'A Toxic Love Story' Recap: Where are Ian Diaz and Angela Connell now?

A Toxic Love Story is a 2026 true-crime documentary film streaming on Netflix that has more twists than any good fiction thriller, and has been directed by BAFTA-nominated filmmaker Alexandra Lacey. When Angela Connell, an expecting mother of twins, started getting threatening emails that even led to physical attacks in 2016, she immediately assumed that the evil ex-girlfriend of her husband was to blame. But what was ultimately unveiled shocked the people involved in the case and even the lawmakers, because of the complicated nature of the crime.

Why was Angela Connell subjected to threats and attacks?

The story of this twisted and complicated case started when Angela Connell, a woman of 30, first ran into Ian Diaz at a Starbucks in Anaheim, California. Ian was a deputy with the US Marshals Service, responsible for transferring inmates from one prison to another, and also for the safeguarding of federal judges. Ian was impressed by Angela’s looks and personality, and the two bonded very quickly. They started dating and within just a few weeks, Ian proposed to her and she moved into his condo. A few months later, Angela shared the ecstatic news that she was pregnant with twins, and the couple were very happy to be parents. Despite this happy start to their story, something odd began happening around this very time, after Angela was pregnant with twins.

Angela started receiving emails from someone using the name ‘Lilithistruth’, which contained direct threats against her and the babies she was carrying in her womb. The sender was clearly using Biblical undertones to scare Angela, throwing around terms like ‘evil’, ‘sin’ and ‘judgment’. They had interpreted the story of Lilith as the supposed first wife of Adam who was driven out of the Garden of Eden because she refused to be his subservient wife and then made a pact with Satan to go kill newborn babies on Earth. The sender was trying to place themselves in the role of Lilith, or the evil ex-girlfriend of Ian, who was about to launch a deadly attack on the family, starting with killing the twins they were expecting. 

The nature of the emails and the threats made to Angela made it quite evident that they were indeed being sent by Ian’s ex-girlfriend, a woman named Michelle Hadley. As the couple informed the police about the entire situation, they revealed that Ian had broken up with Michelle just a few months before he got together with Angela, and that Michelle was very distraught and angry when the break-up had been initiated by Ian. The emails initially began with threats to harm Angela and her babies when she would go running or leave the house, before the sender started mentioning exact details about what clothes Angela was wearing or the route she had taken during her run. It was obvious that the woman was being stalked, which was extremely dangerous, and then came the even scarier situations. The emails got angrier and warned the couple against informing the police, threatening to ensure that Angela was sexually assaulted if they didn’t listen. 

Then, on June 13th, Lilithistruth, who was believed to be Michelle at the time, responded to a message-board on Craigslist with discussions on ‘fantasy rape’, which is a perverted sexual roleplay in which two people consensually play out a situation that simulates assault. Michelle posted photos of Angela and asked one of the users on the message-board to go and assault her. The message had been sent with the pretense that Angela herself was the sender and she was looking for someone to play out her fantasy with. Ian thankfully found out about this, and the man who had been messaged also decided to bolt after finding out that Angela was living in the condo with her husband, but it was definitely an extremely alarming situation. The police were called once again, but they still did not have enough concrete proof against Michelle to arrest her. 

It seemed like the police department acknowledged that the couple were facing a dangerous situation and therefore needed protection, but since nothing dangerous had yet happened, and only threats had been made over email so far, they were willing to wait things out. But things took a turn on 24th June, 2016, when Angela dialed 911 from her home and reported that she had just been physically assaulted. A man had sneaked into the house then shoved her against the wall in the garage, threatened to sexually assault her, to then run away after roughing her up. The police found marks of injury on her body as well as a spot on the wall where the woman’s face had been shoved. This was enough development for the police to finally take action, and they immediately picked up Michelle Hadley from her home for questioning.

Was Michelle Hadley really the perpetrator?

During the police questioning, Michelle claimed that she had not sent the threatening emails, even though she had once sent two emails to Ian that had Biblical undertones. The story that Michelle revealed changed the narrative completely, as it was she who had wanted to break up with Ian a few months before he got together with Angela. It was Ian who was irked and refused to comply with her demands, which is when she had sent two emails to him that were written from the perspective of her Christian upbringing. But the ones that followed were not her doing, and she wanted to stay as far away from Ian and his family as possible. Nonetheless, Michelle had to spend 4 months in prison for the police had not found anything to suggest that she was not the perpetrator, until they got in touch with people who knew Angela in the past, and these individuals revealed a shocking side to the woman.

Angela Connell was actually a highly deceitful and dishonest woman who had told terrible lies to people close to her in the past, just to get their attention and love. Angela always loved to be the center of attention and have people’s empathy, and so she had told an elaborate lie about having been diagnosed with stage four cervical cancer in the past. Back in 2013, Angela told this lie to her new boyfriend, Jason Rayburn, simply to make him feel all the more attached and sympathetic towards her. She had also told the same to Mary Bukovskis, a friend she had made at the time, once again to gain her sympathy. What made her a compulsive liar was the fact that Angela continued with this lie for months, before those close to her realized that she was sending fake photos of chemotherapy to them after downloading them from the internet. 

Angela never let Jason go with her to the hospital, which was a red flag as well, and when she did take him along one time, he was shocked to find that they had gone to a dermatology clinic and not any cancer specialist hospital. Eventually, her boyfriend and friends called her out during an intervention, and as Angela refused to admit her lies, they dropped all contact with her. Now, in 2016, Ian suddenly found out that the ultrasound photo that Angela had shown to prove that she was pregnant with twins, was fake and downloaded from the internet. When he confronted her about it, she walked out of the house and stopped responding to his calls and texts. Finally, with all this information with them, the police arrested Angela Connell upon suspicion that it was she who had sent the threatening emails to herself, and that the claim of the assault on her was fake.

Had Angela acted alone?

After Angela’s arrest was reported in the media, the Department of Justice started looking into the matter since Ian worked with the US Marshals Service and his name was naturally linked with the case. It was at this time that some seriously concerning clues were found that suggested that Angela had definitely not acted alone in committing the crime. Michelle was also interviewed, which revealed some shocking details about Ian, starting with the fact that he had an unhealthy obsession with voyeurism and cuckoldry. Back when he was with Michelle, Ian repeatedly asked her to get intimate with a stranger in his presence, to the point that she actually went ahead with it, even though she was extremely against such an act, which she considered to be adultery and simply disgusting. 

At this very time, Ian would browse forums and websites like Craigslist in search of discussions related to these matters, which made it very likely that it was he who had planned the staged sexual assault attempt on Angela. On the night of this attempted assault, the man who had agreed to partake in the fantasy roleplay had not showed up at the condo, but Ian had told the police that he had spoken with the man and led him on, only so that the authorities could catch him. When Ian showed the police officers how he had found the man, it was evident that he somehow stumbled upon the specific Craigslist post on his very first search attempt, and it was the very first message board he had opened. This was really a once-in-a-million chance since Craigslist had thousands of similar posts about ‘fantasy rape’ at the time. The DOJ special agent went further to probe the theory of Ian being involved, by remotely running a thorough check on Ian’s laptop, which had been given to him by the Marshals Service. On it, he found Word documents with the name Lilithistruth, which finally confirmed that it was Ian who had sent Angela the threatening emails, leading to him being arrested.

What was the motive behind the crime?

According to experts, the motive behind Ian coming up with this elaborate plan and executing it was two-folds. The first was that he wanted Michelle Hadley removed from the picture and rotting in prison for a financial reason. When Ian had bought the condo where they moved in together, it was Michelle who had made the down-payment for it, burning through her entire savings just to be with the man she loved. But when the relationship ultimately ended in 2016, Michelle naturally wanted the money back, and Ian was legally obliged to pay up. However, if Michelle could somehow be put in prison, then he would not have to pay the money back, at least for an indefinite period of time. 

The second part of his motive was to exert complete control over Michelle’s life and ruin it in every sense. Ian was terribly angered and vengeful when Michelle decided to leave him, and he wanted to get back at her in the worst possible manner. Thus, when he found a compulsive liar like Angela, it was really a match made in heaven, and Ian was actually very truthful whenever he said that he had found Angela to be the perfect woman for him. Together, they hatched the plan of framing Michelle for threatening and attacking her, both for the pleasure of it and also for the money. They came very close to succeeding as well, as Michelle would have faced a life imprisonment sentence if the charges against her would have been proven. However, Angela’s secrets were dragged out instead, and as soon as he realized that he too might be in trouble, Ian pushed her under the bus. He directly told the police that his new wife had single-handedly carried out the crimes because she was jealous of the relationship that he and Michelle had once shared.

Where are Ian Diaz and Angela Connell now?

The investigators could not ultimately figure out just how much role Ian and Angela had separately, or together, played in the whole matter since they never opened up about it. However, in the year 2017, when Angela Connell was arrested, she pleaded guilty to charges of false imprisonment, fraud, and falsely reporting a crime, and was sentenced to 5 years in prison. Ian Diaz was arrested in 2021 and was dismissed by the US Marshals Service in 2023, when the court trial against him began. He was charged with stalking, obstruction of justice and perjury, and he expectedly pleaded not-guilty to all of them. But the court found him guilty of the crimes and he was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison. At present, Ian Diaz is serving his sentence at the FMC Fort Worth Prison in Texas. After serving her sentence, Angela Connell moved away from California, and is reportedly a resident of Arizona at present. She now goes by the name Angi Connell, and works as a professional activist, helping people who have had abortions.

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