Todd Michael Mullis, 43, stands trial in Dubuque County, Iowa for first-degree murder in the death of his wife Amy Mullis, 39. Prosecutors say he stabbed her to death over an alleged affair, and tried to pass it off as her accidentally falling on a corn rake. Instead, investigators claimed to find evidence that the victim feared for her safety, and that the defendant recently searched the Internet for “killing unfaithful women.”
NEW TRIAL: Jury selection begins this morning in the IA v. #ToddMullis trial. Mullis is charged with murder of his wife Amy Mullis. Amy was found on the family farm impaled by a corn rake. pic.twitter.com/F852lPPphL
— Cathy Russon (@cathyrusson) September 16, 2019
Amy Mullis was reported dead November 10, 2018, according to a Delaware County Sheriff’s Office affidavit obtained by Law&Crime. The defendant allegedly said that their 13-year-old son found the victim in a shed with the corn rake impaled on her back. He put her in the pickup truck, called 911, and the ambulance met up with them midway to the hospital. Amy Mullis was pronounced dead at the hospital.
The rake had four tines, but the victim sustained a total of six puncture wounds, authorities said. Four were at a downward angle, and two were upward, investigators claimed.
The defendant said that his wife had had surgery a couple of days before, that this was her first day out of the house, and that she seemed to be having dizzy spells. Todd Mullis alleged acknowledgedly that he learned in 2013 that his wife had had an affair. It hurt his trust in his wife, but he denied ever confronting her about another affair, authorities said. He changed his story, however, saying that he did confront her, but believed her, the other man, and that man’s wife about there not being a relationship.
Investigators said they found evidence there was an affair, and that Amy Mullis feared for her life. The other man told law enforcement they had been involved since May 2018, that Amy wanted to leave her husband, and that Amy said, “If he [Todd] catches me, he might make me disappear.”
Authorities said that Amy and Todd Mullis hadn’t even been sleeping in the same bed for five months before the death. A text message the victim sent to a friend showed that she mentioned things were tense at the time and that on the day of her death, she wrote, “Still very tense around here. Just not sure of anything anymore.”
A number of Amy Mullis’s friends and relatives told law enforcement that she said on several occasions that she worried her husband would kill her if he discovered the affair and that she wanted to divorce him.
Investigators also said they found evidence on Todd Mullis’s iPad that he searched the internet for “killing unfaithful women,” “what happens to cheaters in history,” and “what happened to cheating spouses in historic Aztec tribes.”
[Mugshot via Delaware County Sheriff’s Office]
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