A Missouri pastor is revealing how he tipped off the police to a pair of murders within his parish committed via antifreeze poisoning.
Pastor Jeff Sippy put in the anonymous call in 2013 after two members of his congregation at Redeemer Lutheran Church had died in the same way.
‘I shared that I am a pastor and I have a family who has experienced two deaths in a short proximity of time and has another family member in ICU,’ Sippy told ABC’s 20/20. ‘I’ve never had two family members die in the same type of situations ever,’ he added.
He concluded that the authorities needed to investigate.
‘Now I see someone fighting for their life in circumstances and events that are just completely foreign to me,’ suspecting a sinner in his flock.
Diane Staudte has admitted she attempted to kill her other daughter the same way. She ‘made jokes and laughed’ with nurses at the hospital to which her daughter Sarah was admitted in a critical condition
Poisoned: Shawn Staudte, 26, died in September 2012 after his mother poisoned his Gatorade and soda laced with anti-freeze
Victim Mark Staudte. In 2012, Mark and Shaun Staudte died six months apart of natural causes, or so everyone thought. In the years following, it would be revealed that Diane Staudte, Mark’s wife and Shaun’s mother, with the help of her daughter Rachel Staudte, actually murdered Mark and Shaun with antifreeze
Sarah and Rachel Staudte (right) in an October 9, 2012 photo posted by Diane. Rachel assisted their mother in attempting to poison Sarah
Sarah survived being poisoned but now lives in care after suffering nerve and brain damage
The call led to the resulting arrest of Diane Staudte, 58, who poisoned her husband Mark and two of her children.
Mark died on Easter Sunday in April 2012 of what had been judged to be natural causes at the time.
Five months later, Mark and Diane’s son, Shaun was found dead at their home after he’d suffered from flu-like symptoms.
Lastly, in June of 2013, daughter Sarah was taken to an ICU with a brain bleed and organ failure, with doctors believing she’d been poisoned.
Diane and daughter Rachel Staudte were taken in for questioning, where the mother and wife admitted to using antifreeze by pouring it into Coca-Cola and Gatorade drank by her children and husband.
Photo shows Diane, Mark, Shaun, Rachel and Sara in June of 1990 in Overland Park, KS, in their apartment where they lived there for a brief period
She entered an Alford plea on two counts of first-degree murder. Alford pleas acknowledge prosecutors have the evidence to convict someone without the defendant admitting to the crime. Diane Staudte is serving life without parole in prison.
Rachel Staudte pleaded guilty to second degree murder in 2015 in a plea deal to testify against her mother. She was sentenced to two life terms, but can be paroled after 42 and a half years in prison.
In 2016, video showed Diane Staudte telling Missouri police in never-before-seen tapes that she killed son Shaun, 26, because he wouldn’t help around the house.
Staudte also admits to poisoning daughter Sarah, who survived with brain damage, saying she did it because her daughter had college debts she wasn’t able to pay and refused to get a job.
Diane, however, now claims she is innocent in an interview with ABC News.
Satudte now claims she didn’t commit the murders
‘I said what I was told to say – I’m saying there’s more to that than what people know,’ Staudte said. ‘Mark was with some people that are very dangerous – people have disappeared,’ she added.
She now believes somebody ‘came in and gave him something’ in the case of husband Mark.
Authorities said they have zero evidence that anyone but Diane and Rachel pulled off the murders.
Staudte claimed to have killed husband Mark, then 61, because she ‘hated his guts’ and accused him of domestic abuse, tapes reveal.
Between 2012 and 2013, Staudte and daughter Rachel planned and then executed a plot to poison the rest of the family using antifreeze.
Diane Staudte is interrogated by the Springfield Police Department in 2013
According to further tapes obtained by ABC, Rachel said she and her mother bought the antifreeze online because store-bought antifreeze has a bitter chemical added to it to stop it from being consumed. Without the flavor, it tastes slightly sweet.
In the tapes, Staudte can be heard telling officers that she added ‘one or two teaspoons’ of the chemical into Coca-Cola and Gatorade she served to Shaun, Sarah and Mark.
Mark died suddenly in April 2012, but because of his unhealthy lifestyle medical examiners put his death down to natural causes.
The same happened after Shaun died five months later because he had a history of seizures.
Sarah is now living in care as she deals with the effects of the poisoning, while the youngest daughter, who has never been identified, is living in foster care.
Diane Staudte is seen in some of her Facebook photos
At the sentencing hearing, Sarah Staudte told the courtroom she has forgiven her sister.
Rachel Staudte also spoke and said that ‘despite the bad, there are those who forgive’.
She also apologized for participating in the murders instead of standing up to her mother. She said that she was scared, ‘but being scared is no excuse’.
