Dateline NBC - Talking Dateline: Poison Twist

Episode Date: March 26, 2025

Andrea Canning and Josh Mankiewicz sit down to talk about Andrea’s episode "Poison Twist.” In 2017, Katie Conley was convicted of poisoning her boss and ex-boyfriend's mother, Mary Yoder, a beloved chiropractor in upstate NY. But after a stunning development this year, Conley was released from custody. Andrea shares a podcast-exclusive clip of her interview with Conley’s defense attorney, and she and Josh discuss what might be next for Conley. Plus, they dish about their favorite fast food, Andrea’s uncanny ability to spot a Canadian accent, and welcome a special guest, NBC News Legal Analyst Danny Cevallos, to help answer viewer questions.If you have a question for Talking Dateline, send us an audio message on social @datelinenbc or leave us a voicemail at [phone].Andrea Canning and Josh Mankiewicz go behind the scenes of the making of this episode in ‘Talking Dateline’Listen on Apple:  https://apple.co/3RoALr6Listen on Spotify:  https://open.spotify.com/episode/3ZTbsKa4uQDCgQOyDV6o0h

Hi, everybody. I'm Josh Mankiewicz and we're talking Dateline today with Andrea. Hi, Andrea. Hi, Josh. We are here to discuss Andrea's episode called Poison Twist. Now, if you have not seen it, it's the episode right below this one on your Dateline podcast feed. So go there, listen to it. You can also watch it on Peacock and then come back here. Now, just to recap a little bit, this is about the death of a chiropractor named Mary Yoder back in 2015. That turned into a criminal investigation.

It turned out she had been poisoned. And a very weird anonymous letter eventually led them to a possible killer who was Mary's office manager, a woman named Caitlin Connolly, also known as Katie. And there's a new development and it's turned all of this kind of upside down and it's a great who'd done it. So for this Talking Dateline, we have an extra clip of Andrea's interview with Katie Connolly's latest attorney, Melissa Schwartz. And later on, we'll be joined by our very own legal analyst Danny Savalos to answer one of your social media questions. So let's talk

to A-Line. Katie Conley is no longer behind bars and one kind of gets the sense that she might not be retried again. It sounds like trying her again is going to be a lot harder than trying her the first couple of times. Yeah. I was literally just thinking about that seconds before you said it, Josh, about will they go after Katie Conley again? No question. It's more difficult now that the cell phone evidence can't be used. Yeah. I mean, when it has your defendant searching for poison, I mean, that doesn't look good.

Why are you searching for poison? Although they say that Adam had access to all of her electronics. But still, it's not something that you want a jury hearing if you're the defense. And you know, if this is her being framed by Adam, which I'm not taking a position on, but if it is, it's one of the great frame up jobs of all time. Yes. Yes. I mean, the one thing that's a little tricky is the poison being in his jeep, and then he goes to the police department. I mean, I've wrestled with why would he keep that in his jeep, you know, if you've killed your mom.

Why would you keep it anywhere? Why would you not throw it out the window? Right. It's not like the culture zine is a gun or something you wanna hang onto to use later, you know what I mean? It's not a possession of yours. It's the thing you gave somebody to kill them. You would not want to keep that with you, I would think. It seems to me that you would want to get rid of that as soon as possible. So the TV series House had an episode called Occam's Razor about somebody taking colchizine. It

wasn't a murder plot. I think it was a, it was a pharmacy error. They took one drug instead of another, but they, but, but colchizine poisoning was a, was a feature of that episode. Do we know whether Katie ever saw that episode? Was she a fan of House? We don't know. I don't, I'm not aware of that question. And that didn't come up in court that you know of? Not that I remember. I checked after I heard about the Colchisian in House, which was a 2004 episode. My cousin John Mankiewicz was an executive producer of House that year.

No. So he was probably one of the writers of that. Yeah. And there you have it, folks, full circle. Back to Josh Megowitz. There you go, folks. Most people use colchicine for gout. It's synthetic, or it can come from the plant autumn crocus. So this was one of my favorite moments in all of my datelines,

was that this poison control woman, Gina Maraffa, they had one sample left of blood. They were only able to do one more test. And this poison control expert made this call, you know, kind of, let's try for colchicine. And lo and behold, it's positive for colchicine. And now, Josh, because colchicine has now been used in other murders, it is now in a lot of places on the standard talk screen, which it was not before. If they had not tested that blood, that one last sample for Colchicine... Sounds like no one would ever have been tried for this.

None of this would have, none of it. We can say none of this would have happened. It was pretty remarkable. So let's talk about the evidence that remains against Katie. She is free on what sort of in normal parlance is a technicality, right? The search warrant wasn't done correctly. But the evidence that is eliminated from the search warrant is not at issue. There's not any questions to whether or not that phone was used to search for the poison. The question is, was she doing the searching or was somebody else doing the searching?

It appears that way, yes. Right. Katie's DNA is on the bottle. Yes, Katie's DNA is on the bottle. The explanation for that is that she handles everything in the office. So her DNA is on a lot of deliveries to the office. So the thing I kept thinking while I was watching this is, okay, it has to be her, but it can't be her, right?

Because it doesn't make any sense. Why would she want to kill Mary? All of the possible motives, like removing Mary from Adam's life would make Adam come back to her. That's like out of some nutty movie. Any evidence that like, you know, Mary was going to let Katie go? I didn't hear anything. I mean, by all accounts, everyone says that Katie liked Mary. Yeah. I mean, that's the weird thing. You know, could it be revenge on Adam because he broke up with her?

I'm going to take your mom from you. They're outlandish motives. I mean, maybe not to the prosecution, they're not, but when you say them out loud, they seem, as we discussed, a little hard to believe. I mean, the abuse allegations that, you know, Adam denied it, then kind of admitted it. I mean, did Mary even know about that? We don't know. I don't know. I mean, that's another question.

Did Mary know and she was upset with Katie? But Katie's still working there. So how bad could it be if she's still employed? I mean, wouldn't you fire her if- Yeah. So Mary couldn't have been that upset about it. Yeah. Right. She could just let her go if she was upset with her. At the beginning of the episode, Mary shows up at her sister's house and she sort of is

hinting that she has something to talk about. We're never going to know what that was. We're never going to know. What do you think that was? Oh my gosh. I don't know. I mean, some might speculate that she was going to talk about her husband and her sister, her other sister. It feels to me that my husband is having an affair with my sister is more likely than my office manager's trying to kill me. Yeah, I know the office manager's trying to kill me doesn't seem like the conversation

she would have had, but again, we don't know. When we get back, we will have that extra clip from Andrea's interview with Melissa Swartz, Katie Connolly's latest attorney and her very strong opinions about the previous defense teams. In January of this year, Katie's conviction was overturned and she was released. She went to McDonald's. Yeah, went to McDonald's. Got her milkshake. Yeah. But I think this is an important talking day line question. If you'd been locked up for

seven years, Andrea, what would your first meal be? Because I don't think it would be McDonald's. I mean, if you're on the road, Josh, you know, there's not going to be some fancy steakhouse to stop at. On the road, there are no rules, as you know. But she had a long drive from Bedford Hills back to Utica. So yeah, I would probably go to McDonald's if I'm in the car and I've, you know, got a long drive home.

And then I would love to have a home cooked meal or, you know, somewhere really nice. Is McDonald's your fast food of choice? Oh, yeah, definitely. I love a medium diet Coke and a hamburger and sometimes an ice cream cone. I tend to eat McDonald's only, it's always like a last resort because some other place that you wanted wasn't available or it's too late or you're exhausted or, you know, and in my case, like changing planes at DFW, right? Or O'Hare or somewhere. And you know you're not getting in until really late. That's when the sirens call of the golden arches arise. Yeah.

Nicole Soule-I was just there on assignment in Kansas eating McDonald's at night, you know, the glamorous life of a Dateline correspondent. Alan Ross And the corollary to that is if I'm in certain places in the Midwest, it's Culver's. And if I'm in Texas, it's Whataburger, because Whataburger is the greatest. Yeah. All right. So one of the interesting things about this is that her conviction has been thrown out and she gets a new trial because of something that just about never happens, which is ineffective

assistance of counsel. We have an audio question about that. Let's listen to that. Hi, Andrea. I just caught up with tonight's episode. It was great. I was wondering how often is ineffective counsel attributed to cases that you've covered through the years? I have covered one case in all my years at Dateline that I can recall in which that happened, in which somebody's conviction was thrown out in a new trial order. I mean, generally, the bar for that is so high. What's really interesting is that Melissa Swartz, the attorney that you mentioned, this is the second dateline that I've done updates with

her. She handles appeals and some of our listeners may remember Remy Ramseran in upstate New York. He was accused of killing his wife and he also was eligible for a new trial, didn't end up taking it. He took a plea, but that was also ineffective assistance of counsel. And I rarely give shout outs to attorneys, but I have to say Melissa Swartz is, she is a really good attorney and she's fellow Canadian. And I picked up on her accent immediately during our interview. She was saying a boat and she's from Niagara Falls. Just having worked with her now on these couple of cases,

it's so nice to see that in the justice system that people have such good representation and she's one of those attorneys who's fighting for her clients as so many do. Can you automatically instantly tell when somebody's Canadian? I feel like I have that radar. I mean, I can pick out anybody pretty much instantaneously.

As soon as like, you know, I just need a few words, choice words, and then we're good. I know. This feels, by the way, like a social media contest that is upcoming. Right? I can see this coming. Since we're talking about ineffective assistance of counsel, let's listen to Katie's latest attorney, Melissa Schwartz, because she has a lot to say about the previous attorneys on this case. So let's listen to that.

What's that like when you're attacking or, you know, or questioning, you know, their strategy and, you know, who they are as attorneys. I mean, that they didn't do a good job. What is that like when you bring them up? I always try to be very respectful. And it's, I always say this, it's easy to be a Monday morning quarterback, right? It really is. It's easy for me to second-guess somebody else's work.

Both attorneys that I accused of being ineffective, good attorneys. I'm not saying they're not good attorneys. I'm not saying, hey, never hire these attorneys ever again, right? They're both very experienced, very qualified attorneys. So I tried to be respectful in kind of targeting what I thought that they fell short on.

Yeah, well, I mean, I think she clearly did a great job because she triumphed in a way that most attorneys do not. And those other two guys that came before her, I mean, if you can battle the prosecution to essentially a draw when the jury says we can't make a decision, that means you did a pretty good job. Yeah. And I thought, Melissa, that was nice of her, you know, to not throw these attorneys under the bus. And remember, that's her job. She picks apart cases. She's looking for any little thing to get someone off. So it's a different role that you're playing. And it's a different role that you're playing, and it's a different perspective. So, if you're Katie, you're going out into the world knowing that a large number of people

think that you literally got away with murder. There will be those people. Her family has stuck by her. They strongly believe she's innocent, and also family members of Mary, sisters who believe that Katie's innocent. That's the interesting thing about this. I don't mean to dismiss Katie's parents, and I have no doubt that they actually do believe in their daughter's innocence. But parents almost never feel any other way. No one wants to admit they raised a monster or a killer. And this is true across the board.

So that was less surprising to me than the fact that Mary's family was really sort of steadfast and still is. Nicole Sarris Yeah, they don't believe Katie did this. You know, they're still pointing the finger, some people, at Mary's husband. People think he was having an affair with her sister, even though he says they didn't get together until after she died. But I don't think it's been totally put to bed for some people, you know, but he completely denies having anything to do with his wife's death.

Police looked into the alleged affair and say Bill's phone records appear to confirm his account. And wouldn't it have been very hard for him to give her the colchicine in an appropriate timeframe unless you believe that she got it like 12 hours earlier or something like that? Yeah, because Bill wasn't there, right? So... He wasn't there. Yeah. They didn't have lunch together. Unless he slipped in and no one saw him, but I don't think the office was that big. So if you believe that this happened at lunchtime, which is what the prosecution says, then it's pretty much got to be Katie.

That timeline would fit better with Katie. Bill did not want to talk. We approached him, I'm sure. No, no. Bill nor his, the sister that he was with, I don't know if he's still with her. They declined to speak with us. Adam Ligato Over the course of Katie's trials, both Adam and Bill ended up with transactional immunity because they testified in front of a grand jury. Now, for people who have committed crimes, transactional immunity can be this giant gift because what it essentially is, it says, we will not prosecute you for anything you admit to in this proceeding,

in this session. So you better confess to everything because you will not be prosecuted for it under the law. Yeah. It was new to me. I always say, Josh, we learn something new every day on Dateline. So you know, that suggests that Bill or Adam could not be charged, at least not based on whatever they said in the grand jury. But again, they didn't confess. Neither one of them said, yeah, I did it. Yeah, no, you're right. I think the state was so confident

that Katie is the killer, that probably doesn't bother them because they don't think that Adam or Bill are the killers or one of them is the killer. So, you know, it's easy to give, I guess, immunity when you strongly believe what you believe because there are no plans to go after, as far as I know, to go after Adam or Bill.

Adam Sondland The question is going to be whether Katie gets tried again, not whether somebody else gets tried. Katie Fletcher Absolutely. Adam Sondland Up next, you, and by you, I mean the home listener, had a lot to say about who you thought killed Mary Yoder and about the investigation and about everything that happened. We will be right back with your questions from social media. Okay. So, this is not my story. This is your story. But I got a tremendous amount of interest

in your story on social media. Love that. On Friday night. I mean, a lot of people ask me, like, what's going on here? What is this? Who is this? I'm like, you should be directing these questions to Andrea. Like, I'm actually not covering this.

But a lot of people very interested. Fred Hines on Facebook said, interesting show tonight. It's really hard to know who the real killer was, which is one reason this was such a great episode. I suppose it comes down to just three people, husband, son, son's girlfriend. If no one outside the family was involved, then it has to be one of those three. Those would appear to be the possible choices, although as we've discussed, Adam or Bill were not charged. Yeah. I mean, they certainly make for good alternate suspects, you know, for defense attorneys.

But again, the police and the prosecution felt that everything pointed in one direction, and that was at Katie, based on the evidence. One of our questions from Offie32 concerns the search warrant that was thrown out. I understand that Katie won her hearing and her conviction was thrown out because of a flawed search warrant regarding her cell phone. Why can't law enforcement administer a new and legal search warrant for its contents? Evidence obtained illegally is still evidence

to help us answer that. Here is NBC legal analyst, Danny Savales. Thanks for joining us here on Talking Dateline. Thank you for having me. What's the answer to that? They can't just do it again like that. Well, they could. If they went back now and did it right, they could get that evidence the proper way.

In theory, there's nothing really to prevent obtaining the same evidence another way in a new trial. You mean if they got it by writing a different warrant for, like, let's say they write it for some other phone and they get it off that phone, for example. Right, exactly. Which would be really hard in this case, since it came off of Katie's phone. Right. I mean, so much of this evidence came from the cell phone that it likely just couldn't be found anywhere else unless it's communications with other people who might have those records

as well. So if Katie texted the poison information to someone else, they could potentially then look at that other person's phone and say this came from Katie's phone. Right. Or if she, if she mailed it to herself on her Gmail account on her computer or something like that. Exactly right. Or it could be searches, searches conducted on websites, which are in theory given to a third party. Almost everything that we do on our phones is us giving information to a third party. So while it may involve a lot more footwork by law enforcement,

they often can get that information through other means than the original cell phone, if that cell phone isn't available. Danny, would it be too late then if they, let's say she searched the poison on a website, can they go to that website and say, Danny, would it be too late then if they, let's say she searched the poison on a website, can they go to that website and say, can you see who was searching what IP addresses or what phones? I mean, would it be far too late for that since this was so long ago?

The biggest barrier would now be time. It may be that companies or websites may not keep records that long to respond to a subpoena for that kind of information. But if they did, and if you can match up the IP address, which is a unique number assigned to everyone's internet browsing, then yes, you could potentially match that up. But even then, if you match the IP address, you sometimes get into the thorny question of, well, who else might have been using the computer or the phone at the time? And she alleges that Adam Yoder was using her devices. Yes. As soon as you match up the IP address, there really isn't much else for a defendant

to do other than argue that, hey, this device of mine, laptop or cell phone, was like Grand Central Station. Everybody was using it all the time. Thanks Danny. Danny, thanks so much. Thanks guys. A lot of viewers had a difficult time watching Katie's latest attorney, Melissa, seeming so happy. She was happy because as an attorney, she'd won her case. A lot of people have difficulty with the idea that defense attorneys work to free people who are convicted of crimes, some of whom are not guilty and some of whom probably are.

That's Melissa's role and some of whom probably are. Nicole Soule-Bamford That's Melissa's role and that's our justice system. And... Alan Ross Right. And everybody deserves representation and it makes the prosecution prove their case. They can't just say their case. They have to prove it. And you would want that, you, the viewer, if you were ever accused of anything. Nicole Soule-Bamford Absolutely. Remember, there are people who think Katie Connolly is innocent. So...

Alan Ross A lot of them. There's different perspectives on this one. And yes, Melissa was happy she got Katie out. I mean, why wouldn't she be? That's her job. But it doesn't mean that Melissa's celebrating death. It means Melissa's celebrating the release of a client. So they're very two different things. So, um, this is a question of how messy, um, Adam's Jeep was. Um, uh, you know, if Adam was innocent, this is a lesgy JV, uh, lesgy. One day you're going to be promoted to the varsity. Never doubt that.

Um, I'm not sure who did it, but if Adam was innocent, why was he so hesitant to let them search his Jeep? Well, Well, he did let them. Yeah. Also, if your Jeep looked like you were living in it, which it kind of almost did, Katherine Wilcox points out it was a pigsty. Maybe that's why he was embarrassed.

Maybe. And finally, we come back to Katie's motive. Kristi Michelle Bennett says, this one really has me baffled. "'Katie seems so sweet and innocent, "'but all the evidence points to her. "'What motive would she have had?' And we talked about this. I can't think of a good motive for Katie.

I can think of this convoluted idea that losing Mary might make Adam come back to her, which sort of happened in a kind of way, but it didn't last. And that feels like a lot to go through to get your boyfriend to notice you again. Yeah. And the reality is, prosecutors don't need a motive to bring someone on murder charges. No, but maybe the fact that they basically, the fact that they got two hung juries almost might have something to do with the fact that they didn't have a really good motive to offer.

Juries want motives. They want to understand why they're putting someone away potentially for the rest of their life. Congratulations, Andrea. I thought this was a great episode. Thank you. Yeah, it's been a long time, this one, 10 years. Kim Crowitz was the producer on this one.

She did an amazing job. That's it for Talking Dateline for this week. Now remember, if you have any questions for us about stories or about Dateline or things we should cover, you can reach us 24 seven on social media at at Dateline NBC. Now, if you have a question for Talking Dateline, you can record a message and send it to us on social media, or you can leave a voicemail at 212-413-5252.

That's Keith's personal cell phone. How could you do that to Keith? Oh, it's easy. It's really very easy. Thanks for listening, everybody. We'll be off this Friday, but get ready for a whole lot of Dateline the next couple of months. We'll have episodes Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays starting next week. See you then!