Article has moderate spoilers without ruining the reveal
A new “true crime but no one dies” documentary, A Toxic Love Story, is currently the number two movie on Netflix in the US. (I watched it over the weekend when it was number one but it’s been replaced by a goofy Kevin Hart comedy.) A Toxic Love Story is a tight one-and-a-half-hour film about a 2017 crime in which a woman named Michelle Hadley was wrongfully accused of sending harassing messages to her ex-fiance, Ian Diaz, and his new wife, Angela. Angela moved into the condo that Michelle paid for and seems to take responsibility at first for sending the emails. The plot takes some shocking twists and turns before we learn what really happened. Hadley comes across as open, vulnerable and resilient. She’s still processing everything she went through in her relationship and three-month incarceration. In the nine years since her ordeal, Michelle has had a daughter, who is now three, earned an MBA, and received a settlement for an undisclosed amount of money from the city of Anaheim. Good for her! People Magazine has more:
Two years after her exoneration, Hadley sued the city of Anaheim and the Anaheim Police Department for allegedly ignoring exculpatory evidence that pointed to Angela as the architect of the scheme, per Courthouse News.
Among that evidence was data showing the Craigslist “rape fantasy” posts were created from devices at the couple’s residence that police had allegedly discovered days before Hadley’s arrest.
Though the city’s attorneys claimed in court briefs that officers had probable cause for her arrest, U.S. District Judge David Carter ruled in 2020 that any “reasonably competent investigator” would have found no probable cause after reviewing the evidence.
The city settled the suit for an undisclosed amount in April 2021.
If you like documentaries like this, I recommend Lover, Stalker, Killer, also on Netflix, although someone dies in that one obviously. In that documentary they showed the extensive forensic analysis that went into finding the source of the threatening messages, which the Anaheim PD seemingly did not do at all. They took the Diazes at their word and locked up Michelle Hadley. I hope Michelle got at least a seven-figure settlement. I’m not going to reveal the fate of the Diazes because I want people to watch this. Netflix needs to put out more tight documentaries. We’ll surely get some given the popularity of this and of Maternal Instinct. Tell us what happened and don’t make us spend six or more hours to hear the whole story. (Also, Dateline and 48 Hours need to be shorter! I enjoy true crime but barely watch those shows due to all the repetition and filler.)
Also this lady was an a-hole in denial.
And this lady was badass.
photos credit Netflix
All ill say is that female BFF was totally in love with him. Did I miss the explanation for the pregnancy tests,did they reveal what that was about?
Same – did he know the pregnancy was fake or was he in on it too?!
Oh I didn’t think about that. Maybe. It wouldn’t have been hard to tell, she was supposedly pregnant with twins, and not showing AT ALL at like 4-5 months?
She used a blue pen to fake a positive so that she could tell Ian she was pregnant with twins.
But where they in on that together also,she seems to be his puppet,im trying to figure out if that was their sub plot or it was all her doing.
This story was bonkers! And I cannot believe that they arrested Michelle without any evidence that she sent the emails or hired Rick to rape Angela. Zero evidence, just a bunch of complaints from Angela and Ian. I hope Michelle got a ton of money from the lawsuit, because that poor woman was put through so much.
She was in love with him! He was a narcissist and she was his backup. He surely had more.
She was totally in love with him. Seeing all of these women lose their minds over him had me thinking of Michael Bluth saying, “Her?”
Angela and Ian were both narcissists, and they both played each other!
OMG, I watched this yesterday and when it was over…..just “wow” SO Toxic!