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| Sarah Staudte, who survived anti-freeze |
Missouri woman who nearly died after her mother poisoned
her with anti-freeze said she suspected that her mother was planning to kill
her after reading her journal.
She had this journal that she wrote ... her thoughts. She
wrote the deaths of Shaun, my brother, and me.
Sarah's father Mark Staudte, 61, and her older brother
Shaun, 26, both died just five months apart the year before in 2012. Medical
examiners ruled Mark's death was due to "natural causes" and Shaun's
death was due to "prior medical issues." Both bodies were cremated.
Sarah, now 26,
confronted her mother Diane about the journal entry predicting her death, her
mother told her she wasn't going to die and to not read her journal again.Sarah said she kept what she read a
secret.
In
June 2013, Sarah was brought to the emergency
room at Cox South Hospital in Springfield, Missouri, with flu-like symptoms,
but doctors determined that her kidneys and brain were
failing. After doing a number of tests, doctors initially could not figure what
was wrong with her.
During Sarah's hospitalization,
Springfield Police Det. Neal McAmis received an anonymous tip that Diane could
be involved in Sarah's illness and could also be responsible for the deaths of
her husband and son. The doctor said that he was suspicious that it was a
possible poisoning case, and was
told Sarah was pretty much given a zero percent chance of making it. It was not
if Sarah is going to die, but when.
He also learned from a nurse that
the mother Diane was behaving strangely, joking about her daughter's condition
and talking about an upcoming vacation to Florida.
Det. McAmis called Diane into
questioning where she eventually admitted on tape to poisoning Mark, Shaun and
Sarah with anti-freeze.
Diane told the investigator that she
wanted Sarah dead because her daughter had student loans that she needed to pay
off and that she was having problems finding a job. Sarah, a French and History
graduate of Missouri State University, wanted to pursue her dream of being a
translator.
"I've been kind of putting
pressure on [Sarah] to get out and get a job. Her college bills are coming due
and I don't want to pay for them. After all, you get tired of doing everything
for your kids and it's like you need to step up and do it," Diane said in
her interrogation tape, obtained by "20/20."
Sarah's sister Rachel was also
brought into questioning, where she eventually admitted to helping her mother
kill her father and brother, as well as poisoning her older sister.
Miraculously Sarah survived the
poisoning but suffered severe neurological damage. She had to relearn how to
walk and talk, and continues to recover.
When Sarah found out the news from
police that her mother and sister were responsible for her hospitalization and
the murders of her dad and brother, she was both shocked and upset.
In January 2016, Diane pleaded
guilty to first-degree murder charges for Mark and Shaun's deaths and to
assault charges for Sarah's poisoning.
Diane was sentenced to life in
prison without parole.
Rachel, now 25, pleaded guilty to
second-degree murder in May 2015 as part of a plea deal in exchange for
testifying against her mother at her trial. She was sentenced in March 2016 to
life in prison with the possibility of parole.
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| Rachel Staudte read this statement at her sentencing on March 1, 2016. |
Courtesy of Clate Baker
Sarah told ABC News that while her
mother and sister took away her livelihood and independence, they did not take
away her desire to fulfill her future dreams. She still hopes of one day of
being a French translator and walking the streets of Paris and Montreal.
Despite the hardships, pain and loss
Sarah has had to endure, she maintains that she is a survivor and that she is
no longer angry at her mother and sister. She said she has forgiven them for
what they did because forgiveness is the right thing to do.
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