Kaitlyn Conley Was Accused of Poisoning Her Ex-Boyfriend's Mother — Did She Do It?

On Nov. 23, 2015, the Onondaga County medical examiner's office received an anonymous letter about a woman who was killed four months prior. According to the Observer-Dispatch, the author was blaming Mary Yoder's death on her son. "If the toxin found in her was colchicine, it was Adam Yoder," read the letter. It went on to say that the colchicine was added to another substance that Mary ingested and suggested authorities check under the passenger side of Yoder’s Jeep Wrangler.

Stoppacher and Oneida County Sheriff's Investigator Michael Simmons later testified that there were no fingerprints on the letter or envelope. When police contacted Adam about searching his Jeep, he complied. While conducting a search, they found an order slip and bottle of colchicine inside a cardboard tube right where the letter said it would be. Despite this, a young woman named Kaitlyn Conley would be charged in connection with Mary's death. Where is Conley now? Here's what we know.

In November 2017, CNYCentral reported that Conley was found guilty of first-degree manslaughter and not guilty of the initial second-degree manslaughter charge. Conley's first trial ended in May 2017 with a hung jury. Two months later, she was sentenced to 23 years in prison, per the Observer-Dispatch.

Seven years after Conley was staring down a sentence that was nearly a quarter of a century in length, her conviction was overturned, reported Syracuse.com. The 31-year-old was released after the appellate court ruled that her first trial lawyer, Christopher Pelli, provided ineffective counsel. During her second trial, evidence from Conley's cell phone was presented, but it was retrieved using an unlawful search. Conley's attorney failed to challenge the admission of this evidence.

In their decision, the appeals court said, "A person’s cell phone now contains at least as much personal and private information as their home, thus indiscriminate searches of cell phones cannot be permitted." They went on to say that had this evidence been suppressed, it could have changed the outcome of Conley's case.

Conley and Adam dated after they met at a high school graduation party. "Obviously, I liked him, thought he was quirky and was fun, and it wasn’t bad at the beginning," she said in the ABC News documentary Little Miss Innocent. Anyone who met the couple described them as two people in love. Adam even helped Conley get a job working at his family's chiropractic office.

Things were great between Conley and Adam for the first year, then something changed. Conley claimed that Adam started drinking more, and would frequently black out. A once loving relationship turned toxic and the couple broke up several times. Despite their problems, Conley continued working as a receptionist at the chiropractic office.

On July 20, 2015, Mary said she didn't feel well, and complained about her stomach hurting, per Oxygen. She went to the hospital the next day, hoping for a quick stay. She died after going into cardiac arrest. An autopsy later revealed that Mary had a lethal amount of colchicine, an anti-gout drug, in her system. Police looked at Mary's husband, who began dating her sister fairly quickly after Mary passed, but their attention shifted after receiving the anonymous letter.

Eventually, Conley admitted to sending the letter. "We had always said, you know, the person that wrote this letter is definitely gotta be considered a suspect in our case," said investigator Mark Van Namee in the documentary. There was more evidence to support the idea that Conley killed Mary, but if the police conducted an unlawful search of Conley's phone, it might not be permissible in court if a grand jury decides to indict her again.