We Thought We Knew You

by M. William Phelps

  “I was asked to handle all of those components of the case and prepare us for trial,” Scotti said later. “There was so much material. I jumped right in.”

  At the time, Scotti didn’t know many details about the case. She’d heard things around the office, of course. Spoke to Laurie Lisi and Mark VanNamee here and there. But she had so much day-to-day DUI and drug court work on her desk, she hadn’t given it too much thought. And because Katie’s case involved a grand jury investigation, most of the policework was sealed.

  “Once ADA Lisi apprised me of the case details,” Scotti said, “it was difficult to wrap my brain around it at first.” Scotti meant, Why would Katie Conley do this? This was a question the entire community, including the Yoder family, was asking. “But once I settled in and started reviewing the evidence, I knew—it was clear to me—that she had done it. And I knew computer forensics was going to be the key.”

  62

  THE FIRST HURDLE THAT Laurie Lisi faced was indicting Katie. Without an indictment and subsequent arrest, there would be no trial.

  A grand jury convened on June 1, 2, 9, and 10, 2016. The prosecution presented 124 exhibits, including a dozen or so screenshots from Katie’s iPhone, the manual typewriter evidence from the Yoder office, ArtChemicals documents and accompanying computer records, all of the IP addresses they had at the time, the anonymous letters, along with a host of other critical evidence. Seventeen witnesses—including Bill Yoder, Rosa Vargas, Adam Yoder, Lieutenant Nelson, Detective VanNamee, forensics experts, Jeanna Marraffa, the PCC expert who had figured out colchicine had killed Mary, along with several others—were called to the stand.

  The evidence spoke to how thorough and detrimental the case the prosecution was building against Katie was. The grand jury testimony transcripts numbered in the 800-page range.

  By June 13, 2016, a secret grand jury hearing the evidence presented by the Oneida County District Attorney’s Office indicted Katie and she was arrested. Twenty-three years old, Katie was charged in county court with murder in the second degree, one count of forgery in the second degree, two counts of falsifying business records in the first degree, and two counts of petit larceny. If found guilty, Katie would be imprisoned for the rest of her life.

  A bone had been thrown into the community: Katie was heading to trial for the murder of Mary Yoder—that much was now certain. She could now get up on the stand and say “I don’t know” all she wanted. She could claim she had no idea how a mountain of computer forensic evidence wound up on her iPhone, computers, and sat in her iCloud. She could hoot and holler all she wanted that Adam Yoder killed Mary and framed her. She could concoct any narrative, including Bill Yoder was some sort of pot dealer, running around with Mary’s sister long before Mary’s death. But at the end of the day, it was up to a jury of Katie’s Oneida County peers—which would soon play a vital role in the case—to decide if all those accusations were invented by salivating, tunnel-visioned cops.

  As both sides prepared for trial, said to be a year away, Katie’s defense got busy. They hired a private investigator, who later submitted a complete report of his findings.

  The PI zeroed in on Adam’s cousin David King. Adam had moved in with him on August 22, 2015. According to the report, Adam “told [Dave] he was only going to stay for a few days.” For some reason, the PI thought it important to note Adam “had never informed [Dave] that he (Adam) was a suspect in the case.”

  In interviewing Dave King, the PI wrote, one particular night in early December 2015 stood out to him. Dave recalled waking up to “two men talking downstairs.” He knew one voice was Adam’s, but he did not recognize the other man. When Dave got up a few hours later, Adam was gone. He had “left laundry in the dryer and washer, all his clothes, toothbrush, and shaver.” It took Dave a while to get hold of Adam. When he did, Adam explained the police had asked him to go down to the OCSO—and while searching his Jeep, they found colchicine.

  “What probably really happened,” the PI speculated, “was the police asked Adam for consent to search his car, he refused. Once they left, he left.”

  Like a lot of the report, this turned out to be a false narrative—a completely ill-informed, entirely hypothetical assessment of Adam’s life.

  As the report continued, the PI explained Dave King’s feelings about the situation. Adam’s cousin said that at first he did not think Adam could have been behind Mary’s death: “But now all the things turning up, and . . . through phone calls and text, he feels now Adam could be some type of participant in this.”

  For the next few paragraphs, the PI ran down a list of Adam Yoder’s faults and personal issues. Dave called Adam a “liar” and said “he feels Adam would lie for his father . . .”

  Notably, at the end of the report, the PI mentioned that Dave had never met Katie. He also said Adam had complained to his cousin about how “mean” and “domineering” she was, and that she “demanded he take money from her.”

  Beyond that, the PI came up with nothing to help Katie prove her innocence.

  63

  THE ONEIDA COUNTY COURTHOUSE on Elizabeth Street, in downtown Utica, is an imposing building. Whitewashed stone, it was built in 1901, renovated in 1975. If you stand in front, and stare up at it from the street, an ominous feeling washes over, suggesting that you’d never want to find yourself inside one of its courtrooms facing a judge.

  With just under 250,000 residents, 90 percent of whom are white, 6 percent black, the county had a large pool of available jurors. With all the local media coverage that the case had garnered—mainly television and online—many considered how difficult it was going to be to find an impartial set of twelve jurors and alternates who had not heard, read, or thought about the case.

  Michael Dwyer, acting justice of the supreme court, a longtime judge known for his objectivity, presided. As each prospective juror walked through the door and sat down to be questioned and possibly chosen, Judge Dwyer commented that they had “tied a record,” in his opinion, for not having “one smiling face.” The comment relieved some of the mounting tension in the room. Put most at ease during voir dire.

  By April 24, 2017, a twelve-person jury—made up of more males than females—and several alternates had been chosen. After all of the pretrial motions, arguments, and courtroom banter concluded, on April 25, New York vs. Kaitlyn A. Conley began, with jury instructions and opening arguments.

  Katie sat next to her lawyer, Christopher Pelli, who had spent his entire life in Mohawk Valley. Pelli had a professional, polished look; he was a handsome fortysomething. Pelli had dealt mainly with personal injury and traffic law, but he also had a solid reputation in criminal law.

  “I learned early on the importance of a strong work ethic, and good communication,” Pelli stated publicly.

  He believed there were “far too many innocent people in jail,” a cultural trend that juries were mindful of in 2017. A momentum within an injustice movement was happening across the country. More and more innocent people were being rescued and cleared by DNA, new forensic science technology, and bogus witness statements. Streaming giant Netflix’s Making a Murderer and the NPR podcast Serial had pushed these incidents of police and prosecutorial misconduct into public discourse. Juries now wanted more than a smoking gun. There was little room for giving the prosecution the benefit of the doubt any longer.

  In days past, juries could overlook one or two questionable pieces of testimony or a lack of forensic evidence and still convict. In the climate of 2017, prosecutors and defense attorneys understood that mostly every thread needed to be buttoned up. No one wanted to be even remotely responsible for the chance of a defendant spending years behind bars, which could never be gotten back, only to be set free on future evidence everyone had gotten wrong or overlooked. The bar was high. Juries did not walk into courtrooms anymore already siding with the prosecution—no matter how impartial they said they were during voir dire.

  While attending Syracuse University School of Law, Pel
li worked for the New York State Office of the Attorney General under Dennis Vacco and Elliot Spitzer. That type of prosecutorial insight was going to be an asset for Pelli in Katie’s case. Knowing, in some respects, how your opponent thought was staying one step ahead.

  For prosecutors, the burden of guilt when presenting a mainly computer forensic science case floated higher as technology and television dominated how the public opinion of murder has been shaped. Juries have become apprehensive about convicting on largely circumstantial evidence, with no direct piece of the puzzle assuring guilt. Computer forensics is data. It is not a fingerprint, blood, bodily fluids, or video surveillance. Juries want DNA, or the computer equivalent, most believing DNA is infallible. They also want to understand a case in a way that proves beyond any possibility that the accused is guilty. The narrative has to be straightforward and direct. Nothing complicated.

  This public view becomes a double-edged sword for prosecutors, because technology today is a resource with unlimited potential to prove guilt, but also to confuse. As a prosecutor in a case such as Mary Yoder’s murder, you had better be able to connect the virtual dots to the accused—via solid, corroborating evidence. If not, you ran the risk of jurors feeling that digital evidence can expose many things, but it cannot show who was actually at the other end of a computer connection or an iPhone, unless there’s a direct link.

  * * *

  LEAD PROSECUTOR LAURIE LISI had been admitted to the bar in 1984. She had more years practicing law then Katie had been alive. Lisi sported a short bob cut, with straight bangs covering her forehead, her golden blond hair reaching just below her ears. She wore trendy, fashionable glasses with black frames and red lipstick. Lisi had a reputation of integrity and determination; the cases her office presented were ironclad or else they never saw a courtroom.

  Outwardly, Katie dressed like a fresh-faced coed: blazer, skirt or pants to match, flats, her dark hair tied back in a ponytail, glasses, a subtle sheen of makeup, red or plum lipstick. Katie’s sisters, stepmother and father, several friends, were on hand for proceedings, sitting behind her. One of Katie’s friends or a sister was seen occasionally fixing Katie’s hair, whispering in her ear, laughing with her.

  The team supporting Katie had initiated a Free Katie Conley website, depicting Katie as a wholesome country girl who loved animals and family and all things classically good in the world. They stood in unison, believing Katie had been wrongfully charged and targeted. Three of Mary Yoder’s sisters belonged to Katie’s team. They believed that Katie was innocent of all charges, and made no secret of their feelings. They had gone so far as to accuse Bill Yoder of killing his wife. In town, signs were stuck in the ground everywhere: FREE KATIE CONLEY; SHE’S INNOCENT; WRONGFULLY CHARGED. The entire city of Utica seemed to be behind this young woman who appeared to be the perfect scapegoat for a prosecution with tunnel vision. It seemed they had dug too deep an investigative hole and were looking to hang the murder of Mary Yoder on anyone who fit.

  Opening statements began with Laurie Lisi, who introduced a metaphor, referencing “the serene philosophy of the pink rose” and how “steadying” it is. “Its fragrant, delicate petals open fully and are ready to fall without regret or dissolution after a day in the sun.” That process took place every summer, Lisi explained. “Summer, summer. It will always be summer.” For Mary Yoder, she concluded the thought, “it will always be summer.”

  The outspoken prosecutor described Mary Yoder’s love of gardening, tying the pink rose to her. Then she talked about Mary’s final day on the planet. She walked jurors through the entire day, into that night, the next morning, and, finally, Mary’s heart-wrenching, painful, untimely death.

  Lisi moved on to the blood samples taken by the Poison Control Center as the team established colchicine as the weapon used to kill Mary.

  Then Lisi brought Detective Mark VanNamee into her opening narrative as she explained how doggedly he pursued the case, first looking at Adam, then Bill, finally drawing the conclusion that Katie was Mary’s killer. The evidence was too strong and obvious to ignore. Not to mention, of course, Katie’s bizarre behavior at times during the interviews VanNamee had conducted.

  Defending Adam and Bill, Lisi explained how they could not have possibly killed Mary because their actions displayed two devastated family members willing to provide the OCSO with anything they needed, whenever they needed it.

  This opened up the opportunity for Lisi to raise the red flag of the Mr. Adam Yoder 1990 at Gmail account, the first of many oddities that led VanNamee and his team into a virtual rabbit hole. Their investigation ended, always, at Katie’s fingers on the keys of her computer or iPhone, purchasing the toxin.

  The prepaid cards.

  The Hannaford supermarket trip to buy them.

  ArtChemicals.

  Rosa Vargas.

  The anonymous letters.

  After that, Lisi made an important point, based in fact, delivered directly from Katie’s mouth. During her first interview, Lisi pointed out, Katie had said she did not know Adam’s passwords or that the Mr. Adam Yoder 1990 e-mail account even existed. After being backed into a corner, however, with pressure from VanNamee and facts, a few interviews later, Katie admitted, Oh, yeah, I know that’s Adam’s e-mail.

  The point was: Why the ambiguity? Why the pushing back on Katie’s part? Why had she been so secretive and combative? So emotional? So determined to walk the OCSO into a dark room of confusion? And, most important, why was Katie not doing everything she could to help find out who was responsible for Mary Yoder’s murder—her boss and friend, a woman she claimed to have nothing but high praise and love for?

  “The evidence that will be presented to you will connect Kaitlyn Conley to colchicine that was used to kill Mary Yoder,” Lisi said matter-of-factly. “It is simply just another piece of evidence that points the finger at this defendant as the person who is solely responsible for the intentional murder of Mary Yoder.”

  Intentional murder. Lisi was saying Katie thought this through, planned it, plotted, and executed those actions for the purpose of taking Mary’s life.

  For about an hour, Lisi went through the state’s most powerful pieces of evidence—how the fatal drug was purchased at the hands of Katie and no one else. Smartly, as she spoke of evidence, every once in a while, Lisi reminded jurors about the type of person the prosecution found Katie to be: “There also will be evidence presented in this trial demonstrating that even after Mary Yoder’s death, Kaitlyn Conley was not done causing havoc on the Yoder family.”

  Although it’s not imperative or a legal requirement for the prosecution to prove motive, Lisi knew jurors needed to hear her thoughts about it. And what a surprise many in the gallery received: “Motive is not an element of any of the crimes that Kaitlyn Conley is charged with . . . Motive is rarely, if ever, an element of any crime . . . There’s no reason for her to have done this—in fact, what she did was lose a good friend and a job and an employer.”

  Then a warning: “Do not base your verdict in innuendo, on rumors, on hearsay, on mere speculation. That is not what our criminal justice system is about . . . Don’t throw away your common sense.”

  Christopher Pelli was dressed in a shiny gray suit; his full beard and mustache, brown-framed glasses, gave him the look of a distinguished science professor. Pelli was there to defend the rights of his client, everything else was noise and static. He understood the task was an uphill battle. After all, Katie had admitted to buying the credit cards used to purchase the colchicine—a fact that would be difficult to explain away.

  Pelli told jurors there were simple, obvious reasons for much of the prosecution’s evidence, adding how, “This case is entirely about motive . . . The question is, who had what to gain from Mary’s death? . . . There’s no reason for her to have done this!” He paused. Then, stepping out of what was a gray area, he brought in his chief suspect: “It’s Dr. William Yoder who is guilty of this horrific crime.”

  Silence from the
gallery.

  Then whispers.

  There were people in the courtroom—both Conley and Yoder family members—who had taken the statement to heart. Many court attendees had bought into the rumors that Bill was some sort of scoundrel who had spent all of the Yoder money and had pissed away his and Mary’s retirement funds, had a harem of concubines, and was a drug dealer who hated his wife. This defense was typical and predictable: If not Katie, who could have murdered Mary? To take Katie out of the equation, her defense needed an alternative. In this trial, it was going to be Bill Yoder. Christopher Pelli made this clear within a few minutes of getting started.

  He then went on to say the romantic relationship that Bill had initiated with Mary’s sister, along with his obsessive pursuit of money and fame (his book), became Bill’s motivation to poison his wife. On top of that, Pelli argued, Bill had a history of growing marijuana: “Colchicine is used during marijuana growth.” And in the paperwork sent to ArtChemicals for ordering the colchicine, Pelli contended, raising his voice a notch, guess what? It referenced plant growth process, which Katie could not have known about.

  Except, Pelli failed to say, she could have learned about it with a Google search. According to her iPhone and computer data, Katie spent a hell of a lot of time doing just that during the months leading up to Mary’s murder.

  “Basically, the government is telling you that they don’t have a very good case,” Pelli said, shrugging his shoulders in a mocking gesture. “They don’t know how the poison got into Mary’s system and they don’t know why.”

  Both of those particular statements were nonsense. Looking on with professional disdain, coupled with glee, Laurie Lisi and Stacey Scotti were fully prepared to present evidence to prove how the toxin entered Mary’s system.

  64

  TESTIMONY BEGAN THE FOLLOWING morning, April 26, 2017, at ten-thirty. A person sitting close to the front of the room, with a clear view of Katie, shared an interesting observation. To this person’s utter amazement, as this source sat and looked on, every so often Katie would point her chair toward the jurors, namely the males. She would smile her charming schoolgirl grin, and then spread her legs partially open, revealing she was not wearing stockings underneath her short skirt. This moment, and there were many similar to it, played like a scene straight out of Basic Instinct, the 1992 thriller. In this film noir, Sharon Stone’s character, while questioned by male detectives, gives them the same shot, an unmistakably clear view of her vagina up her skirt.