Kaitlyn Conley spent seven years in prison before her conviction in the death of her ex-boyfriend’s mother was overturned
Credit: ABC News
NEED TO KNOW
- Kaitlyn Conley was accused of murdering her ex-boyfriend’s mother, Mary Yoder, in 2015
- In 2017, she was sentenced to 23 years in prison
- After she served 7 years of her sentence, Conley’s manslaughter conviction was overturned, and she was released from prison in February 2025
11 years after she was accused of murder, Kaitlyn Conley maintains her innocence.
She gained nationwide attention on July 22, 2015, when Mary Yoder, the mother of Conley’s ex Adam Yoder, was found dead at work. At the time, prosecutors alleged that Conley had poisoned Mary as a means of revenge after she and Adam had broken up.
In 2017, Conley was tried for the first time, but it ended in a mistrial with a hung jury. Later that same year, she was convicted of first-degree manslaughter in her second trial. In January 2018, Conley was sentenced to 23 years in prison.
However, after years of maintaining her innocence and filing appeals, a New York state appellate court overturned her conviction in January 2025. The court ruled that Conley’s first trial lawyer was ineffective and failed to prevent her cell phone from being a primary source of evidence, according to Syracuse.com. Conley was officially released from custody in February 2025.
She has stayed out of the spotlight since her release, but she previously participated in a three-part Hulu docuseries, Little Miss Innocent: Passion. Poison. Prison, which premiered in September 2024.
“I did not kill Mary Yoder,” she said in the series. “I know it wasn’t me so if it wasn’t me, who was it?”
So, where is Kaitlyn Conley now? Here’s everything to know about Mary Yoder’s murder case, including Kaitlyn Conley’s tumultuous relationship with Adam Yoder and where she is today.
Who is Kaitlyn Conley?
Kaitlyn Conley, born and raised in Sauquoit, N.Y., was 24 years old when she was found guilty of manslaughter in connection with Mary Yoder’s 2015 death. She was accused of poisoning Mary with colchicine — a medicine used to treat gout.
Conley spent four years working as an office manager for Mary at Chiropractic Family Care, according to ABC News, and she also dated Mary’s son Adam.
Who are Mary and Adam Yoder?
Mary Yoder was 60 years old when she died of colchicine poisoning on July 22, 2015. She was Conley’s employer at Chiropractic Family Care, which she owned and operated with her husband, William. Mary, described as the picture of health by her friends and family, also ran a vitamin business — making it particularly strange when she suddenly became deathly ill.
Investigators believe she may have been poisoned via her daily protein drink, which Conley could have had access to at the office. After ingesting the poison, Mary’s health rapidly declined.
An autopsy later revealed that Mary’s organs looked like those of someone who had gone through chemotherapy and that she had been poisoned with agricultural-grade Colchicine — enough to kill her 15 times over. As a result of the findings, a murder investigation was opened.
Conley also had another connection to Mary: she dated her son, Adam. The two met at a high school graduation party in 2011 and went on to have an on-again, off-again relationship that some described as “toxic.” During the trial, Adam said that Conley had alleged that he had raped and choked her while he was drunk in 2014, per the Observer-Dispatch. In court, Adam said he remembered having sex with Conley but added, “There were no visible injuries.”
“The first year, my relationship with Adam was pretty good,” Conley said in Hulu’s Little Miss Innocent: Passion. Poison. Prison. “Then there was a noticeable shift in him, and I didn’t quite understand it … I was scared of him. It changed the way I see the world.”
Adam and Conley were not together at the time of Mary’s death.
Why was Kaitlyn Conley charged with Mary Yoder’s death?
The assistant district attorney alleged that Conley killed Yoder for one of two reasons: to get back at Adam for their tumultuous relationship or to create a traumatic event in Adam’s life that would ultimately bring them back together.
Throughout the trial, Conley asserted that she and Mary were friends and that she would never harm her.
“I miss Mary, and I really hate that this situation has kind of colored my relationship with her,” she said in the docuseries. “I feel like I can’t really miss her because I’m fighting for my own life.”
How did Kaitlyn Conley become the prime suspect?
Credit: ABC News/YouTube
In the beginning of the investigation, police believed Mary’s husband William to be the prime suspect as he began dating Mary’s older sister, Kathleen, shortly after her death. They also suspected that he was looking to get a life insurance payout, but when that didn’t happen, investigators shifted to a new suspect: Adam.
In November 2015, the medical examiner’s office received an anonymous letter that pointed to Adam. The letter alleged that he had confessed to murdering his mom and noted that police could find the colchicine in his car. It all seemed too easy, and investigators began to consider who might have reason to frame Adam.
A month later, while being interviewed by police, Conley confessed to writing the letter. She was now the prime suspect. After some digging, investigators found that two purchases of colchicine had been made on Conley’s work computer and they found her DNA on one of the bottles’ wrappers. She was ultimately charged with murder.
The first trial resulted in a hung jury. During the second, Adam revealed that he had access to the contents of Conley’s phone after she backed up her device on his computer in August 2015. According to Spectrum News 1, the backup included screenshots of articles Conley had been reading titled “Why is Thallium the Poison of Choice for Poisoners and Terrorists” and “Some of the World’s Most Toxic Substances.”
On Nov. 6, 2017, Conley was found guilty of first-degree manslaughter and acquitted of second-degree murder.
Where is Kaitlyn Conley now?
In January 2018, Conley was sentenced to 23 years in prison. She was incarcerated at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in New York and would have been eligible for parole in 2037.
However, after seven years behind bars, attorney Melissa Swartz filed an appeal to overturn Conley’s conviction. She argued that Conley’s first attorney failed to challenge a warrant that allowed investigators to access Conley’s phone in the first trial. She told Dateline in March 2025 that the warrant was “probably the most facially insufficient warrant I’ve ever come across.”
“They believed that that was a warrant to take her phone and look in it,” Swartz said. “But what it needs to be is two separate warrants; one to take her phone and then one to actually search her phone.”
In January 2025, a New York state appellate court overturned her conviction and said Conley’s first attorney’s failure was “sufficiently egregious and prejudicial as to compromise her right to a fair trial.” By early February, Conley was released.
Conley has not addressed her conviction since her release from prison, but Swartz told Dateline, “We are making sure that the criminal justice system is working correctly. That’s important for people that commit crimes, and that’s important for people who have been wrongfully convicted of committing crimes.”
Yoder’s family has also not publicly addressed Conley’s appeal. However, Adam’s sister Tamryn said in Little Miss Innocent, “I hope she never makes it out of prison. I’d be okay if she made it to 22 years and then got killed in there. I’d be happy.”
Meanwhile, Conley also spoke out for the first time since her conviction in Hulu’s September 2024 series Little Miss Innocent: Passion. Poison. Prison.
Although Conley is free today, the legal battle involving her case is still ongoing. The Oneida County District Attorney’s Office has filed three separate appeals in an effort to reopen the case, but in June 2026, the Appellate Division denied the first appeal, according to the Rome Sentinel. The two other appeals are still open.
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