After Netflix’s A Toxic Love Story, Where Are Ian Diaz and Angella Connell Now?
Following Netflix’s A Toxic Love Story, fresh court records and a rare on-the-record update shed light on where Ian Diaz and Angella Connell went next.
According to court filings and Federal Bureau of Prisons records, Ian Diaz is serving a 10-year federal sentence at FMC Fort Worth in Texas, with a projected release date listed below. He did not sit for interviews for A Toxic Love Story and declined to participate in the Netflix documentary.
Angela Connell’s path since the case wrapped has been very different. Released from California state prison in July 2020, she completed parole in July 2021, moved to Phoenix, reverted to her maiden name, and earned a master’s degree in Psychology and Justice Studies while focusing on community counseling and transformative justice work.
Diaz’s projected federal release date is January 31, 2031.
Connell now serves as Director of Peer Counseling for Exhale Pro-Voice, a textline-based reproductive justice and emotional support organization. She also works with nonprofits and government re-entry programs that support people coming home from incarceration.
How Netflix built the case
Because Diaz and Connell did not participate, director Alexandra Lacey pieced together the story from more than a decade of paper trails and on-camera material. California Public Records Act requests opened up body-camera video, interrogation-room footage, and the immediate aftermath of what authorities later called staged incidents stemming from the cyberstalking scheme that ultimately led to convictions between 2021 and 2023 and the exoneration of Michelle Hadley.
- Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General evidence: recorded calls, digital trails, Craigslist records, and IP-address investigations
- Police archives and federal case files
- Private videos and materials from former friends and people from Connell’s past
- Michelle Hadley’s personal archives: messages, photographs, and extensive on-camera interviews
- Carefully constructed dramatizations to fill in moments where no cameras existed
That mosaic explains the volume of footage in the series despite the principals’ non-cooperation: Diaz declined to participate in Netflix’s A Toxic Love Story.