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Content warning: This story contains mentions of sexual assault.

There are too many twists to count in Netflix‘s A Toxic Love Story.

When Michelle Hadley was accused in 2016 of stalking her ex-fiancé Ian Diaz‘s pregnant wife, Angela Connell, the case shocked their Anaheim, Calif., community. Prosecutors alleged that Hadley had sent Connell threatening emails and tried to set her up to be sexually assaulted by answering rape fantasy ads in Connell’s name on Craigslist.

The couple sounded outraged that authorities weren’t taking action against Hadley, as seen in police bodycam footage from visits to their home. But after Connell falsely reported that she had been shoved up against the wall by a masked intruder in their garage—presumably by someone lured there over Craigslist—Hadley was arrested.

Hadley, then 29, spent 88 days in jail before being released that October. Because, as Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas later put it when Hadley was fully exonerated, she was actually “an innocent victim of a diabolical scheme.”

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By then, detectives had determined that Connell was behind the emails, with Rackauckas telling reporters upon her January 2017 arrest that perhaps Connell framed Hadley to “put the dagger into the older relationship.”

Courtesy of Netflix

Connell pleaded guilty in October 2017 to charges including kidnapping and falsely reporting a crime to a peace officer, and was subsequently sentenced to five years in prison.

And yet that wasn’t the full story, either.

Diaz is now serving a 10-year federal prison sentence after being convicted in 2023 of cyberstalking, conspiracy, perjury and obstruction. According to the Department of Justice, he schemed with Connell to frame Hadley, in order to keep the condo they previously bought together.

“Ian got everything he wanted,” Hadley says in the doc. “But it actually cost him his freedom.”

Here is what to know about the case chronicled in A Toxic Love Story, now streaming on Netflix:

Courtesy of Netflix

Who is Michelle Hadley?Michelle Hadley of Anaheim, Calif., met then-U.S. Marshal Ian Diaz on a dating app in 2013.At the time, she “wanted the white picket fence life,” Hadley said in the 2026 Netflix documentary A Toxic Love Story, and Diaz was “attentive, sweet, thoughtful.”They got engaged and bought a condo together in June 2015, which, she said, felt like “a natural progression.” But, according to Hadley, “everything took a turn for the worst,” they broke up in August and she moved out.”I wrote a couple of very angry emails,” she admitted in the doc, including one reading, “Get ready, the truth is coming. God’s law is above all laws, including the law of man…Lilith.”

Courtesy of Netflix

Who are Ian Diaz and Angela Connell?Diaz met Connell at a Starbucks in Anaheim in January 2016 and, as he told police later in a recorded interview, she was “everything I ever wanted in a woman.”They married the following month, and Connell moved into the condo Diaz previously shared with Hadley.

Courtesy of Netflix

When did Angela Connell accuse Michelle Hadley of stalking?Connell filed a police report that June alleging she was getting ominous emails from someone going by “Lilithistruth.” Connell said she was pregnant with twins and, as seen in police body cam footage from officers’ repeat visits to the condo, the emails claimed she had stolen someone’s “treasured home” and was being watched.Asked if they suspected anyone, Connell and Diaz both named Hadley.

Netflix

When was Michelle Hadley arrested?The conflict escalated later that month when Connell and Diaz told police, per a U.S. Department of Justice press release, that someone had set up a Craigslist account using pictures of Connell and answered an ad seeking partners for a rape fantasy encounter.After Connell reported to police on June 24 that she was attacked in their garage—she told 911, per an audio recording, that somebody “came from behind, shoved me against the wall, choked me and were telling me I’m gonna f–king get it and it’s time for me to get raped”—Hadley was arrested that night.She was released on bail then re-arrested July 14 after a 17-year-old boy showed up at Diaz and Connell’s home in response to the Craigslist ad. Despite protesting her innocence, “Unfortunately, nobody listened,” her attorney Michael Guisti later said. “She was interviewed in depth by Anaheim PD when she was taken in.”Hadley was charged with 10 felony counts, including attempted rape, and jailed in lieu of $1 million bail.

Netflix

How did police find out Michelle Hadley was innocent?As seen in A Toxic Love Story, Diaz told police after Hadley was arrested that he had found out Connell wasn’t really pregnant.”I can’t believe this is happening,” Diaz told police in a recorded interview. “I feel like a f–king idiot.” Their marriage was annulled in April 2017.Meanwhile, investigators determined that Connell sent the emails to herself and solicited the Craigslist encounters using VPNs and third-party proxy servers, according to Orange County prosecutors.Hadley was released in October 2016 and the charges were dropped the following January.

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What happened to Angela Connell?Connell was arrested in January 2017, with Orange County Deputy District Attorney Richard Zimmer calling her “a serial con artist.”Police also found out she had previously faked having cancer and lied about being a lawyer, according to an October 2017 news release from the O.C. District Attorney’s Office.On October 17, 2017, Connell was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to 10 felony charges including kidnapping, false imprisonment, perjury and forgery, as well as 21misdemeanor counts of falsely reporting a crime to a peace officer, per the news release.”Even while pleading guilty,” Orange County. D.A. Tony Rackauckas said at the time, “[Connell] showed no remorse, compassion, or empathy for the victim.”A Toxic Love Story notes that Connell has since moved away from California and declined to take part in the documentary.

Courtesy of Netflix

How did authorities find out Ian Diaz tried to frame Michelle Hadley?Since Diaz was a U.S. Marshal, the Department of Justice opened its own investigation into his wife’s case.And, as DOJ Special Agent Jason Higley detailed in the doc, their cyber team eventually found that Diaz conspired with Connell to frame Hadley, the final nail being the discovery of “fragments of a ‘Lilithistruth’ email” on Diaz’s DOJ laptop.”This is Ian, pretending to be Michelle, pretending to be Angela, catfishing someone to the condo,” Higley said. And when police started to suspect his ex was innocent, “Ian laid this all at Angela’s doorstep.”Diaz was arrested May 13, 2021. He pleaded not guilty at trial, but was convicted by a federal jury in March 2023 of conspiracy to commit cyberstalking, cyberstalking, perjury, and obstruction of a federal matter.

Courtesy of Netflix

Where is Ian Diaz now?Diaz was sentenced June 30, 2023, to 10 years in prison, plus three years of supervised release, according to the DOJ-OIG.Now 48, he is serving his sentence at FMC Fort Worth in Texas, according to federal inmate records, which note he’s set to be released January 31, 2031.

Netflix

Where is Michelle Hadley now?Hadley sued the city of Anaheim in 2017, stating she had suffered paranoia and anxiety due to her arrest and incarceration. According to Courthouse News Service, the city settled for an undisclosed amount in 2021, with a spokesperson saying at the time, “We are glad to see this case come to a close so all involved can move forward.” Hadley had been in the process of getting her MBA from Chapman University when her life was turned upside down. Now 39, Hadley said in the doc that she eventually went back to school, work and dating—and gave birth to her daughter on the same day Diaz was convicted.She added, “Raising this beautiful little girl is my fairy tale ending.”

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