We Thought We Knew You

by M. William Phelps

  “I looked over at her . . . and there was nothing,” said one woman who sat in the gallery, and had been close to Katie at one time in her life. “Katie had no emotion whatsoever.”

  After a short break, ADA Lisi began with the ER director, setting up Mary Yoder’s arrival on that morning. The witness went through the medications Mary had been given and the symptoms she presented.

  The state then brought in a number of medical and forensic witnesses to show how, after not being able to figure out what had made Mary so ill, it was narrowed down to colchicine by the PCC.

  Liana Hegde sat in the witness chair next. Liana, a beautiful woman, bore a striking resemblance to her late mother. She brought an emotional side of the state’s case into the trial. She explained how her mother was the matriarch of the family, the adhesive keeping everyone connected. Liana could not hold back the tears at certain times. She came across as a strong, independent woman who had lost not only her mother, but her best friend. Throughout her direct testimony, Liana was able to date the narrative, explain to jurors where Adam and Bill were and how they were reacting to Mary’s death. A doctor herself, Liana then laid out how she became the liaison between the family and the ME’s office. The point was that Bill and Adam Yoder were shocked, saddened, and transformed by Mary’s death. Both men were as eager as the rest of the family to find out what had killed her, all while in a miserable state of mourning.

  Not halfway into Liana’s testimony, the day had gotten away from the judge and it was time to recess until the following morning.

  Liana finished her direct on April 27, 2017. Then Chris Pelli stepped in, making a beeline toward Adam. He asked Liana if she’d ever loaned her brother money. The motivation behind this line of questioning was to set up a plot proving Adam was desperate, broke, unstable, and not in his right mind during the months before and after Mary’s death. The defense needed a backup villain. Adam was the perfect secondary stooge.

  At one point, Pelli also used Liana to implicate his chief person of interest: Bill Yoder. “Is it fair to say your [aunts] suspected your father of being involved in this?”

  Liana wasn’t biting. “You’d have to ask them. I knew there [were] suspicions later on. I did not know at the time. They did not share those ideas with me. They actually told me directly they were suspicious of their other sister . . .”

  Toxicology took up most of the remaining day, as it was important to explain how colchicine was difficult to detect when no one knew what they were looking for. But once the PCC figured out colchicine was the likely killer, the testing proved it. From there, it became a matter of figuring out how Mary had ingested the toxin.

  The second day of full testimony ended with several of Mary Yoder’s final patients coming in. They told their stories of what they had witnessed. All of these eyewitnesses mentioned how Mary was fine one minute, her normal self, but late afternoon—after she came back from lunch—Mary Yoder became a person none of them recognized.

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  DURING A BREAK IN proceedings the following day, a friend of Mary’s, a longtime patient, heard laughter outside the courtroom doors. Loud, rambunctious banter, almost as if a group of coworkers was celebrating an office birthday. She stood up from her bench seat in the courtroom, walked through the doors, and shuffled around the corner. She spotted Katie, several of her family members, and a few others, laughing and joking and playing around. For one of Mary’s good friends, it was an appalling display of disrespect.

  Yet, it showed how Katie did not seem to be taking any of this seriously. At times, she would sit inside the courtroom next to her lawyer, with a stoic, intense gaze, as if scared her freedom could be taken away. Then she’d retreat into the hallway, out of jurors’ view and earshot, and transform into a carefree twentysomething. She’d ham it up with her family and friends, as if none of this was bothering her. The narcissism Katie demonstrated was blatant and rude. A woman had been murdered—and the person accused of that vicious crime was laughing and joking around.

  “I knew Katie very well,” that same source said, “and I realized there were two sides to her. One of them smart and introverted and shy—the other cold, calculated, and narcissistic.”

  Dr. Jeanna Marraffa, Poison Control Center assistant director, was the expert who figured out colchicine had killed Mary. Dr. Marraffa gave jurors a complete perspective regarding poisoning and toxicity in the body. It should be noted—and several had—that without Dr. Marraffa getting involved, Mary’s killer might have walked away and Mary’s death would have been ruled accidental.

  After several additional witnesses, most of whom explained how Mary felt and acted on the day she became ill, Bill Yoder walked in and sat down. It was April 28. Bill would spend the better part of the entire day in the witness-box.

  Bill was seventy-one. He looked good, but sad, under some stress knowing he was going to have to relive the most horrifying moments of his life. Bill came across as a guy with a tough exterior, who realized how important his testimony was to the overall scope of the prosecution’s case.

  Leading up to trial, Bill had been the subject of a constant online character assassination. Social media had not been kind. He was a killer and a cad. A man who had plotted and planned the death of his wife. A moneygrubbing cheater who initiated a romance with Mary’s sister months before Mary died.

  None of this was true.

  The prosecution told Bill not to respond to any of the allegations—it would only make matters worse. Bill held back, hard as it was, and withstood the barrage of insults and erroneous accusations without fighting back.

  After going through his professional credentials, stopping occasionally because a torrent of tears overcame him, Bill talked about the day Mary walked in ill and never got better. Then he discussed how she had died, after coding many times, her family surrounding her. Bill was an intensely emotional man, unafraid to let his feelings show. It was clear to everyone: in his voice, composure, and demeanor.

  There were no surprise revelations from Bill during his direct. He set up the narrative of Mary’s illness, answered questions regarding his relationship with Mary’s sister, and gave jurors a clear picture of losing the love of his life so suddenly and unexpectedly. Through Bill’s testimony, ADA Lisi was able to enter key exhibits into the record—including e-mails and texts and reports. Clearly, Bill had started his relationship with Mary’s sister in the weeks after Mary’s death. The evidence that Lisi presented proved it.

  Concluding his direct, Bill detailed how orders were made from the office, a task Katie had always taken care of. Bill had not created a shell company, Chiro Family Care. That had been done without his knowledge. The signature on the documents used to purchase the colchicine, Bill confirmed, was Mary’s. ADA Lisi asked Bill where the signature stamper was kept.

  “In Katie’s desk,” Bill answered.

  Then Bill was questioned about the typewriter, which he had purchased when they opened the business.

  “In the reception area where Katie worked,” Bill answered after being asked where the typewriter had sat.

  Lisi wondered how long it had been there.

  “Thirty-five years . . .”

  In explaining his relationship with Mary’s sister, Bill said, quite emphatically and emotionally, “I had nothing left in my life . . . Just felt pain and sadness every day. And I’d learned firsthand that everything could be ripped away in an instant, and I saw this chance for a little companionship and human warmth and just a little bit of happiness. And I thought, you know, I might be gone tomorrow. . . I didn’t want to wait around until everybody thought it was politically correct.”

  During his direct, Bill must have said something that angered one of Mary’s sisters sitting in the courtroom. As he spoke, she burst into temper-filled shouting, tossing in one or two curse words, many in her vicinity later alleged.

  The sister was instantly silenced by a scowl from Judge Dwyer. But after turning his attention back to Bill’s testimon
y, the sister stood up, flipped the middle finger toward Bill and the judge, and stomped out of the courtroom.

  Beginning his cross-examination, Chris Pelli went right after Bill. He accused him of dating Mary’s sister before having met Mary in 1975. (This was not Kathleen Richmond, whom he would date after Mary died.) Bill said he had no recollection of this whatsoever.

  “Isn’t it true that Mary set you and [her sister] up on a blind date?” Pelli asked.

  “I sure don’t recall that. No.”

  The marriage was next.

  “Is it true on that day [you were married], you expressed to Mary that you expected the marriage would be an open marriage?”

  “No,” Bill said. Then: “We discussed that question sometime before we were getting married.”

  “Okay, you were the one to bring that up?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  As Pelli worked in how Bill and Mary moved to South Carolina after getting married and having Liana, he mentioned a photograph, which he then entered as an exhibit.

  After having Bill look at it, Pelli asked him to describe what he saw.

  Bill pointed to Liana, just an infant, in the photo.

  Pelli asked what was in the background.

  “It looks like a little . . . an old shed.”

  “The marijuana plants that you admitted to growing with Mary in South Carolina”—which Bill had no problem divulging on direct examination—“they were behind that shed?”

  “No. There was a big brush field that adjoined our property, so they . . . they weren’t even close.”

  This talk about Bill and Mary growing weed in the 1970s, while living in South Carolina, went on for some time. It was meant to shame Bill. Place him under a bad light. To make him appear to be a morality-free pot dealer. If growing and selling pot was not a problem for him, then perhaps killing his wife would not be, either.

  Pelli also wanted to make the point that Bill knew about colchicine because it was sometimes used in marijuana plant growing. As Pelli chronicled the way in which Bill and Mary grew weed, it became clear that Mary’s sisters who supported Katie had given him all of the information. In the end, however, Bill testified that he had no trouble selling weed to two of Mary’s sisters and mailing it to them.

  Bill answered all questions, no matter how humiliating, how degrading, or how unimportant they seemed in the scope of his wife’s murder. He came across as truthful and honest. One of Pelli’s major issues was immunity: The prosecution had given Bill immunity from ever being prosecuted for his wife’s murder if he testified on its behalf.

  “No, I was not aware of any immunity. I was just testifying,” he said, striking the entire accusation down.

  The hits kept coming. After prompting, Bill explained how, once a month, he would drive up north by himself and rent a house (or hotel room) so he could work on his book in private. He needed to get away from the hustle and bustle back in Utica.

  After warning Bill that perjury was a crime, Pelli saw an opportunity: “Isn’t it true that on many of those occasions . . . you met another woman?”

  “Not at all.”

  Pelli brought in Bill’s grand jury testimony and pointed out where Bill had talked about how many times he had seen Kathleen, Mary’s sister, before Mary’s death. The conversation went back and forth, and Pelli did nothing more than confuse the issue entirely, which might have been his strategy.

  Ultimately, all Pelli’s cross-examination did was bring into the record more confusion over who was on trial: Adam, Bill, or Katie. Bill was smeared and attacked, made to explain his intimate thoughts about marriage and love and sex, along with the meaning behind personal texts he’d written to Kathleen. Pelli tried to find some sort of hidden affair (before Mary’s murder) within the text messages, but it just wasn’t there.

  At one point, the state of Adam’s mental health came up. Pelli asked Bill if his son was bipolar. Bill said he didn’t know. Adam had alcohol problems, Bill suggested, and after his mother’s death, he suffered from anxiety and depression. “He was very devastated,” Bill testified.

  Then another peculiar line of questioning: “Okay, Bill, this will be the last of the embarrassing questions. Are you a member . . . during the time that your wife was alive, of any Internet . . . porn sites—”

  Bill didn’t allow Pelli to finish before butting in. “No.”

  “. . . where stories were submitted . . .”

  “I was never a member of anything, no.”

  After a break, Pelli came at Bill again with a personal question. He asked if he could recall the first time he had sexual relations with Kathleen, Mary’s sister.

  “I don’t remember the date, no. I wasn’t keeping a journal.”

  After that, Pelli asked Bill if he’d ever entered the office through a back door. Again, the defense attorney was implying that Bill was acting mysterious and creepy during those days before and after Mary’s death. Bill replied that he went into the office through the back door when he didn’t want to be disturbed.

  Mary’s three sisters, who were in the courtroom for most of the testimony, frequently broke into loud outbursts. The judge had to tell them numerous times to be silent. To the shock of the gallery, Judge Dwyer threw one of the sisters out of the courtroom for the remainder of the day. She then sat in the hallway.

  When Bill finished his testimony, he walked out and passed her. He was in tears, wiping his eyes, unaware that she was there.

  “Well, Bill, that was quite a performance,” she allegedly said, according to Bill’s recollection.

  Startled, Bill began to reply, but two cops in the hallway rushed over. One led Bill away, the other stood in front of the sister.

  “You’re not allowed to harass the witnesses,” Bill overheard the cop tell her.

  Later, when the two police officers reported the incident to the judge, he banned the sister from the courtroom for the remainder of the trial.

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  AFTER A WEEKEND BREAK, Detective Mark VanNamee and additional law enforcement investigators ate up the next few days, bringing the trial into May. This allowed Laurie Lisi to enter the interviews the OCSO had conducted (and recorded) with Katie, along with all of the evidence they had uncovered up to that point: the anonymous letters, the bottle of colchicine, the receipt, Katie’s DNA found on the packaging and bottom of the colchicine bottle, and several important items from the office.

  The state’s next major witness was Adam Yoder. He wore a checkered, button-down blue shirt. His goatee was carefully groomed, and his reddish-blond hair was slicked back against his pale complexion. Adam’s gaze seemed troubled, serious.

  He walked in on the morning of May 2, 2017, to finish his testimony. His testimony on the stand had been cut short the previous day because of time constraints. Adam was leaner than he had been. He came across as sullen, beaten. He rarely gestured toward Katie.

  It had been some time since Adam had moved out of town. He was living a life far away from the chaos that had taken over his life. He had distanced himself from a woman who had been, clearly, obsessed with keeping him. The scowl on his face spoke to how much Adam still blamed himself for allowing a romantic partner to step into their lives and kill his mother. It weighed heavily on him. He was harboring the burden of his mother’s death.

  Laurie Lisi asked Adam to explain his relationship with Katie and how it had progressed: the back-and-forth, the breakups, the reunions, the fights, the make-up sex, and the countless contentious texts. Then she led Adam into talking about that bout of “flu” in April 2015. Mainly, she concentrated on how it came on after Katie had given him a bottle of Alpha BRAIN supplement.

  Katie had repeatedly encouraged him to take it. “She told me it’s there to help. Basically focus and boost memory. She said make sure I take it consecutively and consistently, because it works better over time . . . She told me that she had been taking it earlier in the semester. She hoped it would help me during finals.” However, after taking the supplem
ent, Adam became severely ill and remained so for weeks. He couldn’t understand what was wrong.

  At the time he became sick, both he and Katie were students at SUNY Polytechnic Institute. He said they met once a week for coffee or food, but he and Katie were not in a romantic relationship then. He needed to remain friends. It was important to him not to sever the relationship entirely and walk away bitter. Beyond that, Katie had accused him of rape; keeping her close was a way to deal with any fallout from such a horrible, reputation-crushing accusation, if it ever got out.

  At this stage of the state’s case, they did not have all of the data back from Katie’s iPhone and computers, so the illness was mentioned only as a speculative aside. The prosecution had so much data to look over, and new evidence was coming in every day. In addition, the DA’s office was not aware that inside Adam’s laptop was a complete computer snapshot of Katie’s iPhone. It contained all the deleted files and thousands of images, many of which had been deleted. Adam knew because he had discovered it, but carelessly—perhaps because he had so much on his mind—he had not thought to share the information with the DA’s office.

  Beyond the sudden illness and a personal snapshot of his tumultuous relationship, Adam provided context, giving the jury an intimate look into Katie’s behavior. He outlined a timeline. He said he did not know that the bogus Gmail account existed until detectives told him. He had nothing to do with setting it up. Did not even know the password—Adam Is Gay—until he was told.