True Crime Campfire - The Quiet Ones: The Staudte Family Murders

Episode Date: December 23, 2022

Lao Tzu wrote: If you wish to awaken all of humanity, then awaken all of yourself. If you wish to eliminate the suffering in the world, then eliminate all that is dark and negative in yourself. Truly, the greatest gift you have to give is that of your own self-transformation. This inspirational quote was posted on April 30th, 2013 on the Facebook page of Diane Staudte, a woman who many in her community may have considered an inspiration herself. A talented musician, a trained cardiac nurse, a mother of four and an essential member of the Redeemer Lutheran Church. And she was an even greater inspiration if you considered that in the past year, she had lost not only her husband, but her 26 year old son to sudden death. It makes sense, then, that Diane would be thinking about self-transformation right then. Making a new life out of the ashes of the old one. But no one could have realized how drastically she wanted to transform her life, and how far she would go to do it. Sources:20/20 - A Family Plot https://abcnews.go.com/US/missouri-woman-recalls-moment-suspected-mom-kill/story?id=38036627 https://abcnews.go.com/US/mother-convicted-poisoning-family-maintains-innocence/story?id=82780856 https://www.news-leader.com/story/news/crime/2016/08/02/citing-fear-men-staudte-daughter-wants-do-over-antifreeze-murder-case/87966600/Follow us, campers!Patreon (join to get all episodes ad-free, at least a day early, an extra episode a month, and a free sticker!): https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfireFacebook: True Crime CampfireInstagram: https://gramha.net/profile/truecrimecampfire/19093397079Twitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfireEmail: [e-mail]! https://true-crime-campfire.myspreadshop.com/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.

Hello, campers. Grab your marshmallows and gather around the true crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie. And I'm Whitney. And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction. We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire. Lao Tzu wrote, If you wish to awaken all of humanity, then awaken all of yourself. If you wish to eliminate the suffering in the world, then eliminate all that is dark and negative in yourself.

Truly, the greatest gift you have to give is that of your own self-transformation. This inspirational quote was posted on April 30, 30th, 2013, on the Facebook page of Diane Stouty, a woman who many in her community may have considered an inspiration herself, a talented musician, a trained cardiac nurse, a mother of four, and an essential member of the Redeemer Lutheran Church. And she was an even greater inspiration if you considered that, In the past year, she had lost not only her husband, but her 26-year-old son to sudden death. It makes sense, then, that Diane would be thinking about self-transformation right then, making a new life out of the ashes of the old one.

But no one could have realized how drastically she wanted to transform her life and how far she would go to do it. This is the quiet ones, the Stouty family murders. So, campers, for this one, we're in Springfield, Missouri, April 8th, Easter Sunday, 2012. Diane Stouty came home from the Easter services at Redeemer Lutheran Church around lunchtime. She dropped her keys and bag in their usual places and then went to check on her husband Mark. He hadn't been feeling great the past few days, sleeping a lot, saying anything. felt weak, not wanting to eat. Mark was the guitarist in the local blues band

messing with Destiny, and at rehearsal the day before, his bandmates had noticed him looking a little green around the gills. It was his birthday, so they'd thought about going out to celebrate after practice, but Mark was acting weird, kind of unsteady on his feet. They knew he wasn't drunk, but that was kind of how he was acting, and his skin wasn't the right color. It was yellow, which can be a sign of a pretty serious liver problem. So Mark had opted to go home after rehearsal and get some rest. Now, the next morning, Diane came home from church to see how he was doing. The house was strangely quiet, no TV or radio.

So she headed to the bedroom, figuring Mark was still in bed. And there he was, a still, quiet heap under the blankets. He didn't respond to her opening the door or calling out his name. And when she touched his forehead, he was stone cold. Mark Stoddy, only 61 years old and a loving father of four, was dead. Paramedics rushed to the house to find Mark beyond help. They noticed some dried blood around his mouth, but nothing about the scene suggested anything sinister. Seeing the blood, the coroner said it was probably a burst ulcer, a natural death,

no need for an autopsy unless the family just wanted it. Which they didn't, they said. Diane, who was a trained nurse, told the paramedics that she'd been trying to, to talk Mark into going to the ER for days, especially when he had what she was pretty sure was a series of seizures the day before, not something that had ever happened to him before. But Mark could be stubborn as all hell, and he'd just flat out refused. I'll be fine, he told her, I just need to get some rest. She'd planned on trying again to convince him after the Easter service, she said, now it was too late. To Mark's friends in the band, it was a cruel irony. After years of perseverance,

messing with destiny had been crushing it lately, landing gig. after gig in nearby Branson and really starting to pick up a following, which in Branson, sometimes called the live entertainment capital of the world, sometimes the Vegas of the Midwest ain't nothing to sneeze at. Mark's bandmates were devastated, his best friend Charles especially. But they weren't exactly shocked. Mark wasn't what you'd call health conscious. He smoked, his diet was basically that of an unsupervised teenage boy, mostly fast food and fried snacks, and he was pretty much allergic to exercise. You know, the guy was a musician. He went all in on the lifestyle. You'd never know it when he was on stage

performing, because he was a dynamic frontman. But age catches up to everybody eventually. So as heartbroken as he was by his friend's death, Charles wasn't surprised exactly, not by the death itself. What did surprise him was the way Diane told him about it. Casual, he said later on the show 2020, like she was reading a recipe for a cake. Not what you'd expect from a woman who just lost her husband of 26 years. But then she'd never really gotten on that well with the guys in messing with Destiny. According to Charles, she was friendly to the point of like, waving from across the yard as Charles dropped Mark off after rehearsal, but she wasn't the type to invite him in for coffee and a chat. Whereas Mark was gregarious and friendly, Diane kind of seemed to keep people at arm's length.

The neighbors all noticed it too. But a lot of couples are like that. One's a lot more outgoing than the other. Oh, hell yeah. My husband and I are like that. I'm the people person. He's British, you know. Yeah, I wasn't convinced he exists until I met him. Until you finally met him. Yeah, and then I was like, oh, he's a person that exists and not just a figment of Whitney's imagination. He's not just like a body pillow with a face drawn. Exactly. Diane had Mark's body cremated and scattered the ashes of the lake. And she put together a memorial for him. Messing with Destiny played one of his favorite songs, Darkest Hour by Glenn Phillips, which must have been incredibly emotional for them.

It was hitting Charles especially hard. He and Mark had been friends for decades. And he and the rest of the band were disturbed by the way Diane acted at the memorial service. She was like the hostess with the mostest. You'd think she was having a party, not a funeral for the father of her children. And she wouldn't even look at the guys from the band. Charles was crying his heart out for his lost friend, and Diane was acting like nothing much had happened. But, you know, like they always say on Dateline, everybody grieves differently.

And it's true, everybody does. But nevertheless, Diane was getting under Charles's skin. Something felt wrong. He just couldn't put his finger on what? In the 26 years they were married, Diane and Mark had struck most people as a really happy couple. They met at a bluegrass festival in 1985 and bonded fast over their love of music. Diane played piano, organ and guitar. One of Mark's friends would later tell ABC News that they got married so fast because Diane found out she was pregnant, but Mark wasn't reluctant at all. He was excited to be a dad.

Their first child, Sean, came along a few months after the wedding, and they had three more, Sarah, Rachel, and Brianna. By the time of Mark's death in 2012, three of them were. four kids were in their 20s, but they all were still living at home in a tiny little 900-square-foot house. That is a recipe for tension. And there were plenty other ingredients, too. For one thing, Mark could never seem to hold down a job for very long. He'd work for a while as a bartender or something like that, but it never lasted long. He had a great work ethic when it came to his music. He was an amazing singer and songwriter, but he struggled when it came to making consistent

money. So he was essentially a stay-at-home dad. But according to Diane, he wasn't exactly a domestic god. The house was a mess most of the time. This left Diane to be the main breadwinner. She was a nurse for a while, then got a job at an insurance company. She was really involved in the church, playing the organ and taking on all kinds of volunteer jobs that ate up her time and energy. The kids were also a source of some tension in the house, as kids usually are. God bless them. Their oldest, Sean, who was 26 at the time of Mark's death, was autistic. He had trouble interacting with people, and apparently couldn't live on his own, at least according to the sources we saw.

So he needed a lot of attention and care. The 24-year-old daughter Sarah had just graduated from college with a degree in French, but she was having trouble finding work, so she'd moved back into the house. And she was clashing a lot with her mom. Diane thought she was lazy, didn't think she was looking hard enough for work. And the youngest daughter, Brianna, was struggling in elementary. elementary school. Then there was 22-year-old Rachel. She was a musician like both her parents, talented singer and flute player, and she had artistic gifts too. She was in college, getting great

grades and performing her music a lot at church, but for some reason she'd opted to keep living at home too. And this was not a big house. Our house is a lot bigger than that, and I can't even imagine trying to cram six people in here. Yeah, my apartment is bigger than that, and when I have more than one person over it feels like I'm in a tin of anchovies. Yeah, in the 900 square foot house, you'd be up in each other's grill all day, every day, and there was only one bathroom. I mean, even the chillest people on earth would get on each other's nerves. So if Diane didn't seem to be grieving the loss of her husband, as sad as this is, it may have just been that the love had gone out of their marriage years ago. They'd been living separate lives. Diane's pastor, Reverend

Jeff Sippy, started seeing more of Diane, meeting her for coffee. to try and help her through her grief, but as he later told ABC, he slowly realized that there just didn't seem to be any. Diane never expressed any pain or sadness. She never asked him to pray for her. She never said she missed Mark. In fact, her conversation in general was oddly shallow, just little odds and ends about the church and her work, stuff like that. You'd never know she'd just lost her husband of 26 years. It was weird and a little unsettling. How the loss affected the four kids, for sure. I know Sean had been worrying about his dad in the week or so leading up to the death. He'd written on his Facebook page about his dad feeling sick and stumbling around the house.

But the family kept to themselves. Not long after Mark's death, Diane collected on his $20,000 life insurance policy and used it to upgrade to a bigger house in a nicer neighborhood. And right away, the Stouty's new neighbors got the distinct impression that Diane wanted to be left alone. If she was in her driveway and a neighbor waved and started walking over to say hi, Diane would just head right inside the house. She seemed to be sending a very deliberate message, stay away. And then, about three months after the stouties moved in, a neighbor looked out her kitchen window and saw police cars and a coroner's van. Diane was standing outside talking to one of the responders and the neighbor made her way over. What's going on? Does something bad happen?

She asked her standoffish new neighbor. Oh yeah, Diane said. My son died. Just like that. And the kind of voice you'd use to say, oh yeah, we had to call animal control to get some raccoons out of the attic. Calm, even casual. No emotions detected. To the police and paramedics, Diane said that Sean had been having flu-like symptoms for weeks now, but he'd stubbornly refused to go to the doctor. He seemed okay when she went in to check on him at 6.30 that morning before church, but when she came back, she and Sarah found him on the floor of his bedroom. No pulse. Sean had suffered from seizures in the past, Diane told them.

That's probably what it was. The coroner noticed a ring of blood around Sean's mouth, which was a little odd maybe, but there was nothing that set off any alarm bells about the scene, which is incredible to me. I mean, Sean was 26 years old, for God's sake. But his former nurse mom said he had seizures, and I guess that was enough for the coroner.

They ruled the death natural. No need for an autopsy. The whole story is eerily similar to the story of Mark's death, even down to Diane finding the body after church. So, wow, what a run of bad luck for this poor family, right? Yeah, right. Sean Stouty had loved to read, and he had lots of special interests. He was fascinated with the history and culture of Sweden.

He loved architecture and mechanics. But unlike his dad, Sean didn't get a memorial service. He didn't even get an obituary in the paper. Diane just cremated him. and spread the ashes. That was pretty much that. Wow. Pastor Sippy was there, as always, to try to comfort the grieving mother. But yet again, he couldn't detect any of the usual signs of grief. If Diane did express any negative emotions, they usually had to do with household stuff. She was irritated that the place was always a mess and the kids didn't do enough to help out,

especially Sean, before he died, obviously, and Sarah. Anybody who knew the Stouties knew that whether she admitted it or not, Diane had a favorite kid, 22-year-old Rachel. In between inspirational quotes and religious stuff, Diane's Facebook page was full of praise for her golden child, her grades, her artwork, her music. There wasn't much about any of the other kids, and Zip Zero Bub Kiss about Mark. After Sean's death, the Stouty's neighbor saw even less of them than they had before. It was almost like the remaining four were hiding out. The neighbors just caught quick little glimpses of them coming and going like ghosts. And then, in June of 2013, nine months after the sudden death of her brother, Sean, Sarah got

sick. Her symptoms started out really similar to Marks and Sean's, flu-like stuff. Weakness and nausea, but she went downhill hard and fast, and after a few days of this, Diane rushed her to the hospital. They took one look at Sarah and sent her to intensive care. One of the doctors later said he didn't expect her to survive the night. She was the sickest 24-year-old we've ever seen, he remembered. Sarah's kidneys were failing. Her pancreas was shutting down. She had multiple brain hemorrhages, and the doctors couldn't figure out why.

On her Facebook page, Diane posted, asking for prayers as my daughter Sarah is in critical condition in ICU tonight. Not long after she posted that, Mark's brother, Michael Stouty, opened his laptop and logged onto his own Facebook account, and when he saw Diane's post, his stomach hit the floor. He thought, oh my God, not again. How many times could this happen in one family? It was like a nightmare come to life. As doctors and nurses frantically tried to figure out what was killing her daughter, Diane

didn't bother to visit much. And when she did, everybody was baffled by her demeanor. minutes after being told Sarah might not make it through the night, Diane was joking around with the nurses. Well, it's not going to stop me going to Florida, Diane said laughing. I'm not canceling my vacation plans. Holy Moses, that's fucked up. Oh my God. Yeah. It's like that mom on TikTok. You remember her. I think I sent you the video. The one that made like a sexy little dancing video to announce that her kid was like super sick with RSV. Oh my God. I do remember that. That was bonkers nuts.

And it is like that. Who the hell says that out loud? Well, I'm not going to stop my vacation for this. Like, even if you're thinking those things, don't you know not to say them? It's just incredible. It's also weird, like, it's a weird thing to think. But, like, I understand intrusive thoughts, right? Like, you can always be like, oh, we were on vacation.

But my daughter's dying. Like, priorities, bitch. Oh, my God. Diane's clearly incapable of reading the room. I'd argue it's because. she's a stone cold psychopath, but of course, I'm not diagnosing her. We can't know that for sure. Yeah, I'd say that's a pretty safe bit, although I'd go further than stone cold. This bitch is sub-arctic. Like, John Carpenter could have set that movie The Thing in her soul.

Yeah, because it was set in the Arctic. Yeah, got it. Got it. Anyway, so as poor Sarah lay in the ICU, her life slipping away minute by minute and her doctors running out of ideas, a 911 operator, got a disturbing anonymous call. There was a family, he knew, the tipster said. Two of its members had died within five months of each other of strangely similar ailments, and now, nine months later, a third member was in critical condition in the hospital, probably about to die too. It was just too much bad luck for one family, he said.

Something sinister was going on. The tipster took a deep breath. Diane Stoddy might be responsible for two or three homicides, he said. You need to investigate. Now, you never know how police are going to react to a call like that, especially when the tipster won't reveal who he is, but when Detective Neil McAmus went to the hospital to inquire about Sarah Stouty, her doctor immediately confirmed the anonymous caller's suspicions. All our tests have been inconclusive, he said. We're starting to suspect she's been poisoned.

Another staff member pulled the detective aside to tell him about Diane's bizarre, comments, and weirdly jolly demeanor. And when Detective McAamus pulled the coroner, told the coroner's reports on Mark and Sean Stoddy, the similarities were stunning. Flu-like symptoms for weeks, nausea, body aches, headaches, then stumbling around and acting strangely in the days leading up to death, and then suddenly, gone. Sarah's symptoms were eerily similar, too, and as her doctors were beginning to realize, these symptoms fit precisely with the effects of ethylene glycol toxicity. In other words, antifreeze poisoning.

So Detective McAamess asked Diane to come in for an interview, and surprisingly, she agreed. Didn't ask for an attorney or anything, and y'all, this interview is wild. You can watch it on YouTube, actually. It's only like two hours long, and I definitely recommend it because it is fascinating. Yes, yes it is. Diane's mind must have been going a mile a minute once she found out that somebody had called the police about Sarah. But she had a friendly smile on her face as the detective led her into the interview room. I'll try my best to help.

She said, I don't know what I can tell you. She and Detective McAeamus danced around each other for a while, the detective asking Diane what she thought might be going on with Sarah. At first, she said she just didn't know, and interestingly, seemed to try to downplay her own medical knowledge despite being a former cardiac nurse. As so many other people had already noticed, she seemed weirdly unconcerned about her daughter,

actually chuckling as she said, her kidneys were shot, she had a brain bleed, it's bad. she was as close to death as you can get. Then she tried to sell the detective on the idea that because Sarah was bipolar, she might have overdosed on something or taken household cleaners to take her own life. But this is interesting, too. She did it in a way where it seems like she's trying to hide that she was pushing a narrative,

like saying stuff like, I mean, I can't really picture her doing that, though. Part of me says, yeah, part of me says no. But, you know, it's so subtle sometimes that you don't know what's going on. She said she couldn't imagine who might want to intentionally hurt her kids. Now, Mark, though, that was a different story. When the detective turned the conversation in Mark's direction, despite the fact that she must have realized that this meant they were starting to connect the deaths,

Diane couldn't resist getting her digs in. Mark was abusive, she said. He was lazy. He cheated on her. He used drugs. In the span of a few minutes, she went from saying, despite all his faults, I still loved him, to admitting, I hated his goal. guts. They can never help themselves, can they? Mm-mm. Nope.

Every time. She didn't have anything to do with his death, Diane said, but she wasn't really sorry he was gone either. He wasn't a good husband. She only stayed with him so he wouldn't take his own life. Next, the conversation turned to Sean. Do you have a son as well? The detective asked her. No, not anymore, Diane said casually. He died. He stopped breathing during one of his seizures. Not anymore. Jesus Jones. I do not know a solitary parent that has lost a child that says it like that. Not anymore. Like he wasn't her problem any longer. Diane didn't have much good to say about Sean, who at this point had been dead for about nine months. He was, quote, worse than a pest, she said, always getting in her way.

Sean would be interfering with whatever I would do, she said, to the point where he was getting into my work. I would have to tell him, you need to leave, you know, go to your room, go do something. You get to the point where you just pull out your hair. And as for Sarah, well, she was supposed to be looking for a job, but she wasn't trying hard enough. She had all these student loans, you know, that Diane had co-signed on, meaning she would be on the hook for that money if Sarah couldn't afford to pay it back. Sarah would stay up all night and sleep all day, she said. It was so frustrating. And she and Sean both trashed the house and didn't help clean. Sarah, the girl's still fighting for her life in the ICU, even as they sat there

talking. Sean, her first-born son. Yeah, it's incredible. The detective must have been wanting to scoop his own jaw off the floor, but he had to keep his cool for the sake of the investigation. He said he could understand how somebody might reach a breaking point, even a faithful Christian, like Diane. The detective inched Diane closer to the brink. They're testing Sarah samples at the Mayo Clinic, he told her. What do you think they're going to find? Not only that, but there are tissue samples left over from Mark and Sean, too. What would they find in those? What happened, Diane? What happened to Sarah? Diane sighed. I didn't do anything to her, she said. I guess I could have taken her the ER sooner, but I didn't know.

You're a nurse, Diane, McAeamus said. Why did you wait? Because I'm a horrible, she said softly. I'm a horrible mother. You could cut the tension in the room with a knife. McAamest started reading her her rights. By the way, if you've been stupid enough to talk to the police and they start reading you the Miranda warnings, it's time to ask for a lawyer now. Just a little tit from True Crime Can't Fire. You have that one for free. Yeah.

But Diane, bless her heart, as Whitney says, kept on talking. McAamest started pushing back on her about Sean. They do this a lot in interrogations, jump around from topic to topic, so the suspect never has a chance to get comfortable. Right. He'd been threatened to hurt himself, Diane said. Okay, MacGamus said. Well, did you do anything to help him at that point? Diane was quiet for a second.

I didn't want to bother, because I was tired of it. I'm such a crummy person. She didn't really seem to believe it, though. There were no tears. but McAymus soldiered on this is your chance to show some remorse he told her and then he just sat and stared at her for what must have felt like 500 years

another interrogation technique sit in dead silence make them feel like they have to say something to break it and finally Diane did to put it really short and sweet I knew they were drinking antifreeze she said and I was so mad at them that I didn't want to take them in

This extraordinary statement just kind of sat in the air between them for a second. Detective McAeamus did not look impressed. You know, probably because it was the dumbest lie, anybody had literally ever tried to sell him in his life. Oh, okay, sure. So it's apparently a stouty family tradition to chug a glass of antifreeze now and then, just for funsies, you know, because it's not like it's an excruciating way to die or anything.

Wee! So all three of them had somehow gotten this same idea separately and months apart and two of them had ended up dead with another in critical condition. Got it. Guess you're free to go. It's almost insulting how bad that lie is. Like, I know she was grasping at straws at that point, but that's the one she grabbed. Yeah.

So McCamus leaned in toward Diane. You knew they were drinking anti-freeze because you were giving it to them, he said. Some of the stuffing seemed to go out of Diane. She slumped down a little in her chair. and said, I didn't know what else to do. It was about two hours into the interview, almost nothing in police interrogation time. It's like dog ears. Two hours in interrogation time is like a half hour in undetained time. She'd given it to them in Coke, she told him, just a couple teaspoons at a time over a few days.

She hated her life, she told McCamus. She hated Mark. She wanted to be free of him. And the kids, I couldn't figure out a way to change, she said. I couldn't get them out of the house. leave the house, I think I snapped. Later, in an interview with ABC news that made me so nauseated, I almost had to turn it off, she'd claim she didn't remember any of that, and she only made that confession under duress. Which, if you watch that interrogation footage, is just an absolute waffle iron full of horse shit. Because this man, Detective McAmis, he bent over backwards to be, like, low-key and respectful and give her every little, like, face-saving out. It must have been like being interrogated by Mr. Rogers.

Sounds hot. Oh my God, shut up. Do not make me get the spray bottle. What is it with you and Mr. Rogers? I have a thing for soft-spoken guys in sweaters and keds. Sue me. Oh, my God. I might just.

I might just. Not all of us can marry our soulmate, bitch. Oh, God. Mr. Rogers. She likes Bob Ross, too, by the way. She likes Bob Ross, too. I love Bob Ross. It's the chest hair.

I kind of understand. about that one, though. Yeah. See? Despite Diane's flatter-than-Kansas affect, she said she regretted doing it. I'm not a perpetual killer, she said, I'm just stupid. Okay, well, you're half right, I guess. Detective McAhmus put her in handcuffs and charged her with murder and attempted murder. And as she cooled her heels in the county jail, the investigation continued.

One of the things they did was look through Diane's Facebook page, which I like to call the Museum of Irony, because everything on there is either some kind of like religious devotional or inspirational quote or commentary on family, in between praise of her golden child, Rachel. But there were a few things on there that made the detective's blood run cold. The recent updates about Sarah's condition in the ICU, for one thing, and there were other things that knowing what they knew now just felt creepy. Like a post from May 2013, a little over a year after Mark's death with a quote from C.S. Lewis, Do not let your happiness depend on something you may lose.

In this post, family isn't always about blood. It's the people in your life who want you and theirs, the ones who accept you for who you are, the ones who would do anything to see you smile and who love you no matter what. Family isn't always about blood. Seemed like maybe Diane had decided to choose her own family and destroy any bonds she didn't want anymore. Hmm. A forensic team soon descended on the Staudy's house, which was a cluttered mess just like Diane said it was. On a workbench in the garage, among a bunch of other automotive maintenance stuff, they found a bottle of antifreeze.

And sitting right next to it, a six-pack of Coca-Cola. Who keeps a six-pack of Coke on a shelf with a bunch of car stuff? There were no other groceries there, just the Coke. Creepy. Little tool shed for a poisoner. That's exactly what it was. And inside the house, as they were slogging their way through the clutter, one of the CSIs spotted something bright purple on a messy bookshelf. It was a diary, a ribbon bookmark carefully marking the page where the writer left off.

Ooh, baby. He yoinked that thing off the shelf faster and you can say evidentiary gold mine. Okay, probably a lot faster than that, actually. That sentence had a lot of syllables. Say that five times fast. And within a couple of minutes of cracking open the purple leather cover, the investigators knew they were onto something explosive, that the case they thought they'd pretty much figured out went much, much deeper than they knew. It was the diary of Rachel Stouty, the favored golden child of the family. In one neatly written entry dated about a year before her father died, Rachel had written,

it's sad when I realized how my father will pass on in the next two months. Sean, my brother, will move on shortly after. It'll be tough getting used to the changes, but everything will work out. Um, yeah. The investigators couldn't believe what they were reading. 22-year-old Rachel Stouty was describing the exact sequence of events that played out a year after this diary entry was dated. First, Mark's death, then Sean.

a few months later, and she was so matter-of-fact about it, so blazé. She knew the murderers were going to happen. She knew in what order. She knew it almost a year in advance, and she hadn't done a thing to stop it. Holy shit. They'd already brought Rachel in to let her know about her mom's arrest. She'd seemed totally shocked. She cried.

But she'd been cooperative, too. She even told them that her mom had a book about poisonous plants, and that she'd talked a lot about cyanide. She was doing a good job playing the devastated daughter, but when the detective pulled out a picture of her diary, her whole demeanor changed. I bet. She squirmed in her chair as she realized what was coming next.

Can you explain this diary entry? The detective asked her. I had a lot of bad dreams, Rachel said. I talked to mom and she said she was thinking of hurting them. Her dad, she said, was basically, a drain on us. He had no concept of money. He'd always be out partying. He was a burden. Her mom was the only person who had ever understood her, she told the detective. Nobody else did. Uh, yeah, I think I understand you fine, you selfish piece of gutter slime.

Yeah. It was all her mother's idea, Rachel said. I just helped. How had she helped? Well, with the planning, like the antifreeze. That was her idea. She figured it would be a quick, easy death. She didn't want her dad to suffer. I don't know if she was ignorant or sadistic, but I know y'all know this. Antifreeze is far from an easy death. Tia. Rachel also copped to helping Diane research other murder methods.

Texts later found the evidence of this on their home computers. Searches for suffocation, pill overdose, and how to kill your husband. And surprisingly, this devout mother-daughter murder team even stepped out on Jesus a little bit to dabble in witchcraft. Detectives found a copy of Dorothy Morrison's The Craft, a witch's book of shadows at the house. Eventually, they decided on antifreeze as the method of choice. Not so much because it was painless, but because it was tasteless, and they could put it in a soda without Mark knowing. By Christmas of 2010, the plan was in place. Now, initially it was just supposed to be Mark,

but not long after Mark's death, Diane started insisting, that Sean needed to go, too. Rachel put up a little bit of a fight on that one, or so she claimed in her interview. She didn't think it was necessary to kill Sean, she said. She wanted to find him some kind of assisted living facility instead, but Diane's mind was made up. So Rachel did nothing to stop her. How brave. And not long after Sean's death, Diane collected the $15,000 life insurance policy she had on him.

She had one on each of the children, adding up to a cool 60 grand for all four of them. and there were plenty of bills to pay. Before long, Diane started talking about killing Sarah, too. Her student loan payments were coming due. She wouldn't get a job. She just lased around the house doing jack shit all day. Rachel argued with her mom. She didn't think it was necessary again.

Make her get a job, sure, kick her out of the house, but we don't need to kill her. But by this point, murder had become almost commonplace. And I wonder if somewhere deep down, Rachel liked the idea of being the favorite child, picked to be an accomplice instead of a victim. I wonder if she liked the idea of it just being her and her mom with thousands of extra dollars to spend on mother-daughter trips and spa days.

So she stood by and let her mom pour antifreeze into her older sister's Coke. She watched her drink it. She watched her suffer. Eventually, when it looked like she was close enough to death, Rachel told her mom they should take Sarah to the hospital. Why did she do that? detective wanted to know. Rachel was matter of fact.

She said, because I didn't want another one to die in the house. Houses are nasty after somebody's died in it. I get a lot of nightmares. Let that one sink in for a minute. I thought this was an interesting turn of phrase because presumably she's talking about like the spiritual nature of death. Like initially I thought she was talking about like the smell and like the atmosphere, but I think she's talking about like herself.

Did it not to, did it not occur to her? that she was feeling guilt was she so far removed from the act and the victims that her first thought was I have terrible nightmares therefore it's my dad's restless spirit and not like

I'm a sentient mold colony and I have no moral backbone I don't even want to try to get inside that one's head no later the investigators would learn that Sarah had seen one of the creepy entries in Rachel's journal

where she wrote about the murders of her dad brother. Sarah had been confused, upset, and she'd confronted Rachel about the journal, but Rachel managed to somehow smooth it over. Probably the same way she originally tried to with the detective, oh, I'm just writing about my bad dreams or whatever. I mean, who the hell wants to believe your mom and sister are plotting to kill you? As he interviewed Rachel, a horrible thought suddenly popped into the detective's head. Had they planned on stopping with Sarah? He asked her. Or did they plan to kill anyone else? Rachel was quiet for a moment, and then she admitted it.

They'd been planning to kill little Brianna, too. Twelve-year-old Brianna, the youngest child, sometime after Sarah. Why? asked the detective. Why kill your little sister? Rachel said, because I know there's no way in hell I'd be able to take care of her. I can't take care of me, so how could I ever take care of her? It was the same old theme, another burden, another murder. I wonder if it ever occurred to Rachel that she could have been next. When they arrested her, police found a creepy little poem in Rachel's purse.

It read, Once upon a time, there were six. Now there are three. Only the quiet ones will be left. My mother, my sister, and me. I don't know why killers always try to, like, write poems and shit. They have to get it out somehow. Yeah, it's a confession, but it's always the fucking worst. Stop. You're not Edgar Allan Poe. Shut the fuck up.

Put that alongside the BTK Uvra. I just had a vision of the P. The P.E.A. poem, not the urine poem. Peas in the pod. Peas in the pod. Fucker. As you can imagine, the arrests blew everybody's mind. Especially the community at Redeemer Lutheran Church, where Diane and Rachel have been regular fixtures, both popular and respected. Before long, it came out that the anonymous tipster who had clued in the police about the stoddy deaths was none other than Pastor Jeff Sippy.

I'll be damned. He just couldn't shake the eerie feelings he was having about Diane and her run of bad luck. So he did the right thing. He called it in. Good for him. So y'all think Pastor Sippy's married because if so, then that means that his wife is Mrs. Sippy. And I just love that so much I want to marry it. Oh my God, I hope so.

I always wondered if Mississippi had a Mr. Sippy, too. Now we know. Mr. in Mississippi. It's so good. So as the community of Springfield grappled with the horrifying details of the case, Sarah's doctors finally started to see some real improvement in their patient. Now that they knew what was wrong, they could treat her a lot more effectively. She was starting to bounce back.

much to the relief of her friends. And contrary to the picture her mom painted of her, Sarah had a lot of friends. She was a well-loved, well-respected girl who had worked hard to get her college degree and make the Danes list. Yeah, it's like it never occurred to her hosebag mother that, you know, she might have been struggling to find work

because she was grieving the loss of her dad and brother in the span of five months. Like, she and Sean were apparently really close. So no wonder she was struggling to find motivation, Diane, you demented cooes? Yeah, and like, looking for work sucks, especially as a new grad. Like, you feel overwhelmed, scared, like your whole world is changing. I imagine Sarah could have used, like, I don't know, some parental support and love and not, you know, an anti-freeze cocktail.

Yeah. Eventually, Sarah recovered enough to go home from the hospital. She regained her ability to walk and talk, but the poison did irreversible damage to her brain, and she's likely to have ongoing health problems because of it. She lives in an assisted living facility now, and she seems to be thriving. When Sarah first found out how horribly her mom and sister had betrayed her, she didn't want to believe it. But eventually, the truth sank in.

And more than anything else, Sarah was angry. She told 2020 she wanted to slap her mom and Rachel, call them B words, as she put it. Hell yeah. They took everything away from her. She no longer considers them family. There was no trial in this case. Diane took an Alford plea, meaning she would admit she was guilty,

but she accepted that she'd probably be found guilty if she went on trial. She was sentenced to life in prison, no possibility of parole. As for Rachel, she took a plea too, agreed to give testimony against her mom in exchange for a chance of parole in 42 years. She'll be 63 when she gets her first chance at freedom.

willing to throw mom under the bus for a chance at parole, are we, Rage? What happened to, Mom was the only one who ever understood me? Wonder how that understanding is now. Yeah. At the sentencing, Sarah stood up to give her victim impact statement. As her mother refused to look at her, Sarah said, I prefer to be a survivor than a victim. She not only took away my dad and brother, she took away my independence.

But, she said, she forgives her mom and sister because it's the right thing to do. Forgiveness, you know, isn't the same thing as saying what you did was okay. It's not the same as saying, you can come back into my life. For a lot of people, it just means saying, you have no power over me anymore. I'm going to move on with my life. Right. During Rachel's sentencing, she read a letter to Sarah. I'm sorry I couldn't find the courage to stand up for what was right, to go for help,

to protect you and our siblings. I was scared, but being scared is no excuse. I'm haunted by the reality of loss and grieve knowing that the guilt isn't just a phase. Your suffering could have been prevented, and I hate myself for not being there for you. I want you to know that you are an inspiration to me. You fuck off, Rachel. You know, some people have said that, they feel bad for Rachel that she was just her mom's puppet or whatever, but I really don't

think so. The deeper that I dive into this story, the more I feel like she is just as big a psychopath as her mother. Diane might have created her by constantly praising her and putting down her siblings, treating Rachel like the pinnacle of human development and her siblings like losers and disappointments. But Rachel stood right next to her and watched her family members die, like horribly one by one. She could have stopped it anytime she wanted and she didn't. And I think it's because she didn't want to. Rachel later submitted a request for appeal, by the way, on the basis that both her attorneys and the detective who interviewed her were men. She said, quote, when my lawyers were appointed, my fear of men was not accommodated,

leading to miscommunication, coercion, and mental duress. She said being in the room with Detective McAmus was like being flayed alive. The motion was denied. And look, I'm not saying people can't have phobias like this because of course they can't. What I'm saying is, I don't buy this particular appeal from this particular person for a hot second because I have seen her interrogation video, okay? Watch it. Watch the damn thing if you don't believe me. That girl is not feeling like she's being flayed alive in that video. It's ridiculous. In fact, I saw echoes of Diane in her interrogation. Absolutely. Like she was just chatting, legs crossed about how she can't take care of herself. I can't take care of myself. How am I supposed to take care of a 12 year old? No one fucking

asked you to, and how houses have gross vibes after somebody dies in them. She's unfucking believable. Yeah, I don't buy it for a hot second. As for little Brianna, who was 12 at the time all this happened, at the last report, she'd been turned over to foster care, and we just hope with all our hearts that she's found her forever home and that she's thriving, and we hope so much that neither she nor her sister Sarah will internalize one tiny molecule of the evil bullshit that her mother tried to spew about them. What Diane and Rachel did said everything about them and absolutely nothing about you too.

So we wish you healing and every bit as much joy as you can grab out of life. One of the wildest things to me about this case is how close they came to get in away with it. If they'd stopped at Mark, they'd have gotten away Scott-free. I mean, they already had. And I think even if they'd stopped at Sean,

they'd have gotten away with it. It was only when Sarah got sick with the same symptoms, only nine months after Sean's death that people started to get suspicious. But Diane, for whatever reason, had decided on her bizarre course of action and she was going to stick to it. There were a million things she could have done to improve her situation. She could have divorced her husband. She could have kicked Sarah out of the house.

She could have gotten some home health care for Sean or found him in assisted living situation, just a million, million options. There's no doubt that Diane was carrying most of the load in terms of finances and housework and stuff. and no doubt, I mean, that can be incredibly draining. It can be infuriating if you feel like your partner isn't doing his fair share, but I'll tell you what it's not. It's not a justification for murder. None of this was.

And this is an interesting little detail. The last song Mark Stouty ever wrote was called Lady Judas. And one of the lines goes, Your kiss of betrayal, baby, it done and did me in. Makes you wonder how much Mark knew about his wife in those last days of his life, or at least how much he suspected. so that was a wild one right campers you know we'll have another one for you next week but for now lock your doors light your lights and stay safe until we get together again around the true crime

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