenty-year-olds are glued to their phones. Someone didn’t take your phone and accidentally scan these [documents].”

  Katie looked up at VanNamee, then down at the paperwork.

  “These are the documents that were used to purchase the colchicine,” VanNamee reiterated. His voice was more empathetic and calm. He was trying to reason with Katie: Look, we have you nailed here with forensic computer science . . .

  She didn’t respond.

  “Somebody snapped [images of] these [documents] with your phone,” VanNamee said. A statement, not a question.

  She looked at the facsimiles of the documents again. “How?”

  “Katie! Here’s where we’re at a crossroads in this case. We’ve done a lot of work, okay. And we know that your phone is used quite a lot for items in this case.”

  Katie stared at him.

  A rather amusing piece of information—in an ironic twist—came to light when the OCSO finished going through the contents of Katie’s iPhone and computers. At one point during the period when she bought the colchicine, Katie had actually tried to use a 10 percent off Internet coupon code to purchase the toxin. The website wouldn’t allow it. But the fact that she had tried left an electronic trail. Same as every document she’d scanned with the CamScanner app, each move she made on her iPhone had been tracked and saved.

  Would Adam, if he had stolen her phone and framed her, actually try to use an Internet coupon? Would he use the CamScanner app? And finally, with technology being what it is, who would use their phone to purchase a weapon to commit a murder? Adam had studied computer science. He knew how IP addresses and the mechanics of metadata on an iPhone and computer worked.

  VanNamee questioned Katie for over an hour about the letters, documents, CamScanner app, and additional digital evidence she’d left behind. He presented images and explained how no one else could have logged on to the accounts but her.

  When he asked which password she had used to close the accounts, Katie laughed. “I don’t know.”

  “You cannot close an account without knowing the password,” VanNamee said. He paused. “I don’t ask questions I don’t know the answers to.”

  Katie smiled.

  They debated back and forth. Katie played stupid—like she had no idea how all of this evidence had ended up on her iPhone, which was her only move at this point. VanNamee kept his cool and continued presenting unimpeachable evidence to see if she would own up to any of it. He explained how they had obtained it, what it told them, and how they were going to use it against Mary’s killer.

  Katie listened. But didn’t utter a word.

  VanNamee then went into how, during difficult homicide investigations, investigators usually get a break at some point: A big piece of the puzzle tying the rest of the picture together. Something telling them “the who” of the murder. In this case, VanNamee explained to Katie, it came in the form of recordings from Hannaford supermarket’s CCTV.

  This was a risky move on the detective’s part. The OCSO did not have surveillance video of Katie purchasing the prepaid cards used to buy the colchicine. If VanNamee said, “We have you on video buying those prepaid credit cards,” and Katie knew she had not bought them, he would have played a card and revealed the OCSO’s hand. The bluff would backfire. So VanNamee, quite smoothly and cleverly, devised a fail-safe plan to present the blank DVDs he tossed on the table in front of Katie.

  He took out the DVDs (props) and slid them in front of Katie. He explained what they were. Pointed to the fake Hannaford labels pasted around the center hole.

  A stunned look washed over Katie’s face.

  “Tell me,” VanNamee said, putting his scheme in motion, “who is not on those DVDs?” Then, without waiting for her to answer, he added: “It’s not Adam!” He pointed to the DVDs. Paused.

  Katie looked at him.

  “Who purchased the prepaid cards?” VanNamee asked.

  Katie stared at him. “I don’t know.”

  “You got them,” VanNamee said, emphasizing the word “you” by pointing in her face.

  Katie shook her head no.

  “If you purchased them, you are involved in this.” VanNamee moved his seat a little closer, getting directly in Katie’s face. His tone changed. “I’m telling you, Katie, there is no way around this. I’ve let you sit here . . . I’ve let you tell me, ‘I don’t know how that got on my phone.’ . . . Okay! We’re at a crossroad now. You know I do not ask a question I do not know the answer to. You purchased those credit cards, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, yes,” Katie responded. She sounded unemotional. Stoic. For a few minutes, she didn’t move.

  VanNamee went back to the CamScanner documents, hitting her with: “You said you purchased these credit cards, and I know they were used within a day . . .”

  Katie whispered, claiming she bought the cards for someone else.

  “Who did you give those cards to then? If that’s the road we’re going to go down, let’s keep rolling this stone . . . okay?”

  “I don’t know . . .”

  “There’s two of us in this room, Katie, and we both know who purchased this colchicine. There is no doubt in my mind who purchased this colchicine.”

  “I don’t know . . .”

  “You admitted to me you purchased that credit
card. The very next day, it is e-mailed to purchase the colchicine . . .”

  “Yes . . .”

  VanNamee mentioned the stone they were rolling. He asked Katie if she was tired of pushing it.

  Katie stared at him.

  “That credit card was used to purchase the poison.”

  Katie shook her head no.

  “If you’re the one who purchased the credit card, you’re the one who purchased the poison.”

  “No!”

  “Help me.”

  “I did not . . . but you are never gonna believe me.”

  VanNamee increased the volume of his voice. He wasn’t going to cower. Not now. He was too close. Katie was on the verge of a confession.

  “But if I don’t know an answer,” she said, “I can’t give you an answer. I. Don’t. Know.”

  “It’s a straight-up lie, Katie.”

  “It’s not a lie.”

  “It’s a lie!”

  “It’s not a lie.”

  “Then if you didn’t do it, you know who did it.”

  “I don’t know.”

  This went on for ten minutes. VanNamee asked if she was going to stick with “I don’t know.”

  Katie said that was all she had to say.

  “I don’t think you want to get in trouble for this,” VanNamee offered. He stepped his tone down to a normal level.

  Katie smiled and laughed, waved her hands over the evidence sitting in front of her on the table. “Look at all this.”

  “Yeah. It’s pretty overwhelming when you look at it.”

  Katie continued to smile.

  “Pretty over whelming,” VanNamee repeated.

  “It’s scary,” Katie said.

  “Scary because it clearly points to one person.”

  “Right, but I don’t know how.”

  In a near whisper, VanNamee said, “It clearly points to one person. We are not going to have a problem with that.”

  After a brief moment of silence between them, the detective went back to the credit cards.

  Katie now said they were gift cards, before turning and facing the window to her right, away from the detective. She was crying again.

  “This is my future . . . ,” she whispered.

  “Let me help you get your story out. You’re not some monster who did this out of the blue.”

  She took off her glasses, wiped tears. VanNamee adopted a more sympathetic position. He said he was sorry. He wanted to help. The best thing to do now was tell the truth. He asked what she would want her future children to do in this same situation.

  Katie continued to cry. “I’ve worked so hard . . .”

  “You’re one of the hardest-working people I have ever met. What happened, Katie? What is causing all of this emotion? I’m willing to go to bat for you. What would cause somebody to risk everything to do this? What made a bright, smart girl risk everything?”

  Katie bowed her head. Put two fingers into her eye sockets and massaged. She then folded her hands together.

  VanNamee could tell she was contemplating how to explain herself. “I talk to Adam a lot. He’s beyond hope. If this is about Adam, I am completely on your side of the fence, Katie.”

  She leaned on her left hand, elbow on the table, rubbed the side of her head.

  “Own up to the mistake and let’s move on. That’s how life is.”

  Katie played with a strand of her hair. No doubt she was just moments away from admitting it all. VanNamee had her backed into a corner. Katie was thinking deeply, seriously, about how to talk herself out of it without taking blame. VanNamee expected her to minimize her role. Blame someone else for pushing her into a place where she needed to react.

  Adam.

  “I don’t have kids,” Katie said through tears, after VanNamee asked again if this was what she would want to teach her future children.

  “Katie, you’re going to have kids without a doubt.”

  She put one hand over her face.

  “Let’s make this right. Let’s move on from here. Let’s get you to graduate college this May and you having a family.”

  VanNamee took a closer look at Katie. She was now hiding her face behind her hands and hair.

  “What, are you laughing at me?” VanNamee said, noticing Katie was not crying anymore, but chuckling.

  “No. That just sounds so good and normal.”

  “Put your past behind you. Your past cannot become your past until you face the facts behind it.” VanNamee then asked her to help him understand what happened.

  “I don’t think I can help you,” she said.

  “Why?”

  Between several silent breaks, VanNamee came across as Katie’s friend. He said as long as she stayed with the truth, he could take it into his boss and fight for her.

  “I don’t think anything can help me,” Katie said.

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “Well, it’s my life on the line.”

  “Do you think you’re in less trouble for not telling us the why?”

  No response.

  VanNamee asked the same question two more times.

  “You can’t help me,” Katie said.

  “How am I doing, Katie? Am I on the right base path, or am I wasting my time here?”

  Katie didn’t answer.

  “I can assure you that not everybody will see you as a victim, but I do.”

  Katie sat still and stared at the floor.

  In the end, Katie withstood VanNamee’s blitz of interrogation, which he’d backed up with indisputable evidence standing on its own merit.

  PART IV

  TRUE LIES

  60

  THERE WAS ONLY ONE path for the OCSO after reaching an impasse with Katie. She was not going to admit to planning and killing Mary Yoder. As June 2016 ushered in some rather pleasant upstate New York weather—a mild and warm early summer—the community of Utica stirred, wondering what was going on with the case. For people around town, it was difficult to find someone who believed Katie Conley could have committed murder. Katie was a twentysomething college student. By all outward appearances, she was an upstanding, kind, and generous person, reared from a well-known and well-liked family.

  The allegation was outside the bounds of acceptable, expected behavior. How could someone who’d never been in any trouble commit such an evil, scornful act? As residents talked, town gossip focused on Adam and Bill. One story had them conspiring to kill Mary together; another claimed Bill had been involved with Adam in growing a marijuana supercrop, which gave them access to colchicine, which was used to grow weed into an uberplant. People even speculated that Bill was a major drug dealer who’d had mistresses for years and found himself in a precarious financial situation.

  None of these rumors found any footing because all of it was fallacious. In reality, Adam had moved out of town. Bill was devastated without his wife. He was trying to move on with Kathleen, but the mere thought of Mary turned the guy into a chest-heaving faucet of tears. Now to be told someone you trusted, someone you allowed into all aspects of your life, someone who claimed to love Mary, could have killed her? It was more than overwhelming for the entire Yoder family.

  “She was excellent with my children,” Liana Hegde recalled. “We could not believe that Katie, who laughed and joked with us, cried with us, a woman my children looked up to, someone my brother loved at one time, had been this other person the entire time.”

  61

  IN A NONDESCRIPT ROOM inside the OCSO, during the final interview Katie had given in February, a computer recorded the interview. Several people were huddled around the monitor, watching and listening. Oneida County Vehicular Crimes bureau chief and ADA Stacey Scotti, ADA Laurie Lisi, and several members of the OCSO’s investigative team were among those looking on in real time. Prior to that February interview, after Detective Mark VanNamee knew Katie was coming in to talk, ADA Laurie Lisi approached Scotti.

  “There’s going to be a lot of forensic computer work,”
Lisi said. “I need you to come on board to handle the portion of the case dealing with evidence collection, including the collection and swabbing of the letters and the submission, along with anything having to do with the computer forensics—tablets and phones, the typewriter ribbon.”

  Forty-one-year-old Stacey Scotti was thrilled by the opportunity. A local, Scotti had graduated from Whitesboro Senior High School. She left the area to attend Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, graduating four years later magna cum laude, with a degree in sociology. From there, Scotti went off to Villanova University School of Law, receiving her Juris Doctor in 1997. A year later, she was admitted to practice law in New York, and, on July 6, 1998, she joined the Oneida County District Attorney’s Office as an ADA.

  With diligence and professionalism, Scotti had overseen the county’s Vehicular Crimes Unit for several years before Laurie Lisi asked her to join the team prosecuting Katie. If you decided to drive drunk or gassed up on some sort of illegal substance in Oneida County and got pinched, you’d meet Stacey Scotti inside a courtroom. With her dirty-blond hair sweeping past her shoulders, petite frame, and dogged attitude, she was a force to be reckoned with amid the oak bench seats, gavel, and witness stand. Don’t let her small size fool you. She’s a tenacious fighter in a courtroom.

  Laurie Lisi knew the case against Katie was going to be built and then hinge upon computer forensic science. There would be thousands of pages of data to sift through, study, and compare to other facts the OCSO had generated. Not to mention any new evidence the OCSO developed from several outstanding warrants. It would take a dedicated, sharp, focused attorney to search and discover evidence that would have otherwise slipped through the fingers of a less experienced mind and eye.

  Scotti lived with her dog, Libbey, just down the road from the Conley residence. She would spend hours scouring data, studying Katie’s iPhone and computers, along with whatever else computer forensic experts dug up. She was tasked with breaking down the components of what, when, where, and—most important—how. She went in search of additional inculpatory evidence. Everyone involved knew it was there; she would find it.