What additional evidence did a jury need than those facts alone? Why would Katie purchase prepaid credit cards and buy the toxin? These were facts that could not be explained away by accusing Adam and Bill Yoder of the crime.
The OCSO had conducted a complete and thorough investigation into Bill and Adam Yoder and excluded them. The long trail of computer forensic evidence—on top of Katie’s own admissions—pointed them back to her.
Still, during his opening, Policelli insisted: “William Yoder testified before a grand jury [and] received immunity . . .” Then, regarding the colchicine, “Adam Yoder gets the package . . .” These defamatory claims could not be corroborated with factual evidence.
The prosecution could have objected throughout Policelli’s opening, but for the most part, ADA Laurie Lisi allowed him to beat what sounded like a worn-out drum.
“Adam Yoder was a manipulator. He used this girl, Katie Conley. . . Adam Yoder was a chronic alcoholic addicted to Adderall, who took opiates . . . and he was on the hot seat because in July of 2014 he raped her . . . Mary knew about the rape. [Katie] told that to VanNamee, but VanNamee, I mean talk about Alice in Wonderland, they can’t see what is in front of them.”
Save for the alcohol and pills, which Adam had admitted to during previous testimony, the remainder of the statement was speculation and conjecture. Adam had never been charged with rape. VanNamee and the OCSO had not once rejected any theory or person of interest. In fact, they had gone after Bill Yoder before arriving at Katie as a suspect. It was the anonymous letter pointing to Adam, which investigators knew was replete with lies, that had made them even more interested in Katie, who then admitted to writing it.
Policelli found a groove and talked through how idiotic the prosecution’s case felt on merit. Of all the poisons a killer might choose, he questioned, “Colchicine?” Then, quite brazen and insensitive, he offered a short tutorial, offering what might be a better poison to use if one wanted to commit murder: “Get your antifreeze and put it in somebody’s drink and kill them. Well, she was researching poison on her phone, according to the prosecutor? Oh, really? Prove that. Prove that!”
Laurie Lisi and Stacey Scotti looked on, quiet and steady, knowing they had more than enough evidence to prove it.
Being clear about whom he was going after in this trial, Policelli said, “Ladies and gentlemen, it was Adam. It was Adam. And if you read this anonymous letter, which Katie admits she wrote it anonymously because she was scared of him . . . My God. He beat her. He’ll admit that on the witness stand . . .”
Policelli went through the letter. He promised to prove the letters were Katie’s way of protecting herself.
A lot of what came out of Policelli’s mouth over the course of the next twenty minutes was, at best, gossip and rumor; at worst, ostentatious grandstanding, a lawyer taking a kernel of information and adding a speculative theory to it.
In her opening, ADA Laurie Lisi spent most of her time describing how colchicine had killed Mary. Then she finished by outlining the new evidence the state was about to present.
71
TESTIMONY IN THE SECOND trial began on October 16, 2017. Katie wore a beige suit coat, a flamingo-pink blouse, her hair untied, flowing down over her shoulders. This time, an air of seriousness was visible on Katie’s face. She was not the wholesome, apple-cheeked girl next door without a care in the world.
The state’s narrative followed along the same path as the first trial; the only difference was that each witness added much more detail. Dozens of new exhibits (which would total in the hundreds) were introduced. The main witness for the state was Anthony Martino.
Director of Utica College’s Northeast Cyber Forensics Center (NCFC), Martino had been employed there for close to five years leading up to trial. His department specialized in computer forensics, cyber security, and the examination of digital services. Martino’s job on the stand was to enter in the record all of that evidence Stacey Scotti and the OCSO had uncovered in between the two trials, in addition to any evidence Martino’s lab had found. Being so familiar with all of the material, Stacey Scotti took on Martino’s direct examination.
Martino was a middle-aged, balding man; a horseshoe of black hair lay over his ears and ringed around his head. He had a professional seriousness about him. Before he worked at NCFC, he had been a police officer for the City of Utica for two decades, half that time a sergeant. As far as cybercrime and computer forensics, Martino held a master’s in computer security and forensics. There was not a more qualified, intelligent, and unbiased expert around to analyze and comment on the mountain of computer/digital evidence the state was presenting.
Martino spoke articulately, without being condescending, which is an art form some witnesses cannot seem to grasp. He was able to communicate complicated computer forensic matters clearly, with the layperson always in mind. He came across charming and believable: an objective voice conveying incontrovertible evidence. The key was to boil down computer forensic information in an easy-to-understand vernacular that any computer-illiterate person could comprehend. On top of all his accomplishments, Martino had been deputized a member of the Secret Service Electronic Crime Task Force, helping the Secret Service with scores of computer forensic investigations. He had security clearance with the United States government.
After going through his long list of credentials and qualifications, Martino explained how an entire world—unseen by iPhone or computer users—exists behind the digital curtain on any device. There is an e-world churning in the background, storing, deleting, saving, and backing up whatever it is the user is doing on a device. Most people are unaware of this. Many think that by deleting something from an iPhone, computer, or tablet, the information is gone forever. Not always the case, Martino made clear. The information might be impossible for the user to retrieve again, or see, but the same information, in various forms, is forever stored somewhere—albeit unreadable data to the non–computer geek. It’s not complicated, Martino insisted. It’s how computers think and work.
Martino made another salient point about computer searches: “We can read information, we can extract data, [but] we cannot do anything back . . . toward the original device. We cannot write data back. We cannot make changes. We cannot delete. We cannot corrupt. We cannot alter.”
In other words, the information computer forensic experts retrieve is absolute. It is either there as metadata or not.
“Is it fair to say that extensive skill and knowledge is required in order to hack something?” Stacey Scotti asked while standing at the prosecution’s table, often looking down, referring to her notes.
One of the arguments Katie’s team would make was that Adam—or someone else—had hacked into her iPhone and computers for months and months. This hacker made it appear as though Katie was ordering colchicine, creating a company, and doing all sorts of searching for how to kill with poison. The idea behind the hack was to frame her. Mind you, all of this supposedly occurred without her having any knowledge of it going on.
A ridiculous theory when put into perspective.
“In order to hack anything that is reasonably secured, it takes . . . someone with extreme knowledge of the systems, but also very significant experience and skills in the field,” Martino said.
After a lunch break, Stacey Scotti asked Martino to talk about a device fingerprint address—the IP (Internet protocol)—which is assigned to each and every device on the planet.
As Martino spoke of how computers, servers, networks, software, and Web browsers are identified, the testimony became a slight bit technical. This was the essence of the state’s evidence: its smoking gun. They tied all of the circumstantial evidence back to Katie and her devices, the computer she used in the office, and her home network of computers.
Following this trail, beginning in her iPhone and computers, adding the paperwork manufactured from the sale of the prepaid credit cards and colchicine purchase, the state contended that the evidence proved no one el
se could have been involved in this murder. If one was in the market for motive and opportunity, all one had to do was go into the Notes app on Katie’s iPhone, her texts, e-mails, photos, screenshots, along with other personal Web searches. After bundling all of this together, her guilt became clear as water.
Martino talked about how he looked not only at Katie’s devices and computers but Adam’s and Bill’s. Concluding those thoughts, he explained how it would have been impossible for Adam and Bill to delete any computer-related evidence entirely. Martino and his team would have found something connecting either of the men, if they were hackers, to the purchase of the toxin and to Katie’s phone and computers.
It wasn’t there.
In conducting his analysis, Martino used a host of keywords to search all devices, phrases, and words pertinent to the case: ArtChemicals, Spectrum, Copper Harbor, Letter of Intent, Chiro, Family Care, [email protected], Adam is gay, Attention Rosa, Drugs.com, Hannaford grocery store, U.S Bank, Rape, Rape injuries, Bruises, Polygraph, Voice stress, DNA, DNA comparison, Transfer or touch DNA, Medical examiner, House, Netflix, Poison, Treatment, Antidote, Poison is a lady’s weapon, Colchicine, C-O-L-C-H-I-C-I-N-E, Thallium, Arsenic oxide, Cyanide, Munchausen, Presumed innocent, Murder, Kill, Trial, Jail, Prison, Law, Legal, Innocent, Assault. Beyond these, there was another long list of additional words and phrases too boring and tedious to mention.
Explaining how he had looked inside Bill Yoder’s iPhone and iPad, conducted a complete search, including memory extraction, Martino said he did not find anything of evidentiary value.
When searching Bill’s phone for connections to marijuana, distribution, growing, Scotti wondered what was the result.
Martino said he uncovered nothing.
Colchicine?
Nothing.
The Mr. Adam Yoder 1990 e-mail address was nowhere to be found inside any of Bill’s devices.
Martino ran the same tests on Adam’s devices.
Again, he found nothing.
Martino looked at all of Mary’s devices.
Nada.
When he went inside Katie’s iPhone, personal computers, and the computer she used at the office, however, his search results lit up.
Hit after hit after hit. For example, Martino extracted data from Katie’s devices showing e-mails sent from [email protected] to Mr. Adam Yoder 1990. He even located the CamScanner app Katie had downloaded from the username Mr. Adam Yoder 1990, with the password Adamisgay.
Any logical person, not living in denial, could look at this evidence and understand it was impossible for anyone to wipe out traces of those keywords and apps from Bill or Adam’s devices and place that same information in all of Katie’s devices. Even the most gifted computer expert, working months on it, could not have done what Katie’s defense had suggested.
It was completely obvious Katie had committed this crime. To not see it was ignorant and prejudiced. All Martino did was point out the facts he had uncovered. And those facts—unchanged computer data that could not have been tampered with or altered—were more obvious as each hour passed. Stacey Scotti presented exhibits backing up Martino’s testimony as the case against Katie grew.
Martino spent a total of five full days on the witness stand, and Scotti made it clear who had planned and carried out this crime. There could be no other suspect after one looked at all of the cyber/computer evidence.
When the photos of Katie’s “bruises” from Adam’s alleged sexual assault were discussed on the stand, the data proved Katie manipulated the entire exchange. These photos were not taken on the night of the assault, as Katie had told Adam in a series of texts Martino talked about. Photos are embedded with metadata generated by the device snapping the image—essentially time-stamping each one. There was no way to dispute the fact that these “bruising” photos were taken three months after the alleged rape. These images were generated on November 1, 2014.
The data on Katie’s iPhone and computers proved she had repeatedly, pathologically, lied to Adam, Mary, Bill, her sisters, parents, friends, professors, and the school.
Nobody was immune from Katie Conley’s tactical, manipulating deception.
72
AS ANTHONY MARTINO TESTIFIED into his fourth day, many in the gallery felt the mounting discomfort. The courtroom thinned out at times, filled up at others. Several people inside the courtroom later recalled that Katie coordinated “several emotional outbursts involving crying. These seemed to be orchestrated because everyone [Katie and her supporters] started at exactly the same time, as if on cue.”
When Judge Dwyer announced there would not be a recess, despite the emotional outbursts, the crying stopped “instantly,” one trial attendee remembered. “Especially noteworthy was not only did Katie stop her ‘uncontrollable’ sobbing immediately, but she was smiling afterward, right away.”
Rumors of Bill and Adam conspiring to kill Mary were still circulating, making the rounds on social media and throughout courtroom hallway whispers. One of the latest wild accusations centered on Bill being able to perform mind control.
One of Mary’s sisters who supported Katie was an outspoken voice on a pro-Katie website. She wrote:
I know the world at large didn’t see what was behind the curtain, and I watched for almost forty years while Mary struggled to raise her children to be happy, but Bill was deeply self-serving and it is hard to describe how cleverly he wields mental and emotional cruelty disguised as concern.
Another sister, on the same website, berated Bill, and defamed both Adam and Bill. She wrote that she “firmly” believed that Kaitlyn Conley was innocent, and she believed that the “colchicine was ordered by the Yoders (whether by Bill and/or Adam and/or Mary).”
The remainder of her letter offered accusations and misinformation, speculation, and bizarre theories. She had nothing in the form of factual evidence or supporting documentation.
Murder victims and their families are generally—no, should always be!—off limits to such a bombardment of insults, intimidation, innuendoes, and taunts.
Not here.
There were several strange incidents, according to several eyewitnesses. At one point during a recess, Liana and another family member sat inside the courtroom looking at pictures of their mother on Liana’s phone. It was, of course, a heartbreaking moment, with so much raw emotion swirling around the trial already.
As they sat marveling at those pictures of Mary, they cried. One of Katie’s supporters and her boyfriend walked over and peered over their shoulders.
“Well, I guess there won’t be any more family photos, will there?”
73
THE DAY BEFORE HALLOWEEN, after a lengthy break to clear up several motions, Anthony Martino continued to testify for the state. Hour after hour, the state’s expert provided detailed, factual evidence, proving how Katie Conley worked stealthily on her iPhone and other devices, including the Yoders’ office computer. She was trying to figure out why colchicine was the best poison to use, how to use it, and where to purchase it.
As far back as December 2014, at 12:51 a.m., Katie’s iPhone was searching for “some of the world’s most toxic substances,” Martino explained. He backed up his testimony by providing a screenshot of a website Katie had saved, deleted, but Martino had recovered. It was almost as though, when one looked inside Katie’s phone at those thumbnails, images, and files she had deleted, a narrative of the entire murder presented itself. By November/December 2014, Katie had found the best possible poison to use; January/February she created a company—Chiro Family Care—and forged documents and Yoder signatures, while searching for the best place—and cheapest price—to order the colchicine; February into March she provided all the proper paperwork and documentation ArtChemicals had requested and Rosa Vargas was able to approve the order.
Moreover, throughout all those months, when one added in the Notes app evidence and texts to Adam, a clear picture emerged. Her electronic digital trail tracked how Katie designed an a
libi, calculated body weight versus amount of poison to achieve a lethal dose, and wrote notes to herself regarding what to say to police later. At the same time, she drafted several versions of the anonymous letter.
Martino withstood a day of questions from defense attorney Policelli, who tried to poke holes in everything the forensic examiner had to offer. Yet, in the end, what could one do to disprove impartial evidence, such as computer data and metadata? It either is or it isn’t. There’s no neutral territory within this type of evidence.
In what many described as a desperate move, Policelli did his best to go after Martino’s motives as he set about searching for evidence. The defense attorney tried to insinuate that Martino was given a plan by the prosecution and he followed it.
The only other possible avenue Policelli had was to focus on who was on the other end of Katie’s iPhone when some of what Martino had testified to was downloaded and later deleted. When that accusation was put to the test, however, it fell short. The problem was, if someone else had set Katie up, putting all of this evidence on her phone, how could that person know what to delete and when? Not to mention, how could they gain access to her phone for days at a time? There was no plausible explanation other than Katie.
Her mistake, which Katie’s lawyer tried to walk back, had been plugging her iPhone into Adam’s laptop. It was also proven that she was actually conducting many of these searches while group texting with friends and family. That mirror image of Katie’s iPhone contents, which Martino pulled up, pointed directly to Katie planning, plotting, and carrying out the murder of Mary Yoder. There was zero reasonable doubt.
We Thought We Knew You Page 27