A Deadly Duo: The Shocking Crimes of Diane and Rachel Staudte
In June 2013, 50-year-old Diane Staudte and her 22-year-old daughter, Rachel, were arrested for a series of shocking crimes against their own family members
Background
In June 2013, the Springfield, Missouri, Police Department received an anonymous call from an individual claiming that a patient at a local hospital, 24-year-old Sarah Staudte, had been poisoned. The caller also said that Sarah’s mother, 50-year-old Diane Staudte, was responsible for “Two or three homicides.”
The caller mentioned that both Diane’s husband, Mark, and son, Shaun, had died from mysterious illnesses within the past year and a half. After investigators confronted Diane with their suspicions, she made a chilling confession, though she would later retract it and claim her innocence.
The Staudte Family
Mark and Diane Staudte first met at St. John’s College in Winfield, Kansas. The school was affiliated with the Lutheran Church, which would play an important role in the family’s life. The couple married in December 1985 and quickly started a family. Their son Shaun was born in July 1986, followed by daughters Sarah, Rachel, and later Brianna.
The Staudts lived in Springfield, Missouri, where Diane worked as a registered nurse and clinical supervisor for United Healthcare. Mark worked as a bartender, along with various other odd jobs. Instead of a steady job, he preferred to pursue music, a passion he shared with his wife.
He was in a band called Messing with Destiny, which regularly played in bars and restaurants in the area.
This love for the musical arts was passed down to their kids: Shaun, Sarah, Rachel, and Brianna. The family utilized their talents most at their beloved Redeemer Lutheran Church, where Diane excelled at the organ and Rachel sang and played the guitar.
Like most families, the Staudts faced challenges as the years passed and their children grew older. Shaun struggled with autism, little Brianna had learning disabilities, and Sarah was struggling with debt and finding a job after college. Diane’s relationship with her family was somewhat distant, apart from Rachel, who was her favorite child.
Compounding on this stress was the breakdown of Diane and Mark’s marriage. Diane became resentful and disenchanted with her husband, who she claims had turned to drinking, possibly drugs, and partying instead of holding down a steady job like his wife.
Yet despite the couple’s strained marriage, their religious beliefs kept them from seeking a divorce.
Cryptic Posts
Then, in 2012, there was a string of cryptic and bizarre Facebook posts. The family members were quite active on Facebook, commenting on each other’s posts as if they weren’t under the same roof. And the posts got stranger and stranger over time.
Shaun started posting long paragraphs describing how bad his father’s health had gotten, despite Diane’s insistence to church members that he was just feeling under the weather when they would ask her where her husband was.
One post stated, “My father is suffering from an incurable mental illness and is likely to die,” while another said, “My father has changed from panic, aggressive, and selfish to depressed and suicidal. He took his car, wallet, and cell phone…if he’s dead, I want to see him to make sure he is dead.”
Suspicious Deaths
On April 8, 2012, a day after Mark’s 61st birthday, Springfield police received a call from his family at home saying that he was dead. According to his wife, Mark had been exhibiting flu-like symptoms, including fatigue and a lack of appetite, all week.
Diane stated that she had tried to convince him to seek medical attention from a doctor or hospital, but he refused. When she left for and returned from church, he was dead and had a ring of blood around his mouth. Diane posted an announcement of his death on Facebook to alert family and friends alongside a bible quote.
Mark’s death was ruled to have resulted from prior medical issues, and his remains were cremated. During the memorial service, some guests noticed that Diane did not seem upset at all. While the church community was expecting to care for and support a grieving widow, they received the opposite. Diane was described as aloof and unbothered. Notably, Mark’s former bandmates seemed to take the loss much harder than his widow.
Following Mark’s death, Diane Staudte sold the family’s home and purchased a more expensive home, which she and her children moved into in July 2012. On September 2, police responded to a call of a subject not breathing at the home. Once there, they located 26-year-old Shaun Staudte, who was deceased.
Upon examination, Shaun did not appear to have any injuries on him. He did, however, have a ring of dried blood around his mouth, similar to how his father, Mark, had been found. According to Diane, Shaun had been ill the previous two to three weeks and had been experiencing flu-like symptoms.
Once again, Shaun’s death was ruled to have resulted from a previous medical condition. He had died less than six months after his father in an almost identical manner. Like Mark's, Shaun’s remains were also cremated.
Unlike Mark, though, Shaun did not receive a memorial service or even an obituary, and his passing was only briefly mentioned in a Facebook post by Diane nearly three weeks after his death.
The Truth Revealed
On June 9, 2013, Diane Staudte posted a message on Facebook that read, “asking for prayers as my daughter Sarah is in critical condition in ICU tonight.” She had just brought her oldest daughter, Sarah, to the hospital. Sarah was suffering from organ failure and brain bleeding. Numerous tests were done, yet doctors were at a loss to explain her condition.
Though Diane would continue to post updates on her daughter’s condition, her behavior and demeanor at the hospital were more than a little troubling. She reportedly laughed and joked with the hospital staff and mentioned her upcoming vacation plans.
Then, on June 11, an anonymous tip to police said that Diane had poisoned her daughter, Sarah, and murdered her son, Shaun, and her husband, Mark. It turned out the tipster was the Staudte family’s church pastor, who had become suspicious due to Diane’s seeming lack of any emotion after the death of her husband and son.
Diane was brought in for questioning, and she denied any responsibility. Instead, she claimed her family was deliberately poisoning themselves with antifreeze. However, thanks to the skilled tactics of the interrogator, her story began to unravel.
She admitted to hating Mark and wanting to get rid of him. She called her autistic son “more than a pest” and resented Sarah because she had student loans and did not have a job. She admitted to poisoning Mark’s sports drinks and Shaun and Sarah’s sodas with antifreeze.
During the course of the investigation, it was learned that Diane’s middle daughter, Rachel, who was also her favorite, was also involved. Though she felt slightly guilty, Rachel was more concerned with moving into Shaun’s bedroom and getting her father’s car when they died. Investigators found Rachel’s journal, where she documented the planning and aftermath of the murders in a poetic or prose-like fashion.
One chilling passage read, “It’s sad when I realize how my father will pass on in the next two months ... Shaun, my brother, will move on shortly after.” She wrote that she felt uncomfortable being in Shaun’s room because she felt a spiritual presence there. She claimed that Sarah was aware of her mother and sister trying to get rid of her father in some way, but she did not expect them to turn on her.
Sentencing
In May 2015, Rachel Staudte pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder and one count of first-degree assault. In March 2016, she received two life sentences with the possibility of parole after 42 and a half years.
In January 2016, Diane Staudte pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder and one count of assault and was given two life sentences without the possibility of parole.
Both women have since filed appeals to vacate their pleas.
Aftermath
Sarah Staudte survived her poisoning but was left with neurological damage. She is currently living in an assisted care facility. The youngest Staudte daughter was placed in foster care. Luckily, Diane was arrested before she was harmed, as it was revealed that she was going to be poisoned as well.
In a 2022 interview with ABC, Diane Staudte claimed that she is not guilty and that her husband was mixed up with some “dangerous people” who were likely responsible. She also claims that her confession was coerced, but refuses to say by whom.
Diane Staudte is currently serving her sentence at the Chillicothe Correctional Center in Chillicothe, Missouri.
Sources:
Kettler, Sara. “How Diane and Rachel Staudte Killed Their Family With Antifreeze.” A&E, 9 November 2022, (Updated 21 August 2025), https://www.aetv.com/articles/antifreeze-murder
Gounley, Thomas. “Complicated portrait of Staudte family emerges.” Springfield News-Leader, 25 June 2013, (Updated 21 January 2016), https://www.news-leader.com/story/news/local/ozarks/2013/06/25/complicated-portrait-of-staudte-family-emerges/77165334/
Baker, KC. “Her Husband and Son Died, and She Was Emotionless: How a Mother’s Lack of Grief Exposed a Twisted Family Secret.” People, 27 April 2025, https://people.com/diane-staudte-antifreeze-murders-twisted-family-secret-11722259
“Home Sweet Murder.” ABC 20/20, 26 February 2022, https://abc.com/episode/4fad030e-75ad-4fde-8e1c-b6c0389631c9
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