Episode 251

Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence, and is not intended for all
audiences. Listener discretion is advised. I didn't want another one to die in
the house. And why is that? Because houses are nasty after somebody's died
in it. Welcome. This is season ten, episode two hundred and fifty
one of Sword and Scale, a show that reveals that the worst monsters are
real. Well, most of you know that we have an app and that
we've been working on updating it now for quite a while, almost two years
unfortunately, but it will be ready in twenty twenty four, early twenty twenty
four January, in fact, so we're working towards that. We have a
bunch of other surprises coming in January. You will not be disappointed, guys,
see you soon. Family is not an important thing, it's everything.
Michael J. Fox said that, and many of you listening right now would
probably agree that your family is indeed everything. For those of you that have
actually created a family of your own, you probably also agree that your everything
didn't come easy. When it comes to marriage, kids, and everything that
goes along with that, well, it can be a lot to handle.
It requires serious dedication and a lot of sacrifices to make it all work.
If you have created, maintained, and continue to maintain a happy, functioning
family, you deserve a lot of credit. It's hard work, as you
know, not everyone has what it takes to do that. Oftentimes just fail.
Oftentimes families fail. One common problem, it seems, is that many
people start off thinking they want the typical spouse and children lifestyle, but after
they get it, and maybe after they experience it for a few years,
they start to realize it's just not for them. Unfortunately, after someone creates
a family, they are kind of locked into it, kind of permanently.
Sure, anyone could get a divorce and abandon their kids, but societal,
legal, financial, and even religious pressures can make it seem impossible. When
this happens, it can spell disaster. Sometimes the pressure of an unwonted and
seemingly inescapable life can lead someone to do something truly horrific. We've seen this
before with the likes of Chris wat and Casey Anthony, but there are lesser
known cases where someone has made the terrible and selfish choice to end their family
in order to obtain personal freedom. Ultimately, they decided that the life they
truly want supersedes the lives of their spouse and their kin. June ninth,
twenty thirteen, was a Sunday. That morning, a middle aged mom in
Missouri woke up and did what she would normally do on a Sunday. She
took her kids to church, but she wasn't able to bring along all of
her children because her oldest daughter wasn't feeling well. And then you woke up
Sunday morning morning, she was asleep, Okay, then what happened? Me
and the other girls went to church, and we left her sleeping, and
then I came home and she was still sleeping. And then maybe a couple
hours later, I went to check on her, and we just couldn't get
her to respond or answer or anything. Forty nine year old Diane Stoudi returned
home from church and discovered something that most people would consider to be a worst
nightmare situation for any mother. Her twenty six year old daughter, Sarah was
sick in bed and completely unresponsive. Thankfully, though Sarah was still breathing,
so Diane and one of her other daughters picked Sarah up, put her in
the family car, and rushed her to the hospital. Strangely, when doctors
examined Sarah, they couldn't figure out what had caused her to become so ill.
This ultimately led to the local police getting involved. The lead investigator assigned
the case was Detective Mcamis. Diane Stoudy as a wife and mother of four
children. She was the breadwinner of the family. She worked handling insurance ADJUSMA
claims for a medical field. She was heavily involved in church. She was
active in in choir and orchestra and spent a lot of time at church during
her downtime. And from what I understand you, you're in the medical field.
You're a nurse, okay, but I'm a cardiology nurse. I know
hers. Yeah. Have you always been like in the claims business like you
are now? Or were you ever like in hospital? Okay? How long?
How long ago was that? Gosh? Fifteen years ago? Okay?
Which hospital did you work in? Gosh? Saint John's Cox. I worked
up in Kansas City. And what company do you work for now? Okay?
And you've worked for them for twelve years? Very successful? Okay.
Diane and her children lived in Springfield, Missouri, a serene college city that
is mostly known for being the headquarters for the sporting goods retailer Basspro. Others
may know of Springfield because of its proximity to Branson, Missouri, which is
a popular tourist destination for a variety of reasons. The Price Is Right was
filmed there, so was The Beverly Hillbillies if you remember that. And who
can forget Yakov Smirnoff and his weird little theme park performance theater thing. He
was a personality during the eighties and achieved a Moniker of success, But I
digress. As a successful nurse and health insurance claims person, Diane Stoudy was
able to support her children, all of whom remained living with Diane well into
adulthood. As a whole, this Doudi family wasn't known for being particularly social,
but they were considered to be especially devout churchgoers. What church do you
go to? Lutheran? Is it here in town? Okay? Are you
pretty active in church? Are you? I'm their organist? Oh? Okay?
Wow? How long have you been doing that? Oh? Gosh,
thirty plus years? What? As the longtime church organist, Diane was well
respected inside the halls of her preferred place of worship. Redeemer Lutheran, and
when Diane was there, she often had her children with her. But on
June ninth, twenty thirteen, Diane's oldest daughter, Sarah, didn't make it
to church. She was apparently very sick, and her illness ultimately landed Sarah
in a hospital bed. Sarah Saudi had just graduated with a degree in France
from Missouri State University, and she had not not gotten the job yet,
so she was just for the most part, she was staying at home and
not doing a whole lot after college. Does she work anywhere? No?
No, She's been supposedly trying to find a job, but I don't think
she's been trying that hard. What are Sarah's friends like She She really doesn't
go out much, doesn't have many friends. Like the rest of the family,
Sarah usually kept to herself, and aside from deflecting her mom's encouragement to
find a job, she spent most of her time online. Like many twenty
four year olds, Sarah loved her social media and watching YouTube videos. But
on one particular Sunday afternoon, Sarah's lifestyle had seemingly come to an abrupt and
unexpected end when her mom found Sarah in bed completely unresponsive. She is she
still unresponsive at that point? Pretty much? Yeah, I mean we literally
had to Rachel and I had to carry her. We carried her to the
car. Okay, And what did they say at the hospital? Basically she
was as sick as sick could get, but no idea what it was.
We had no clue. When Sarah was admitted to the hospital, the doctors
and nurses determined that Sarah's kidneys were shutting down, many of her internal organs
were failing, and her brain was hemorrhaging blood. Diane was informed that this
wasn't a case of if Sarah was going to die, it was a matter
of when, but nobody could tell Diane or the police exactly what had caused
this to happen. When Sarah was in the hospital, I went and I
spoke with the medical staff that was treating her, Nurses, doctors, and
everybody was just they were befuddled. They did not know what was going on.
They had performed numerous tests on Sarah and everything was coming back negative.
As the police continued investigating Sarah's bizarre and unexplainable illness, they soon learned that
this wasn't the first time. The Stouty family had suffered an unexpected tragedy.
Are you married? I'm widowed when my husband died last year of a heart
Oh? Really? How old was he? Sixty one? Also he was
young. He had a lot of medical issues. Yeah, what kind of
stuff did he have? Oh? He had liver problems, he was diabetic.
He wouldn't quit smoking. Mark and Diane Stoudy met at Saint John's College
in Kansas and quickly became longtime sweethearts. They eventually got mayor, moved into
a modest sized home in Springfield, and had four children, but sadly,
at just sixty one years old, Matt Stoudey unexpectedly dropped dead. Mark study
primarily was a stay at home father. Diane, his wife, was the
breadwinner of the family and Mark. Mark took care of the kids. Mark
was in a band. He wasn't making a lot of money doing that,
but that's what that's what he did for a little bit of money on the
side and to keep himself busy. That he was the lead singer in a
band. Like his wife, Mark was a musician, though his genre of
music was much different than Diane's church hymns Mark was the lead singer of a
rock band, Messing with Destiny, and according to his bandmates, Mark was
an especially jovial guy who loved life and loved his family. Throughout its existence,
Mark's band didn't find any mainstream success, but in the months leading up
to his death, Messing with Destiny had been booking larger and more lucrative gigs,
so much so that it seemed like the band was about to have a
breakout year. In fact, on the weekend before Mark died, he and
his bandmates were rehearsing in Branson, Missouri and preparing to perform at an especially
large venue alongside the Aretha Franklin impersonators I Get Married to the Corporation Bombon in
the Nation. Sadly, Mark was never able to perform in that show.
On April eighth, twenty twelve, Mark died at home and his body was
discovered by his wife, Diane, who properly called nine one one. Diane
was eventually informed that Mark had died of natural causes. Did they do any
kind of autopsy on Mark? No, they didn't. Yeah, I can,
I can remember them, you know. They they tried CPR on him,
and they told me that his lungs were just black from the smoke.
You know, he was pretty overweight, and they didn't even they just said,
it is a heart attack for sure, and it's like, okay,
where's he buried? Cremated? Okay. After Mark was cremated, his ashes
were scattered at a nearby lake, So obviously any further examination to more narrowly
determine his cause of death was improbable, But the police investigation into Sarah Stoudy's
illness did continue, and during that investigation, the detectives also spoke to one
of Mark and Diane's other daughters, twenty two year old Rachel Stoudy. Rachel
Stoudy was kind of the prized child of the study family. She was very
successful, very intelligent. She was going to the school at Missouri State University.
She too was very very active and involved in church with singing in choir,
and she was also a very artistic young person. And speaking with Rachel,
detectives were able to gain a little more insight into the Stouty family dynamics
and more specifically, the kind of relationship that Mark and Diane had. What
was mom and dad relationship like they would filettle, did they fight a little
bit more than like any other married couple or really so most of the arguments
over money like everybody else. Now, I know that your father passed.
When was it when he passed away? Sometime like last April, last April
last year. Very sudden, just very sudden, deaf as far as the
dad goes, A pretty good dad to you and everybody, or what's your
opinion? He was nice with you guys, what you wanted to do.
It's always kind of been out of a job and pretty much, I mean
you would get frustrated with whatever job he was in, like screw this before
they even came. Okay, just not his thing. No, he was
trying to do the band betting, I guess, and yeah, make it
big, like any other person that has a van. Okay. At this
point, police had established that Mark Stoudy had unexpectedly died in April of twenty
twelve, and just over a year later, Sarah Stoudy had unexpectedly become very
ill and was not expected to survive. The police also learned that something equally
as tragic had happened between the time of Mark's death and Sarah's illness. Do
you have a son as well? No? Not anymore. He died.
He died, and he had a seizure disorder. When did he die?
That was last fall. How old was he? He was twenty six.
He'd had several strokes, so was his kind of an unexpected or it wasn't
a complete surprise, that's right. In addition to Mark's untimely death in Sarah's
unexplainable illness, another member of the Stouty family had also died. He was
Mark and Diane's twenty six year old autistic son, Sean. Sean Stoudy was
the only boy in the Stoudy family. He had autism and a couple other
medical issues that he dealt with, but he was the only son of the
Staudis and he kept to himself a lot. With the medical issues. He
was involved in a work activity for special needs children, which he did well
at, but primarily just a state at home as well. When asked about
her brother's death, Rachel Stoudy recalled that Sean was very ill before he died.
She described his symptoms as flu like and claimed that her mom took the
entire situation pretty hard. I remember he was throwing up and then all of
a sudden, How did obviously mom had to take that, I mean pretty
hard too. First dad and then short time lanter you know is your brother.
Did she seemed how did she seem to handle that? I can't imagine,
but she wishes there more she could have done. I mean she's told
me like when we talk at Ny is like she's just like a failure as
a mom because it's like it's one thing to lose your dad and her husband
and Riah your dad you have. Well, that's a lot of a lot
of sudden death and a short amount of time. Sean Stoudy died in September
of twenty twelve after experiencing severe flu like symptoms. Rightfully so, the detectives
found it highly suspicious that less than a year later, twenty four year old
Sarah Stoudy was experiencing those same symptoms and was likely to die as well.
So as far as Sarah goes, when did she come down sick? Man?
How long did did she have? Was she thrown up? Or six?
She was thrown up? Because like the toilets like right across from my
bridge and I here and it's like are you okay in there? And how
many days she thrown up? Not very many. Eitherres a couple of days.
Would you describe it as flu like your brother, or because it was
really odd, I mean lack of appetite as well, because I was trying
to get her to eat but she didn't want to. The similarities between Sean's
death and Sarah's illness were glaring, but there was one important difference. Sarah
made it to the hospital before the worst happened. Unfortunately, even though Sarah
was receiving much needed medical attention, the doctors had their doubts and they didn't
think Sarah was going to pull through. And from what we understood from the
hospital so far, we really haven't been able to determine how your sisters will
say from the hospital standpoint. Okay, the doctors hadn't been able to confirm
anything as of yet. They're still working on it, but they basically told
us that what they were leaning towards and what they were thinking was the case
that your sister had been poisoned. We were told that she's probably gone to
die. Within fifteen months, two members of the Stouty family had unexpectedly died
and a third member of the family was deathly ill. For the police,
this didn't seem like a situation where a family was dealing with some of the
worst coincidences imaginable. It was pretty obvious that something malicious was happening here,
and as the investigation continued, the unbelievable and horrible truth finally came out.
Someone was slowly, methodically and systematically killing off everyone in the Stouty family.
In April of twenty twelve, sixty one year old father of four and lead
singer of the rock band Messing with Destiny, Mark Stoudy was planning to perform
a show with his band in Branson, Missouri, but Mark never made it
to that show. Just a few days before he was set to take the
stage, Mark's wife, Diane Stoudy, found Mark dead in their bedroom.
When Mark Stoudy died, the initial cause of death was believed to be just
natural causes. Mark had had some health issues. Was also said that Mark
would drink on occasion and smoked, and so it was just a situation where
they thought his lifestyle choices and things like that led to him dying of natural
causes. Leading up to his death, Mark's bandmates noticed that Mark's health had
been deteriorating. His skin was pale, he was weak on his feet,
and he didn't seem to have the same pep that Mark was known to carry
himself with. Another person that took note of Mark's declining health was his twenty
six year old son, Sean Study. On his Facebook page, Sean wrote
the following, My father is slowly getting sicker. His voice is slurred,
his walking is wobbly. His body is more tired than normal. He is
sleeping in bed longer than us. He may collapse under his weight at any
time. Just one day later after writing this post, Shawn announced on Facebook
that his dad was dead. My father died. He lived a full life.
The cause of his death is a stroke. His funeral is this week.
Tragically, what Sean didn't know is that his father hadn't died of a
stroke. Mark Stoudy was murdered, and even more horrifying, the person that
killed him was plotting to kill Sean as well, which they eventually did.
Five months after Mark died, Sean Stoudy suddenly became very ill. According to
his sister Rachel, Sean was vomiting and had flu like symptoms. A few
days later, Sean was found dead on the floor of his home. Like
his father, Sean, was also cremated, but in his case, an
autopsy had been performed. The initial cause of death for Sean study was also
ruled to be natural. He had epilepsy as a child, and they found
lesions on his brain during the performance of the autopsy, and without anything else
to go on, it was believed that he died of a seizure. Both
Mark and Sean had presumably died of natural causes, so the police were never
called in to take a closer look at the situation. But that all changed
about a year later. In June of twenty thirteen, yet another member of
the Stouty family became very sick and ended up in the hospital. This time
it was twenty four year old recent college graduate Sarah Stoudy. Sarah was seemingly
dealing with the same flu like symptoms that had affected both her father and her
brother just before they died. After Sarah was examined by a doctor, it
was determined that her kidneys were shutting down, her other organs were failing,
her brain was hemorrhaging blood. Yet none of the hospital's tests could determine what
caused Sarah's illness in the first place. Interestingly, it wasn't Sarah's illness and
her admittance to the hospital that alerted police and prompted an investigation in the Stoudy
family. Instead, it was an anonymous phone call that sprang homicide detectives into
action. Upon viewing the initial report, it seemed pretty bizarre. The report
talked about someone calling in saying that we needed to look at the Stoudy family
because of a couple of deaths, and now a young woman, Sarah was
hospitalized and appeared that she was not going to survive. After this anonymous call
came in and a police report was made, the investigators decided to speak with
Sarah's doctor. The doctor explained that even though the exact cause of Sarah's illness
could not be determined, there was a good chance that Sarah had been poisoned.
So at that time I really didn't have anything at all to go on
other than just the discussions with the doctor. But having knowing that there's other
two other children still in the Saudi home, I felt like I needed to
do something to try to figure out what was going on, if this was
in fact a malicious act going on by somebody in the in the Saudi home
that I needed to act as quickly as I possibly could, and that is
what led me to wanting to interview Diane. From talking with the hospital,
it sounds like they're doing a bunch of tests and they're even sending some tests
off to labs elsewhere. They mentioned the Mayo Clinic, and wow, do
you think there's any be anything suspicious that they find in all these tests that
they're going to be doing. I have no clue there could be anything maybe
malicious or suspicious and involved with them. I can't think of that. If
it would come back that there was something in there like that, how would
you explain that? I don't know. Forty nine year old Diane Stoudy was
the widow of Mark Stoudy and the mother of Sean and Sarah Stoudy. Given
her background in nursing and the fact that she didn't seem overly concerned or emotional
that her daughter Sarah was about to die, the detective suspected that Diane may
know more than she was telling. As crazy as it seemed, she may
have even murdered her own husband and her own son. What was Mark's life
insurance policy? Like he only had twenty thousand? How about Sean. Sean
only had fifteen. What about Sarah? Sarah only has fifteen and you were
able to get the money from Mark and Shawn's prebt Okay, what did you
do with that money? With Mark's we were able to move into a better
neighborhood right just before Mark died. The Stouty family consisted of six people.
Mark and Diane were the parents of three kids in their early to mid twenties.
That was Sean, Sarah, and Rachel. The youngest member of the
family was eleven year old Brianna. All six of them lived in a small,
two bedroom, one bathroom house in Springfield, Missouri, but after Mark
died, Diane was able to use his twenty thousand dollars life insurance policy to
upgrade. She and the rest of the family moved into a larger home in
a nicer neighborhood. What was your marriage life? How can I say this?
We were still married, but it was not what you call a good
marriage. Has there been any infidelities on either side? So I'm guessing him
just briefly thoughing he wasn't the best husband. Probably not, not just society.
No, what do you mean by that? Not to society? Well,
he was running around and he would drink and smoke pot, and so
he wasn't a very good guy. Yeah, was there any physical abuse towards
you, Nothing like that. He just had some extra maritable affairs. And
you said he did some drugs and smoked and drank a lot, and okay
for police piece. If Diane had murdered Mark, his life insurance policy was
a possible motive, but so was the fact that Diane seemed pretty resentful of
her husband. Even so, this was all speculation, and at this point
in the investigation, there wasn't any evidence that Diane had killed Mark and Sean,
or that she'd poisoned Sarah. Going into the interview with Diane, I
had nothing other than just a more and more growing suspicion that she was somehow
involved. It was difficult because when I brought Diane in without having any evidence
to put out there against her, it was just I wanted to get at
her level. I wanted to speak with her and come across as being there
as almost a friend and understanding her to try to gain as much information as
I possibly could, and going into the interview, I also understood that maybe
this isn't delicious there isn't at this time, there's nothing to show that it
is, and so I wanted to be very careful. If this is just
a mother that's gone through some terrible trauma, I did not want to add
to that. So it was it was quite the fine line of trying to
figure out the balance of how far do I push this. Ultimately, the
detective pushed his interview with Diane to its limit, and without outright saying it,
he suggested that Diane was responsible for Sarah's illness, among a lot of
other things. With some of the stuff involved in these cases from what we've
been looking at, I think you're aware of why we're just why we're here.
Maybe I don't know. I think you know why we're here talking because
I know that there's a reason, maybe why some of this stuff did happen.
As far as did I do something too or I didn't do anything to
I mean, I guess I could have taken her to the er sooner,
but I didn't know if she I don't know. I know I didn't do
anything, and if you did, I'm just telling you I didn't do anything.
And that's what I feel like you're insinuating. I do it. I
may not be the best mother in the world because I do wait a little
longer before I take him to the doctor. But naturally, Diane denied the
accusations, and after she did, the detective focused on the reasons that Diane
may have wanted to kill off her husband and children. In other words,
he focused on her motive. I think Mark, he's having these infidelities.
He's not working. You've got the whole the family. You gotta take care
of everybody. You have all this stress and pressure on you to raise your
kids, to put food on the table. You're the working one's out.
He's drinking, he's using drugs, he's doing things he shouldn't be doing.
I think person just gets pushed to where, you know what, people just
can't take it anymore. I think it's just you got pushed so far yet
all this weight on your shoulders because you're not a bad person, are you?
No? I don't think you are. The detective played this interrogation smart.
He took a sympathetic and relatable approach, and his strategy ultimately worked.
With regard to Sarah and her illness, Diane admitted that she knew a lot
more than she'd been telling. Diane explained that she he had been hounding Sarah
for weeks about getting a job, and after one particular argument between them,
Sarah did something that was very strange. We had been arguing. She got
really mad at me, and I think she went out in the garage.
Understand because she was commenting cycle that kills cats. It's like, yeah,
this still kills people. And I was so mad. Yeah, I waited
before I took her to the hospital. Diane claimed that, in some bizarre
act of rebellion, Sarah went into the family garage and started drinking anti freeze,
Yes, anti freeze. Not only that, but Diane also claimed that
Mark and Sean had done the same thing. What a weird family. And
really, I knew they were drinking any freeze and I was so mad.
I didn't want to take a name. I'm a horrible mother, Diane.
You knew that they were drinking anna freeze. You knew that they didn't We
both know that. You knew, Diane, that they were drinking anna freeze
because you were giving it to them. The detective quickly shut down Diane's explanation
for what happened to Mark, Sean and Sarah, and at this point,
he had pretty much figured out what had happened. I'm sure a lot of
you probably have. Two Diane had poisoned her husband and two of her children
with anti freeze, to the point where two of them had died and another
was about to die. Eventually, after being unable to maintain her ridiculous explanation,
Diane came clean. She admitted to what she had done and explained how
she did it. How much would you put in? Just a little?
And what were you putting it in? So you were put it in in
Mark skatorade, You're put it in in Shawn's coke, just regular coke?
And what about Sarah regular coke? Coke? And you were only doing it
once a day because you thought that's all you needed, okay, when they
weren't passing right away? Did you eventually start to give them more and more?
And I regret doing it? I really do like it of everybody I've
feared up healthily. Why did you decide that you were going to use antifreeze
to do it? Why? On some other means? Because I read online
it was pretty easy to do. From what I understand, it almost tastes
good. Is that correct? That's what they say. The deadly ingredient in
anti freeze is a chemical compound known as ethylene glycol. Some of you true
crime nerds may already know that it is colorless, odorless, and has kind
of a sweet taste. Don't try it. Don't try it. I know
you want to. I know some of you are a little dumber than others.
But don't do it. Please. You're gonna get me in trouble.
It's also not typically detected when an autopsy is performed. In order to find
ethylene glycoll, a medically examiner has to specifically look for it, which is
another reason it's commonly used as a poison Ingesting this compound can quickly cause several
fatal health problems, including dysrhythmius and heart failure. In case this is an
obvious, ethylene glycol poisoning is a pretty awful way to die. You wouldn't
want to try it at all anyway. There's much easier ways. When your
internal organs start shutting down, it's not a fun time. It's not going
to be good. It's actually quite quite painful. According to Diane, for
several weeks, she'd been slipping small doses of antifreeze into her husband's gatorade.
After he died from the poisoning, she did the same thing to her son,
Sean. The only difference was that Sean preferred Coca Cola over gatorade.
After Sean was dead, Diane then began poisoning her oldest daughter, Sarah by
slipping anti freeze into her soda as well. What kind of a mother would
harm her own kids for her own benefit? Oh, I don't know lots
of them. Just gonna let that sit there for a minute. As far
as motive was concerned, Diane had a different reason for each of her three
victims. In the case of her husband, Diane explained, she simply hated
his guts. Why didn't you call an ambulance or bring him to the hospital
at that point? Hated his guts. I understands how much was his life
insurance policy? It was only thousand, and you were able to use that
money to get into your new house. Okay, so need the money.
As for her son, Diane explained that Sean had become too much of a
pest and she simply couldn't deal with him anymore. Sean would be interfering with
whatever I would do to the point where he was getting into my work.
You get to the point where you just pull out your hair because I didn't
know what else to do with them. Finally, Diane explained that she decided
to also murder her oldest daughter because Sarah refused to get a job and Diane
didn't want to pay off Sarah's college loans. I mean, not wanting to
pay her college loans makes you do all kinds of stupid things, doesn't it.
Sarah's a difficult child to deal with. I understand, and I've been
kind of putting pressure on her too. You know, you need to get
out and get a job. Your college bills are coming to I don't want
to pay for them. You know, pretty relatable, right if your kid
has college loans and you don't want to pay them, just slip a little
anti freeze another soda problem solved. Diane's motives for the killings were just as
strange and bizarres as just the epitome of this entire case. When talking about
Mark, she said that it's got to the point that she hated him,
and where it really got strange and bizarre was with the children. She said
Sean was a huge burden. And I even asked if it was a if
he was a pest, and she said, well he was. He was
worse than that. He was worse than a pest. And then when discussing
Sarah, she had college loans that she needed to pay, but she wouldn't
get a job, and so's that's what led to her poisoning Sarah. It
was it was really stunning to hear her discuss what led her to killing off
and poisoning the family members. Diane admitted to what she had done and explained
why she did it, but even so, there were still a few questions,
first being if Diane wanted to kill Sarah, why did she eventually bring
her to a hospital? And second, why did Diane spare her other two
daughters? What was the reason for bringing her when she was because you even
said, you know, she was so bad, you know you thought she
was going to die and you had to carry her? And did Rachel Was
she the one that said, hey, let's save her to the hospital.
Actually both of us thought the same thing at the same times, like this,
take her in? Had you been given any to her? What about
Brianna? Why not those two I love and I wish I had done it.
Ever, Diane claimed that it was Rachel who prompted Diane to take Sarah
to the hospital. Speaking of Rachel. After Diane confessed, the detectives were
given the awful task of breaking all of this bad news to her. I
brought your mom in today and interviewed her at length quite a long time,
and basically what has happened is your mom has admitted to killing your dad and
your brother and trying to kill your sister. She had been giving your father
small doses of Annie Freese and his drinks. Same thing with your brother,
and same thing with your sister. Sarah's take some time and good. It's
a logical process. I don't even know how how you actually process that,
To be honest with you, Rachel, did you think there was anything going
on there with mom at all? I mean, did that even did that
thought even ever even crossed her mind? She never gave me any kind of
indication that she was just at her words end with the three of them hitting
one time that you could remember, just frustrated, right, yeah. Rachel
Stoudy was a twenty two year old unemployed college student. In a matter of
months, she had lost her father, her brother, and her oldest sister,
and now her mom was being locked up for murder. Can you fucking
imagine what that's like. As a result, the responsibility of caring for eleven
year old Breonna Stoudy fell on Rachel's twenty two year old shoulders. Somebody from
the child Abaco the Center will talk to her briefly, and then after they
talked to her a little bit, if it's okay with you, we'll just
really start to you. She needs to be with you. She doesn't need
to be anywhere else. She needs to be with you. After Rachel was
made aware of this horrific situation, the detective left the interview room and Rachel
broke down understandably, you're god Sadly, the bad news that Rachel had just
gotten was only going to get worse because there was yet another horrible twist in
this story. Not only had Rachel's mom poisoned Rachel's dad, brother, and
sister, but it turned out that Diane hadn't done this all on her own.
As the investigation continued, the police learned that Diane Stoudie had an accomplice.
In June of thirteen, forty nine year old Diane Stoudy was interviewed by
a Springfield, Missouri, homicide detective. During that interview, Diane confessed to
murdering her sixty one year old husband Mark and her twenty six year old son
Sean. Diane also admitted that she had tried to murder her oldest daughter,
twenty four year old Sarah Stoudy, as well. Diane explained that for several
weeks she'd been slipping small doses of anti freeze into her husband's drinks. After
he died from the poisoning, she did the same thing to her son.
After her son died, she began doing the same thing to her daughter.
After Sarah became deathly ill and was taken to the hospital, an anonymous phone
call was placed to police about what was going on in the Stoudy family.
This prompted detectives to open an investigation. At the start part of that investigation,
homicide detectives didn't have much to go on. There wasn't any actual evidence
of foul play, But when Diane was interrogated, it didn't take long for
her to crack. She admitted to what she had done and explained how she
did it. Even so, the investigation wasn't quite over. The lead investigator
suspected that Diane hadn't told police the whole truth and that she may not have
acted alone. He believed that Diane had an accomplice. After Diane had had
made her confession to poisoning her family, it just there was this time where
she would she would talk about her daughter, Rachel, and it just seemed
you could just see her. It was almost as if she lit up when
discussing Rachel. So when she was discussing her other family members, you could
see just the hatred or disdain, animosity that she had towards them, but
she talked so it was a complete one eighty when she talked about Rachel,
and so much so that during my time speaking with her, I began to
become suspicious as gosh was Rachel involved with her. In addition to Sarah,
Diane had two other daughters, twenty two year old Rachel and eleven year old
Brianna, both of whom had not been poisoned, not yet anyway. After
Diane confessed and was arrested, Rachel was made aware of the situation and sent
home, but the following day, Rachel was invited back to the police station
for yet another interview. One Detective Shipley told you yesterday about what your mom
did. What do you think about that? Confusion? Shock? That's nobody
expects to have something that they don't do that. Were you ever suspicious of
your mom? No, so you didn't think that she would be capable of
doing something like this. You know, if anything, she had been helping
me with setting up like things for school. It sounds like you and heard
from talking to her that you and her were pretty good buddies. Is that
right? You guys are real close, almost best friend kind of. Again.
When Rachel's mom was interviewed, the cops didn't have much to go on.
They didn't have any evidence to confront her with, which in the end
didn't matter because Diane confessed in Rachel's case. However, things were a little
different. After my interrogation with Diane was over, one of our crime scene
detectives got a hold of me and said that he had a piece of evidence
down in our evidence room that he thought I should look at. So I
went down there and he had a journal, and the journal appeared to be
that of Rachel's and a couple of the entries were extremely odd and bizarre and
after reading them, it just kind of cemented my suspicion of Rachel. The
cops had found Rachel's personal journal, and in that journal, Rachel wrote the
following, It's sad when I realize how my father will pass on in the
next two months Sean my brother will move on shortly after. It will be
tough getting used to the changes, but everything will work out. This journal
entry pretty much confirmed the detective's suspicions. At the very least, it verified
that Rachel knew what her mom was doing, and Rachel may have even helped
Diane commit the murders. Do you recognize of this? Yeah? I remember
this? Okay? What is that little journal thing? Whose journal? Mine?
Your journal? New wrote this and you remember writing it? Yeah?
Okay. I got some questions for you, Rachel, some questions that you
need to be honest with me about. Now is the time to be completely
truthful with everything. After Rachel was confronted with her journal, she came clean
and admitted that, with the help of her mom, Rachel poisoned her father,
her brother, and her older sister with anti freeze. Like mother,
like daughter. When did you guys come up with this plan? I can't
think of exact dates, but I mean we talked about it like Christmas before
Rachel, whose idea was this, mom brought it up. I mean when
we discussed it, would she say to you basically went through different options.
We had a book on poisonous plants. I mean she would talk about cyanide
and she mentioned once how hard it would be defined. I was trying to
find things that wouldn't be traceable, or at least would be hard to trace.
According to Rachel, she and Diane had thought long and hard about how
they were going to go about murdering the rest of the family. I can
only imagine that conversation. After many discussions, they eventually settled on using anti
freeze, which again is not easily detected when an autopsy is performed. More
than likely, Diane's background in nursing made her aware of that fact. How
many times a day were you given doing this putting the ana freeze in your
dad's drinks? How many times on average per day were you doing it?
Twice? It was a trade off. She would do it, then I
would for how long several weeks? Several weeks? How many bottles of anaphreeze
did you guys go through upwards of five for your dad. Yeah, you
went through about five bottles. And how big were the bottles? Can kind
of give me a visual about how big you think they were? So probably
around a gallon or so something like that. Okay. Over the course of
several weeks, Rachel and Diane slipped about five gallons of anti freeze into Mark
Stouty's drinks, which ultimately led to his death. Well, Diane's motive were
rooted in hatred for her husband. Rachel had a different reason for wanting to
kill her father, My dad. I couldn't really see him ever like doing
anything to help us. He had no concept of money. He was always
just blowing money. He would always beat out of the house, wouldn't really
help her in the house. Was basically a drain on her on us.
Basically, Rachel saw her dad as a deadbeat. She considered him to be
a worthless burden on the family. As for her brother, Rachel claimed that
she wasn't immediately on board with the idea of killing Sean, but after her
mom kept pressing the idea, Rachel eventually agreed to go along with the plan.
Sean I accepted that she wanted him gone, but I really didn't think
he was necessary, Shawn me argued on a lot, because I still think
we could have put him in been like a assistant living, but she wanted
him out. She would just go on and on about him just being a
burden. Basically, After Mark and Sean were dead, Rachel and her mom
then decided they were going to also go after Rachel's older sister, Sarah.
So how are you guys getting her the drinks without her knowing about it.
She's on the computer a lot, on YouTube a lot, on sites like
that a lot, and she's easily distracted. It wouldn't take much to like
get what I'm drink she did have and just slip it. We'll quit.
According to Rachel, the plot to kill Sarah was her mother's idea, but
again, Rachel had her own reasons for wanting her sister dead. Did you
and your mother discuss killing Sarah? I'm almost thinking about it. What would
she say about it other than the fact that she basically lived in the back
bedroom and didn't like have any dunction to get a job more or less,
that she wasn't going anywhere with her life, and that she really had a
new purpose. She was very adamant on that Sarah was just a burden,
that Sarah needed to be taken care of. By taking care of I mean,
she means killed mom probably has her own issues with her. What about
you? Did you guys find a lot? Yeah? Why did you want
Sarah? Did? I mean? She grew up it later when she got
on the medicine, but she still argues she still has really unappropriate jokes.
Inappropriate jokes. That was Rachel's rationalization for killing her sister. Did you hear
that? What is going on? What is wrong with the world right now?
Does anybody know? I'd like to find out what is wrong with people
in their twenties, specifically, which makes someone like this think that murder is
appropriate if their sensibilities are offended? Holy fuck buck. Also, the depravity
didn't end there. If you remember from Diane's earlier police interview, it was
Rachel who prompted Diane to take Sarah to the hospital. This decision didn't come
about because of some sort of sympathy for Sarah or because Rachel was having second
thoughts. The decision was rooted entirely in selfishness. I'd like to know why
you guys eventually took You know, when Sarah got so bad? Now you
guys said you thought that she was pretty much dead. Why did you take
her to the hospital. I didn't want another one to die in the house.
And why is that? Because houses are nasty after somebody's died in it?
And what does that mean? What do you mean? What do you
mean by that? I get a lot of nightmares, Like after Sean died,
I moved into his twe it was awful, awful, awful in there?
Were you surprising you found out that Sarah was going to live? Very
surprised? Were there any more discussions of finishing, finishing or wrong? I
didn't really get never never got to those discussions. According to Rachel, if
her sister survived the hospital stay, Diane and Rachel would still have carried out
the murder, though they never got around to discussing how they would actually do
it. At the same time, they were also planning to commit yet another
murder. It really is scary to think of what would have happened if if
we if our attention was not brought to what was going on in the Sudy
family. And it came straight from Rachel's mouth, to me that their plan
was to kill the the youngest child of the family, who at the time
was only eleven years old. So it's one of those situations of thank god
we were able to stop this when we did. Otherwise this is a small
child would have possibly succumbed to the to the same outcome as what the others
did. Again, it wasn't Sarah going to the hospital that caught the attention
of the police. It was an anonymous phone call that alerted the authorities.
Eventually the detectives figured out where that call came from. The caller was Diane
and Rachel's church pastor. Who did you tell what happened? I mean,
I hint did a little with Sibby, but I didn't get there. What
did you tell Pastor Sibbey? I mainly wanted help because I didn't want to
get so far. Rachel partially confided in her church pastor, and after he
learned that Sarah was in the hospital, he called police. Had this call
not been made, eleven year old Brianna would likely have suffered the same fate
as Mark, Sean and Sarah. Did you think that eventually after everybody dying
off in similar way, is that we might show up to talk to you
guys. Didn't really think I would get caught. Stupid nut that I think
on it. Did you want it to just be you and your mother?
Yeah? And why is that cause she understands me? She doesn't any Given
what had happened in the Stoudy home. A logical question is why Rachel.
Why did Diane choose Rachel to be the accomplice and not any one of her
other children, And also why would Rachel agree to follow her mother and go
along with such an evil plan. Why indeed would a child want to please
her parents and do what they say. I believe the reason Diane chose Rachel
or those two acted together is just because of this very strange mother daughter relationship
they had. And both of them discussed that it was obvious that Rachel was
the favorite of Diane, that she was kind of the chosen child. Rachel
was very artistic and was talented musically, which was one of Diane's passions.
And they spent a lot of time together in church, and you know,
Rachel talked about the same things. Rachel talked about. Her and her mother
were the only ones that really understood each other. That nobody else did,
but it was almost like a best friend relationship as opposed to a mother daughter.
Miraculously, after Diane and Rachel confessed and we're both arrested, Sarah Stouty
pulled through and was eventually released from the hospital. Unfortunately, some of the
physical effects of the anti freeze poisoning were irreversible. Sarah survived the into freeze
poisoning her sister Rachel, and her mother Diane's Dottie put in her drink,
but she now has brain damage and requires round the clock care. Her brother
and father died from the poisoning. Sarah was kind of a medical miracle because
by all accounts, it was believed that she was going to pass, but
she ended up surviving. She did sustain some pretty heavy brain damage from the
incident, so Sarah now lives in an assisted living home full time. Following
Sarah's release from the hospital, both Diane and Rachel were charged with several crimes,
including two counts of first degree murder for the deaths of Mark and Sean
Stoudy and attempted murder for the near death of Sarah Stoudy. When Rachel went
to court. Obviously, this was a death penalty case, but Rachel ended
up taking a plea deal that she would testify against her mother. During the
death penalty hearing for Diane, Rachel pled to murder, and she was offered
part of her plea deal that she could be eligible for parole after I believe
it was forty or forty two years prior to Diane's case actually going to trial.
Diane agreed to take a plea deal to take the death penalty off the
table, so both Diane and Rachel are currently incarcerated in the Missouri Department of
Corrections. Rachel will be eligible for parole when she's in her sixties. Diane
will serve her entire life in prison. During the sentencing phase, Rachel read
a brief statement in court and apologized to her sister Sarah. I'm sorry.
I couldn't find the courage to stay right, to go for help, to
pretend to I was scared that they scarce excuse. In response to Rachel's statement,
Sarah addressed the apology in a few media interviews. Sarah claimed that she's
forgiven both her mom and her sister for what they have done. I forgive
her for what she did to me. Was your forgiveness given us something that
was really hard to come to over time? Or how how does that that
process work for something? How many? I am a Christian and I believe
forgiveness is the only way to go. Was that something you were able to
do right away? Yes, Well, you might be inclined to commend Sarah
for taking the high road here. She might not be as deserving of that
commendation as you think. Believe it or not. There was yet another bizarre
twist in this really really crazy tale. During one of her police interviews,
Rachel Stoudy told investigators that Sarah knew about the plan to murder both Mark and
Sean. It's very possible she could have overheard, did Sarah no? Yes
or no? Yes? She obviously just didn't realize that she was going to
get it. Also, Sarah more or less overheard. She really didn't plan.
She's just more there, But Sarah new Sarah. So did Sarah ever
become suspicious when she started to get sick? She did mention, oh am
I going to die? She never mentioned anything about her you guys poisoning me
too? Or no? But she asked if she was going to die?
Who? Did she ask that? What? Did your mom say, I
don't know. Granted, it's entirely possible that Rachel was lying, but when
she was first asked about Sarah's knowledge of the crimes, Rachel said that Sarah
knew nothing. It was only after the detectives pressed her that Rachel changed her
story. If Rachel was lying and just wanted to throw Sarah under the bus,
why would she initially deny that Sarah knew? If you're wondering. The
police did investigate the possibility that Sarah knew about the murder plot, but ultimately
conspiracy charges were never filed against her, so who knows. During Rachel's interview,
she talked about Sarah having knowledge of the poisonings of both Mark and Sean.
I did look into that, and there were some things that might have
indicated that Sarah was in fact knowledgeable, and I have spoken with her about
that and she has said things to me that, you know, we're we're
alarming and disturbing. But based on Sarah's mental capacity and the effects from the
anaphrees from from her being poisoned, there was never never a case that was
that was brought against Sarah. If Sarah knew that Diane and Rachel had killed
Mark and Sean Stoudy, it means that justice was not fully carried out for
either victim. It's been over a decade since both men were murdered, so
the likelihood of prosecutors bringing up charges against Sarah is pretty much non existent.
She's free to go, but at least we can say that the mastermind behind
it all got her come uppance. In terms of Diane, I have never
seen one bit of remorse from Diane about any of it, and I think
the only remorse that she might have is that Rachel got caught with her,
and that now that Rachel is going to spend decades and decades in prison.
I believe this whole case really just centered around Diane's narcissism, her selfishness,
and how she wanted it her way and it was only going to be her
way. It was a situation that seemed that these people that she did not
like she was eliminating, she was getting rid of just so she could have
it to what she wanted, which was her and Rachel. It was a
situation where I believed that Diane was just a a pure narcissist. And it's
cliche, but in my career. I don't know that I can say that
I've sat across from somebody that was truly more evil than Diane. What's especially
mind boggling about Diane Stoudy is that there was almost nothing forcing her to remain
in or maintain the life and family that she no longer wanted. She could
have walked away at any point. She was the breadwinner of the family,
she was the only one with a real job. She had all the money,
all the power, and all but one of her kids was well into
their twenties. If she wanted to, she could have just left that she
wanted to. She could have just taken Rachel and her youngest daughter with her,
left everyone else to fend for themselves. There was no reason at all
for any of this. Sure, that would have been kind of a shitty
thing to do when people would have looked at her a little differently, but
they're doing that now, and they're doing that a lot more harshly. And
at the same time, I imagine that Mark, Sean, and Sarah,
all of them would have preferred that Diane had just left instead of, you
know, poisoning them. But as the detective explained, none of that mattered
to Diane, the pain she caused didn't matter, and neither did the other
options that were available to her. Those options just weren't good enough for Diane.
Diane was going to have things her way because Diane is a narcissist,
Diane is selfish, hm, Diane is evil, Diane is a monster.
Oh, I felt like I was talking about someone else for a second.
There. All right, guys, thank you for joining us. We'll see
you next time. Stay safe, Hey, Thart and fail. I just
wanted to thank you for doing all of the child murdered uh podcast. I
know it must be really hard. I work in childcare, and it's so
important for people to understand if you see something, you say something, and
every time, like I've cried from all of the stories with the kids,
but it's so important because people hear it and you don't want to keep hearing
it. Well, then someone need to do something instead of someone thinking that
somebody else is going to do it. So I just want to thank you
for the bottom of my heart for doing the child story so there is awareness.
Thank you so much to have a good day. By became like I'm
sorry for my voice being out because they am completely devastated over episode six.
I'm not asking anything of you, Mike. I don't want you to changed.
Mike By podcasts will never die. They'll never say that to me again.
And also, fuck awesome Robinson, that little pussy, that little girl
did not ever ask for anything but love the way you knew. That episode
was so beautiful and scary, and I loved how long it was, and
he left all the information and he loved that audio. Freaking kid every time.
I mean, I'm gonna go Forard myself this week. I like Mike. It depend