It all started with an email.
When U.S. Deputy Marshal Ian Diaz first called police in the spring of 2016, he claimed he and his pregnant wife Angela Connell had been receiving countless harassing emails from an account labeled Lilithistruth. The emails,
which were sent several times a day, contained threatening language like “You must be gone,”“Ian does not love you,” “You have stolen my life,” and “Eye for an eye. ”
The messages were menacing, often describing what Connell wore to work, mentioning the regular schedules and activities she attended near their Southern California condo, and threatening to kill their unborn children. But Diaz and Connell told police they knew who the perpetrator was: Ian’s ex-girlfriend Michelle Hadley.
After speaking with police multiple times, including filing a temporary restraining order, Diaz and Conell continued to ask investigators for help. They alleged the threats now involved Hadley placing fake ads with Connell’s photos, name, and address on Craiglist, inviting men to go the home and rape her as part of a consensual fantasy. At least one man actually showed up to their home. When Connell told police she was physically attacked by a stranger responding to a rape ad, police arrested Hadley in June 2016. But when investigators began poring through Hadley’s case, what they discovered was a web of deception and manipulation that spanned years — and pointed the blame at an entirely new suspect.
Netflix’s new documentary A Toxic Love Story breaks down the history between Diaz, Connell, Hadley, and the allegations that changed all of their lives forever.
Diaz and Connell had a whirlwind romance. So did Diaz and Hadley
Before the police, before the accusations, and before any arrests, Hadley was a 26-year-old woman living near Anaheim and looking for the perfect boyfriend. She was active on dating platforms in 2013, and while scrolling one night, she matched with Diaz. The two hit it off, bonding over their shared love of Disneyland. They took trips, met friends and family, and quickly moved in together.
Hadley said the relationship quickly grew strained after Diaz revealed he had fantasies about Hadley having sex with other men in front of him. The two clashed over his desires, and Hadley eventually gave in. But the relationship continued. Hadley says she fronted the money for the down payment for a condo for them to live in together, clearing out her savings account for a home where they could watch the Disneyland fireworks. “I thought that if I let him scratch this itch, that we could move past this,” Hadley says in the documentary. “I thought if we got engaged, that maybe the relationship was going to be on the right track after this.”
Instead, Hadley said Diaz became more controlling, first trying to change the length of her nails or telling her what clothes to wear. Then he began to track her location constantly, installing security cameras inside the home and calling her if she ever strayed outside of her planned route. She called it a “rollercoaster ride,” with Diaz alternating from lavish dates to violent, screaming bouts. Once, he allegedly drove the car erratically until she was afraid for her life.
After several months, she left and headed straight to her parents house, where she said Diaz continued to stalk and harass her. So she sent him some emails.
Diaz and Connell told police Hadley was sending emails as Lilith. Technically, she did.
Following his breakup with Hadley, Diaz and Connell had their own whirlwind relationship. The two met at a Starbucks in Anaheim, California and after only a few months of knowing each other, got engaged, then married, then announced they were expecting twins. The two lived in the condo that Diaz originally bought with Hadley.
After experiencing months of harassment from Diaz, Hadley said she sent two emails full of religious imagery, including the name Lilith. According to Hadley, the Diaz’s alleged harassment and stalking had sent her into a nervous breakdown. Fearing for her and her parents’ safety, Hadley drove toward the desert and had a dissociative episode. A family found her wandering miles from her car and called paramedics. Hadley was taken to the hospital where she was diagnosed with complex PTSD from her experience with Diaz.
When police arrested Hadley and interrogated her about her emails and the meaning of Lilith, Hadley said she sent two initial emails but wasn’t responsible for the threats or rape hoaxes. But as Hadley revealed in the documentary, she believed she sent her initial two emails while she was dissociating. She wanted to tell police but she was afraid they wouldn’t believe her. So she waited in jail for her court date, hoping a lack of evidence would exonerate her.
Connell had a past history with elaborate lies
During the summer of 2013, Connell had her own love story. She met police officer Jason Rayburn at a bar in Huntington Beach and the two quickly fell in love. Connell claimed she was an attorney for the Department of Justice and she was going through Stage 4 cervical cancer.
Rayburn, family, and friends all rallied around her diagnosis. She wore wigs, scarves, and hats to hide her scalp, and used medical tape and tubing to mimic the appearance of a port. But after Rayburn pushed to attend one of her doctors’ appointments, he realized the details weren’t adding up. When Connell sent a photo of her chemotherapy meds, Rayburn found the photograph on Google from a cancer patient’s blog. After a close friend confirmed she wasn’t a patient at the medical center where they’d been dropping her off, Rayburn, along with Connell’s friends, staged an intervention. Connell denied lying. But she ran out of the room, cutting off her relationship with Rayburn and all of her friends.
Her lies about cancer resurfaced when Connell admitted to Diaz that her pregnancy was fake. After Hadley’s arrest, Diaz called afriend and told her the sonogram of the twins was fake. The two found pregnancy tests around the home that had been written on with blue markers in order to look positive.
Diaz walked back his accusations against Hadley — telling police Connell framed her
After finding out about the pregnancy lie, Diaz cooperated with police and voluntarily gave up information about their relationship — including his belief that Connell had staged her own attempted rapes. “She’s behind all this,” he said in a recorded police interview. “It seems like I’ve been sleeping with the enemy the entire time.”
On Jan. 6, 2017, Connell was arrested and later pleaded guilty to fraud, false imprisonment, and falsely reporting a crime. She was sentenced to five years in prison. Diaz annulled the marriage that April. Connell’s arrest cleared Hadley of all charges. Hadley was released after spending 88 days in jail.
“Obviously this has been a huge nightmare for me. Probably the most traumatic experience of my whole life,” Hadley told reporters while exiting the jail. “I’m glad it’s finally over and I finally get to move on with my life.” But she says in the documentary that she believed Diaz had manipulated Connell and was also in on the plot to frame her.
Investigators say Diaz used his role in law enforcement to push for Hadley’s arrest
After Connell was sentenced, Jason Higley, a criminal investigator for the Department of Justice, reviewed the case. Body camera footage captured from the multiple police visits to Diaz and Connell’s home showed Diaz coaching Connell through many of the police officer’s questions.
Higley also considered much of Diaz’s body language to be suspicious. Most of the investigation centered around the night that Diaz and Connell called police, claiming Hadley had sent an unsuspecting Craigslist user to their house to rape Connell. The man — identified under the pseudonym Rick in the documentary — said he responded to an ad for a housewife who wanted to participate in a rape fantasy. He drove to the house but felt uncomfortable and eventually left.
Diaz and Connell called police, saying they had received an email that Hadley was sending a man to their home. In the body camera footage, Diaz is seen pulling up Craigslist and clicking on Rick’s account and starting a conversation — without searching through profiles at all. He also encouraged Rick to come to the home, opening their front door and unlocking their gate. According to Higley, Diaz used his position as a U.S Marshall to curry favor with the responding officers, answering the door with his gun and brandishing his badge. When investigators searched the metadata on Diaz’s devices, they found “fragments” of the anonymous email account where the Lilith emails came from.
“This is Ian pretending to be Michelle pretending to be Angela catfishing someone to the condo,” Higley says in the documentary. “This is a very complicated case.
Diaz was arrested on May 13, 2021. In 2023, he was convicted of conspiracy, cyberstalking, perjury, and obstruction. He is still serving time. Connell was released from prison in July 2020. Her public Instagram accountdescribes her as a survivor of federal agent abuse.
Diaz sold the condo while Hadley was still in prison, and she never received her down payment back. But she sued the city of Anaheim in 2019, claiming officers found evidence that the emails and IP addresses linked to the messages came from Diaz’s own home — and arrested her anyway. Hadley and the city reached a settlement in 2021 for an undisclosed amount.
“Ian got everything he wanted, but it actually cost him his freedom,” Hadley says. “But now I’m on that other side of this journey. I gave birth to my daughter on the same day that Ian was convicted. Raising this little girl is my fairy-tale ending.”
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