Criminology - Amy Mullis

Episode Date: December 1, 2024

On November 10th, 2018, Todd Mullis called 911 as he rushed his wife, Amy, to the hospital. Amy died from her injuries, which resulted from being impaled by a corn rake or a pitchfork. Todd claimed Amy must have fainted and fallen on it causing her death. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss Amy Mullis. On its face, he did everything he could to save his wife. But just under a year later, Todd would be found guilty of her murder. Many believe the jury got it right while others believe he is protecting someone. Either way, three children no longer have a mother, and their father is spending the rest of his life in prison. You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology   An Emash Digital production

Some days call for some oomph to amplify your everyday look, like when you want the look of false lashes without the extra effort. Reach for Thrive Cosmetics Liquid Lash Volumizer Mascara. Or when you want all eyes on your smile, keep in power gloss, ultra-glossy lip serum in your bag. It's a burst of 24-hour hydration that smooths like a serum, shines like a gloss, and can be worn sheer or layered. You'll also look and feel your best with Thrive Cosmetics.

Plus, every product is 100% vegan, cruelty-free, and made with clean, skin. loving ingredients that work with your skin, not against it. And for every product purchased, Thrive Cosmetics donates to help communities thrive. So every time you use your favorite Thrive Cosmetics product, you're helping communities you care about too. Amplify your everyday. Go to ThriveCosmetics.com slash Shine 26 for an exclusive offer of 20% off your first order.

That's Thrive Cosmetics, C-A-U-S-E-M-E-T-I-C-S dot com slash Shine-26. Are you fascinated by unexplainable crimes, conspiracies, and fringe culture? Well, step into the crawl space. From tales of survival and deep fakes to synchronicities and cryptozoology, crawlspace is a podcast that brings you weekly stories of the mysterious, harrowing, and bizarre. Search Crawlspace wherever you listen to podcasts. Crawl Space, where crime meets culture. Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics.

Listener discretion is advised. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 336 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Mr. Morford. How you doing, buddy? I'm doing good. I'm thinking about Thanksgiving tomorrow. This episode's coming out right after Thanksgiving, but I hope I hope everyone. everyone had a happy Thanksgiving, but we're talking about what we're going to eat and getting a little bit of hungry here. What's going on with you? Yeah, my whole family is getting ready.

And, um, you know, I really like Thanksgiving for a number of different reasons. First of all, I love any occasion where I have permission to basically eat as much as I want to. You know, I like that. But most of all, I know my whole family is going to be together. under one roof. And, you know, for us, that just doesn't happen as much anymore. Yeah, I like that too. I like getting together with the family, having everybody there catching up. And then watching some football and then, of course, taking the nap after the, uh, the turkey chemicals kick in. Yeah, after the turkey kicks in. So yeah, it's all good stuff. And then it's also hard to believe that we're officially less than 30 days away from Christmas. I mean, time is really flying by.

Yeah, it is, and that means that we're that much closer to CrimeCon 2025. If you have a true crime fan on your holiday list, maybe surprise them with passes to CrimeCon. CrimeCon 2025 is happening September 5th through 7th at the Gaylord's Rocky Resort and Convention Center. And if you want to save some money, head over to CrimeCon.com and use our promo code criminology at checkout. That will save you 10% on your standard badges. So before we get started with this episode, just an update on a pretty big case we covered back in episode 277. That was the 1980 disappearance of Charles and Catherine Romer. They vanished in Georgia along with their Lincoln Town car.

It seems that the car and the remains have just been recovered from a pond within eye shot of their hotel that they were staying at. Very interesting developments and it's good to see that that's happened and we're seeing some movement. We'll have to see what else police are able to piece together. But it's a four-decade-old case. And if anyone hasn't listened to that episode yet, they can go back and listen or maybe if, even if they have, maybe relisten with the latest news reports to help piece together what may have happened. And you know, more of you and I have done so many cases over the years. Some solved, some unsolved. When you talk about some of the unsolved cases, you many of them, we don't have.

have any updates on. We don't get much in the way of updates on. But when we do get one, you know, it's a big deal. You know, a lot of these episodes, people invest their own time into studying. And so, you know, the updates for them become very huge. Yeah, it's good for those families that have been waiting for answers for so long to finally get some. So we'll just have to wait and see what the recoveries, if anything, uncovered. So now that we have all that out of the way, it's time to jump into this week's case. We're talking about the death of Amy Mullis, a death that by all appearances seemed at first like it could have been a farming accident.

But the closer police looked, the more doubts they had, her husband Todd was ultimately convicted of her murder. But there are some people that think he's an innocent man in prison while others think he's right where he belong. On November 10, 2018, Todd Mullis called 911 as he rushed his wife, Amy, to the hospital. While he spoke to the dispatcher and focused on driving, their 13-year-old son, Tristan, tried to comfort his mother. The Mullis family lived on a farm in Earlville, Iowa, and Amy was the victim of an apparent farming accident. she had been impaled by a large four-pronged pitchfork. By the time they were on their way to the hospital,

she was unconscious and unresponsive. Neither Todd nor Tristan could find a pulse, and Amy wasn't breathing. When the dispatcher asked Todd if he was comfortable trying to perform CPR, he desperately cried, I'll try anything. To the dispatcher, Todd sound panicked and confused by this situation like someone in shock over what happened when he, tells the dispatcher what happened. He doesn't have a concrete answer, but he knew he had to pull a corn rake out of her. And she already hadn't been feeling well that day. So his first thought was that she

must have fallen or fainted and landed on it. As soon as he found her, he tried to rush her to the hospital and he followed all of the dispatcher's directions. On its face, he did everything he could to save his wife. But just under a year later, Todd would be found guilty of her murder. Many believe the jury got it right, while others believe he is protecting someone. Either way, three children no longer have a mother and their father is spending the rest of his life in prison. And obviously more if we're going to get into all the details, you know, of this case.

But, you know, when you just take the first part of it, a husband called, calls 911 and says that his wife has been impaled by this large pitch for it. I mean, it sounds gruesome. But it also, I think to the dispatcher and many people, sounds like it could have been a farming accident. Yeah. I think most people know that around the farms, you have all kinds of different tools and implements, things that can be dangerous. I spent a little bit of time hanging around on farms and even worked on a farm a little bit as a teenager. And everywhere you turned, there were all kinds of things that you could hurt yourself on. So definitely an area that you have to be careful around.

Todd Mullis was arrested on February 28, 2019, just a little over three months after Amy's death. There was no physical evidence tying Todd to Amy's murder presented at the trial, but there was plenty of circumstantial evidence and electronic data. There were also plenty of lies and affairs that were revealed. The lying started as soon as Todd spoke to investigators. When Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation Special Agent Turbett spoke to Todd, he told him that he and Amy had a very healthy marriage. Despite what investigators were told, Todd and Amy did not have a flawless marriage.

The couple met at the Delaware County Fair in 2003, and things moved quickly between them. On September 11, 2004, they married, and they went on to have a half-year-old. have three kids together, a boy, a girl, and another boy. So there are a couple of things here that kind of stand out to me. First off, they got married on September 11th, which, you know, some may view as strange. Maybe they were very, very patriotic and they, they saw that as a symbol. I don't know. But what I really wanted to talk about was, you know, cases coming down to circumstantial

evidence and a lot of times electronic data. We see that so often. It seems like in many of the cases that are tried throughout the country, there's a lack of physical evidence. And many people are convicted on mostly circumstantial evidence. I've noticed that. Yeah, I think in a lot of TV shows, you see that they wrap up the case and they find all the evidence and they present it in court and it's an open and shut case justice is served but it seems in real life that a lot of times they don't have a lot of physical evidence so a lot of times they have to build a case on circumstantial evidence and in this instance we're going to see there's a lot of that in 2013 Amy had an affair with a co-worker at regional medical center.

The hospital in Manchester, Iowa, where she was a nurse in the emergency room, eventually Todd discovered the affair. The two entered couples counseling together and seemed to be able to work everything out or at least move on. According to the court file, Todd told Amy's stepmother, Eileen, I'm not going to lose my farm and what I've worked for. Amy quit her job at the hospital and spent all her time. at home, tending the farm and taking care of the children. Starting around May 2018, Amy began having another affair, and once again, it was technically

with a co-worker. This time, it was with Jerry Frasher, a married father of two who managed the hog operation on Todd's farm. Jerry told the Des Moines Register, I know she wasn't happy, explaining that she felt like a slave or a hostage around there. According to Jerry, Todd admitted that he needed to know where Amy was at all times. Amy's friend Patricia Christensen added that she wasn't happy and hadn't been happy for many years. Todd discovered the affair between Amy and Jerry and July when he was looking over a cell phone bill and noticed that they were texting each other a lot. Todd asked Jerry about it and he denied any kind of relationship. According to Jerry, their texts were just about the farm and their kids,

and that was it. Todd didn't believe Jerry and even texted Jerry's wife. about it, but she said it was probably nothing in that she trusted her husband. Todd apologized to both Amy and Jerry and dropped it. But he did ask Amy and Jerry to stop texting each other so he could get it out of his mind. They did. But instead of texting, they made new email accounts so that they could stay in contact and continue the affair. Jerry, though, wanted to slow down. But the affair didn't get a chance to slow down or end. Things simply ended. when Amy died. At the time of Amy's death,

her and Todd had been sleeping in separate beds for five months. The fact that Todd didn't mention either affair to detectives was a glaring red flag. He was obviously hiding any motive he could potentially have to kill his wife and was trying to cast suspicion away from himself. But according to Todd, this was a tragic accident, not a case of him murdering his wife. And he wasn't told that they were investigating the case as a homicide for six days after Amy's death. So as we break this case down more, I mean, I think you have to talk about the affairs. Affairs happen.

A lot of people have them. A lot of couples have gone through, you know, a situation like this where an affair is discovered, it's revealed. and the couple has to make a decision on whether or not, first of all, the affair is going to end. And then I think secondly, can they work through it? Can they get past it? And do they even want to try? Yeah, and I think the affairs are certainly, we're getting into motive territory. That could easily be a motive for Todd to murder his wife.

but then again, there's a lot of couples that have affairs and work their way through it. As you said, there's no violence involved. A person doesn't knock their spouse off. They work things out. Or they sometimes even get divorced and go there several ways. It doesn't always lead to violence. No, it certainly doesn't always lead to violence. I think what it does often lead to is the person being cheated on having a, a

real tough time having that same level of trust, right, with their partner. And we kind of talked about it. You know, in this second affair where Amy and Jerry were texting each other, it was said that Todd was very leery of that. Now, would he have been leery anyway? Or was he more Leary knowing that Amy had had an affair earlier on. Yeah, it certainly wouldn't build the level of trust, if anything, it would make his trust probably less. Even if Todd was completely innocent and just afraid that admitting to some trouble in their marriage would make authorities think it could be a murder and focused their investigation on him, lying to them about this could have prevented police from learning about or looking at any affair

partners to see if they would have had a motive to kill Amy. and maybe more importantly, an alibi. Todd, omitting the information about the affairs, could hinder the investigation, even if he had nothing to do with his wife's death. And obviously, we all know that the husband is going to be looked at in a situation where police even remotely think it could have been a homicide. Investigators had to find motive.

And as we talked about, certainly the affairs Amy had could be motive for Todd to want her dad, but they also dug deeper to see if there could be any other motives not as obvious. It turns out that there was also some tension when it came to how much weight Amy pulled around

the farm. In October of 2018, Amy's uncle suffered a brain bleed and she would frequently travel to his home to help him. This caused periods of time where she would be away from the farm, the kids, and Todd.

text from Todd's phone show that he wasn't happy with Amy. Messages like Amy hasn't done any farm shorts and maybe does half the housework. That month, Todd's mother accused Amy of spending too much time away from the farm. This was also the month that while Amy was caring for her uncle, Todd recalls finding the corn rake in the grass. He put it in the red shed where he insists Amy later fell on. If Amy wasn't taking care of her part of things in Todd's mind, would that be motive enough to kill her? Amy had an outpatient surgical procedure on November 6th. As far as we can tell from what is described in court records, this was an endometrial ablation, which according to Hopkins Medicine.org, is a procedure to remove a thin layer of tissue that lines the uterus in order to stop or reduce heavy menstrual bleeding.

after this procedure, which can take anywhere from a few days to two weeks to recover from, Amy had a lift restriction of 10 pounds recommended, meaning she couldn't pick up anything weighing more than 10 pounds. This may have further affected what she could do around the farm. And I asked the question, Morve, you know, could this Amy not pulling her weight around the farm, be motive enough for Todd to want to kill her? it seems like a strange motive for murder. The one thing I do know is that there is a lot of work to be done on any type of farm.

It is go, go, go, work, work, you know, early to bed, early to rise. I mean, you can use all the cliches, but there's a lot of work to be done on a working farm. Yeah, farm life isn't one where you can sit around and put stuff off and, say I'll do it next week or when I get around to it, the stuff on the farm requires hard work usually every day. So I think you're right. This is a situation where they had to put a lot of effort in to keep up with things. But for me, you know, when I think about a husband and wife who are supposed to love each other, it's always hard to believe that, you know, someone could kill their spouse. We know it happens all the time, but to think about it occurring because one half

believes that the other is not doing enough around the house or around the farm. That's a tough one. On November 10th, the last day of Amy's life, she was with Todd and Tristan doing farm chores. She was still recovering from her surgery, but she felt well enough to have. help out cleaning the light bulbs, which required her to stand on a five-gallon bucket to reach them. Todd and Tristan were planning to do all the chores anyway. It needed to be done before the piglets were born, and Amy just decided to join them. Todd claimed that Amy wanted to help that day, and that she insisted even when he told her to take it easy. But in emails to Jerry that morning, Amy didn't sound very enthusiastic about it. According to court transcript,

she wrote to Jerry, do you know what I'm doing today? Cleaning fucking light fixtures in the bar. WTF. This was her first day, really out and about since the surgery, and it showed. According to Todd and Tristan, Amy was weak and experiencing dizzy spells. Eventually, Todd told Amy to go lay down. Before she went inside, he asked her to grab a pet carrier and either take it to their shop building, or if it was too heavy, put it outside of the shed for him. There were feral

kittens on the property. He wanted a trap, so he wouldn't run over them with their heavy equipment. After Amy headed inside, they continued to work in the barn for another hour and a half or so, before Todd noticed that the pet carrier wasn't where he had asked Amy to leave it when she went inside. According to Todd, this is what made him concern for her well-being, so he told Tristan to go to the shed and look for his mom. According to both Tristan and Todd, they were working together the whole time. But it seems that the nature of the tasks they described doing that day makes them being together the whole time impossible. Todd was inside the barn, setting up nipple feeders for soon-to-be baby piglets, and Tristan was moving heaters from their storage space into the barn.

They would have naturally been apart, though likely still close to each other on the property at different points in their chores. Tristan would later admit that he did lose sight of his dad when he went into the front office and in the barn to drink water a few times, but says it was never for very long. All it would have taken for Todd to kill Amy was a few minutes, just long enough for him to run the length of a football field, attack Amy, and run back in time to not be missed by Tristan. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency. We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer.

For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020. Blood and Water. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts. Whatever happened to Amy, it was her son Tristan, who found her lying on the ground face down inside the shed. A large pitchfork, or what's called a corn rake, was sticking out of her back. He screamed for his father, who came running. Todd ordered Tristan to grab their pickup truck and remove the pitchfork prongs from Amy's back.

He then put Amy on top of Tristan, who was in the passenger seat, before jumping into the driver's seat and heading to the hospital. Neither Todd nor Tristan called 911 before getting into the truck. According to CBS news, Todd later said that he didn't think to call 911 right away because, in his words, he was a doer. It's a 15-minute drive from their farm to the hospital. At 12.01 p.m., Todd finally made the call while he was driving. He described what, in his mind, must have been an accident. No one knew what happened, but they had to pull the corn rake out of her back. And now she wasn't breathing.

He pulled over about halfway to the hospital, as instructed by the dispatcher, and an ambulance met them. They transferred Amy from the pickup truck, and she was taken to Regional Medical Center in Manchester, where she had once worked. Sadly, she was pronounced dead on arrival by her former co-workers. Almost immediately, it was clear that not everything at the scene was adding up. Amy had six puncture wounds from the pitchfork, but it only had four prongs on her. it. She would have had to fall onto the rake at least twice for this to even be possible. Both of the falls had to have had the same force or pull, too, because you can fall on something sharp and only get a bruise, or a cut, but the wounds from the prongs on the pitchfork were deep.

Her long and liver were punctured, and two of the prongs had gone all the way through her chest, causing an exit wound and rupturing her breast implant. The blows came from different directions, with some of the wounds having an upward angle, and some of them, having a downward angle. According to a Manchester press article, medical examiner Dr. Kelly Cruz said Amy was struck at least twice, possibly three times, with the corn rake. Tristan said he found his mom on her hands and knees, face down, with the rake sticking up out of her back. So the question became, how could she have fallen onto the pitch for twice? If it was above her, Todd did mention in his 911 call that it was.

almost like Amy had tried to crawl out of the shed after she had been impaled, but she just didn't make it. But Todd said he had to remove the pitch for her to get her out of the shed because the space was so narrow. How would an injured and dying Amy have enough room and really enough strength to turn herself over in that small shed? There were also other injuries on Amy's body that indicated some kind of struggle. She had defensive wounds on one of her hands and there was blunt force trauma to her chin cheek and ear. So more if I think we have to break this down because this really is a huge part of the case. Now you have Todd saying that, well, Amy must have fallen onto this pitchfork. This must have been an accident. But then the

medical examiner comes out with what is probably some pretty damn. amming information, right? The pitchfork had four prongs, but Amy had six puncture wounds. And I think a lot of people listening are probably wondering, you know, how do you fall accidentally backwards onto a pitchfork? I think in your mind, it's a, it's a tough one to kind of envision. You know, we've all grown up watching. cartoons where, you know, someone steps on a rake or a pitchfork or whatever and the handle

jumps up and hits them in the face. But you think about a pitchfork, the prongs are not at a 90 degree angle, right? There's a curve to them. And it's more flat than, than upright in the curve. So you would think if you fell backwards, onto a pitchfork that was lying on the ground, the handle would just kind of raise up. It's hard to envision being impaled in the way that has been described. Yeah, well, you would have to think almost that the pitchfork was inverted and sticking up out of the ground at a straight angle so that if somebody did fall on it,

it would puncture her the way that, you know, the wounds showed. So it's kind of hard to imagine a situation where that rake could be at that angle and her have this happen. One thing I thought was interesting, if there were four prongs on the rake but six punctures, that that would mean to me that if she was stabbed with the pitchwork, that somehow some of the holes were hit again in the exact same spot as the first one, which I, which I think is kind of interesting. But the holes, you know, in my mind, if she was stabbed twice, there could be as many as eight holes in her. The fact that there's six makes it seem like some of the

holes were penetrated in the exact same spot again. Yeah, either that or if there was a second stabbing than only two of the prongs hit and the other two didn't maybe. I don't know. I mean, again, this is a pretty mysterious case and we have more mysteries to come. But this is obviously the biggest one. Did Amy fall on this pitchfork and did she fall on it twice? I think for many people, that's a tough one to believe. Todd telling Tristan specifically to go, look in the shed is one of the circumstances that many people think point to his guilt. He needed it to look like an accident, so he needed Tristan to find her, so that he could seem completely uninvolved and put on an act. When Amy was discovered in that shed, it was long after

she should have already been inside the house. The pet carrier not being down could have meant Amy changed her mind and decided to head straight inside the house without doing this task, which would be understandable if she wasn't feeling well. It also could have meant, she tried, but in her weak in state she wasn't able to lift it. So she decided to go inside and rest. To tell Tristan, to go look for her in the shed, seems like it is to assume that something has happened to her and that she's still inside that shed. Directing Tristan to the shed was probably Todd's most damning error. And I see what people are pointing out here, a lot of people, right? This does come up in many cases. The perpetrator wants someone else.

to find the victim so that the perpetrator can then make it look as though they had no idea what was going on. Someone else found them and they craft a response to that situation. But many people think that Todd specifically instructing Tristan where to look means that he knew exactly where Amy was. So from the physical evidence, it seems Amy was attacked, Tristan didn't see his dad, Todd, do it, and stated he was only away from Todd for a few minutes. But what if somehow Todd didn't do it? Could someone else have?

As we said in the beginning of the episode, there are those who believe that Todd Mullis is innocent. And if he is, he may be protecting his son Tristan. by taking the fall. According to Todd, Tristan was aware of the affair Amy once had with her co-worker, and it had actually bonded the father and son. At Todd's trial, Tristan was asked about a time that he came home from school to see Amy crying. This was late summer or early fall in 2018, so not long before her death, Todd explained to Tristan

that they were arguing because she was talking to another man. could Tristan have attacked and killed his own mom, perhaps out of fear that she would break up the family? Tristan hasn't been charged at all in relation to his mom's death. And any mention of him possibly being responsible is just part of the theories that, you know, some people put forth. Thinking about this theory, though, that Todd covered for his son Tristan after Tristan killed Amy, with his young age, it's possible Tristan could have received the least. sentence. It would have made more sense for Tristan to cover for Todd than it would have for Todd to cover for him. Todd's attorney told the telegraph Harold, to believe Mr. Mullis murdered Mrs.

Mullis, one must also believe that children were in a conspiracy with her father to cover up Mrs. Mullis's murder. It's meant to sound outlandish, but it has happened before. Despite doubts by some people that Todd is guilty of murdering his wife, there are multiple conversations Amy had with friends that strongly suggests the right person is in prison. According to the Dyersville news, one of her friends told detectives that just months before her death, Amy said that if Todd found out she was having another affair, he would, quote, throw her to the pigs. Some of her friends would jokingly call her POT wife, with POT standing for prisoner of Toth. Near the end of August, she told a friend that,

if anything happened to her, they should look for her body in a wooded area. She and Todd had recently purchased. Amy also feared Todd would kill her and told her friend that in the event she was ever found dead, suspiciously that it would be Todd, who was responsible saying, you'll know Todd did something to me. And, you know, this does come up every now and where one spouse tells a friend or multiple friends. If anything ever happens to me, my spouse did it. And, you know, every time I hear that, Morp, I'm blown away. I just can't imagine being in a relationship where you could even think that your spouse could

possibly murder you. I guess it's just not the type of relationship I have and the type that I think most people have. Yeah, and I think all of us maybe have joked one time or, you know, about knocking off their significant other. You know, my wife has just joked about that with me. I've joked about that with her. But if there was ever anything going on between a married couple and there was a situation where there were bad feelings, bad, bad blood, things weren't going good in the marriage, and somebody made that statement, it takes on a whole different meaning. It's not just joking around. You can see why that was

taken serious. Even mutual friends of the couple feared what Todd's reaction would be to news of another affair. According to court documents, one friend warned Amy, you're putting yourself in a really dangerous situation because Todd is just the person you don't mess with. She added that Todd is going to kill you. In the late summer, Amy called her friend and former co-worker Deb Sherbring. Deb told the Manchester Press, she was crying hard. She was very upset. Amy begged Deb to squash any rumors she may hear of an affair.

And we know more from all the research that we've done, that historically the most dangerous time for a woman is when she leaves her partner. Amy was making solid plans to move out and leave. Eve Todd. Her brother, Jeff Fuller, told detectives that he was storing some furniture at his house for her that she planned to use in her new place once she left. She was afraid to leave him, though. According to court documents, Amy told Jerry, the man she was having an affair with, if he catches me, he might make me disappear. Amy's stepmother, Eileen, disclosed that an angry Todd Mullis was clear that he wasn't going to lose the farm over this.

Amy believed that she would receive $2 million as part of a trust and would become sole owner of half of the property on the farm. Todd was facing having to pay Amy even more to operate his farm going forward. Todd was passionate about farming. Amy worked in health care. As a nurse in the emergency room department, her passion was likely helping people. Todd, who purchased his first farm in 1999, had, a farm for years before he even met Amy, which was in 2003. She moved in with him and they lived together on his farm.

Farming was clearly his thing, not hers. Todd's father and both of his brothers were also farmers. They all had their own farms within a few miles of each other. Though Amy was willing to help out with the operation, it wasn't her dream like it was for Todd. And I do think this is an important part. of the equation. You know, how many times have we seen when it typically is a male in the relationship feels like they're going to lose a big chunk of themselves, meaning money, property, visitation

rights, parental rights. These are clearly motives for a lot of the crimes that we talk about. And it's this, for me, kind of, you know, Todd is all in on farming. Could he have felt threatened enough that he was losing his farm or would lose part of it, that he would commit murder? Todd really put it best himself. According to court transcripts, Todd said, I have worked for this farm since I was 11, and I will not give it up. Fear of losing the farm or part of it.

was another possible motive. The farm was worth millions of dollars. Todd was well aware that if he and Amy divorced, he would risk losing the farm, whether immediately because they had to split their assets, or down the road, because with child support, alimony, and potential payments for use of her portion of the farmland,

he wouldn't be able to afford to keep it running. So now there were two major potential motives for Todd to kill his wife. First was the affair she had, and second was the possibility of losing the farm to Amy. Police continued the search for evidence against Todd. They looked at his search history on his devices to see if they could find evidence that Amy's murder was planned. Todd's iPad, which was found in his tractor, had some interesting searches in the history. According to court transcripts, there were some more generic searches, which could be innocent, despite their topic, searches like thrill of the kill and thrill of the hunt.

there was something specific being looked for here. As evidenced by another search, famous quote, no thrill like that of hunting man. This could be Todd or whoever was making these searches, trying to find a certain movie or remember a full quote, and be completely unrelated to Amy's death. The searches aren't exactly how to hunt man or I want to kill to see if it's thrilling,

which would be more shocking, on their own, but when paired with the context of his wife's murder and other searches that were made like killing unfaithful women and what to do with large open chest wounds, they become more concerning. It's hard to know how relevant these searches really are to Amy's death. Some of them date back to before Amy's affair with Jerry ever started when everything was supposed to be fine between Amy and Todd due to the couple's counseling they were going to. According to Court TV, at 304 in the morning on Christmas 2017, there was a search for was killing more accepted centuries ago.

On January 5, 2018, there was a search for characteristics of cheating woman. Just before 3 in the morning, someone clicked on an article about infidelity stats. A few minutes later, they clicked on a Psychology Today article about women who cheat. Minutes later, they were reading about six traits almost every cheating woman has. and 16 facts about cheating women. Then there were Google searches. What did ancient cultures do to infidelity? And did ancient cultures kill adulterers?

And I think, you know, there might be some people split on these searches. I think an argument could be made that, you know, this is a husband who was cheated on, who is worried about that, possibly being cheated on again, and is kind of fixated on reading articles about the traits of cheating women. I mean, to me, this is a far crime from, you know, how do you plan a murder? How do you get rid of a body?

These are not the most incriminating internet searches that we've talked about. Yeah, I can see your point. On one hand, it could be Todd is just trying to cope with the, the affair that Amy had had and he's trying to figure out how to get past it, how to, you know, maybe make sure it doesn't happen again. But on the other hand, it could also appear that he's just hung up on it and doesn't trust her and thinks she's going to cheat again. And he's just obsessed with with finding out whether or not she's cheating.

Now, these searches were made months before the relationship between Amy and Jerry became sexual and a few days before the thrill of the kill. searches. A quick Google search shows that the quote that was likely being searched for is often attributed to Ernest Hemingway. Though it doesn't appear in any of his work, days after those searches, someone was searching for how to make sure your kids are yours and test to show if your biological father. Again, these were in the 3 o'clock a.m. hour. Shortly after this, DNA test, Casting.com was visited when there was a search for how to test DNA at home. Oddly, there was a search for how to do a DNA test without the father known.

These searches were done on the iPad, but it doesn't seem Todd had exclusive use of the iPad as there were searches for wedding dresses and the use of Pinterest. I just want to point out one thing that seems odd to me, these 3 a.m. searches. most farmers get up at the crack of dawn. They've got to get ready. They're out the door as soon as it's laid out. So for Todd to be up at 3 a.m. doing these searches to me kind of seems odd.

You think that would be when he'd be sleeping because you'd have to be up in a couple hours. Well, maybe that's when he got up. Maybe he went to bed really early, got up at 3, he was drinking his coffee, and doing his internet searching. I don't know. According to Law and Crime.com, there was also a search for crimes of passion. On May 10, 2018, there was a search on the iPad for what happened to cheating spouses in historic Azteg tribes.

This is the same day of the search for killing unfaithful women that led someone to click on the New York Times article from 1994 titled, Punishment is 18 months for killing cheating wife. Could this have been the catalyst? If Todd read these articles, perhaps figuring 18 months wasn't so bad if he was charged and found guilty. On November 6th, 2019, just four days before Amy was killed, there was a search on the iPad for organs in the body. Diagrams of the body were viewed after this, perhaps almost like someone wanted to know how to aim a corn rig to strike vital organs. as far as Todd using the iPad to search for all these troubling things. There's a piece of information from one of Todd's friends

that indicates that Todd would have known better than to use his iPad for those searches. This friend told police that Todd told him shortly after Amy's death. You really have to watch what you text on your phone because it could come back to bite you. Those that believe Todd is innocent ask the question, Why would Todd search for things about murdering, cheating spouses if he was planning to kill his adulterous wife and wanted to get away with it? And I think that's a great question.

To me, though, we've seen time and time again. People make these types of searches on, you know, their electronic equipment with seemingly little. guard for the fact that these types of searches are easily recoverable. It's almost as if they either don't know or they don't care or they're not thinking straight because their mind is solely focused on one thing. And maybe Todd thought that the police definitely searched his phone. So perhaps he thought he could do it on this iPad and hide the iPad or they wouldn't know about it and he might not ever have the search results come back to haun him.

For what it's worth, detectives didn't just focus on Todd alone and refused to believe that anyone else could be responsible. Investigators also looked into Jerry Frasher, in case something had soured between him and Amy that could have potentially led to him being responsible for her murder. According to the Manchester Press, Patricia Christopherson, a friend of Amy's, said that Amy said she was done with Todd, and Todd, talked about wanting to be married with Jerry eventually. Jerry was a married father. He had a wife and kids, a family of his own. While Amy may have been done with Todd and dreaming of a future with Jerry, he might not have felt the same way about her. Maybe he wasn't done with his wife and didn't see

a long-term future with Amy. Their affair had caused him issues at work, with Todd being suspicious. And now his wife had been alerted to the relationship. It could have been causing more trouble than it was worth to him, and it could have given him a motive to murder Amy. Jerry had an alibi. However, he was out of town. The day Amy died, his phone wasn't just pinging somewhere else. It was actively being used. You could argue that he could have enlisted someone else to help him create a false

alibi and use his phone while he went to the Mullis property. But this creates issues of its own. Both Tristan and Todd were also home and active on. on the property, neither one saw Jerry or any sign of anyone else at the farm. And while Jerry may have known that they would be home that day and even that they may have planned to work in the barn that day, he wouldn't know that Todd would ask her to go to the red shed where he would have needed to be lying in wait to attack her. As far as we know, Amy wasn't pressuring Jerry about leaving his wife.

When she started talking about really leaving Todd, she was ready to do it by herself, according to one of the couple's mutual friends. It was not so much anymore she would leave for Jerry, but she would leave on her own. So I think the police did the right thing here in looking at Jerry, because anytime you have an affair, it's not always the spouse of the person that's married that might be a suspect, but the person in the relationship that's having the affair may feel jilted, or as we talked about, maybe they felt pressured that their family was going to be destroyed. So the police had to make sure Jerry wasn't involved, but from everything that they could gather, he had no involvement. And it was pretty clear that he couldn't have done this.

Well, and I think especially when it came out that Todd had made Jerry's wife aware. of what was going on. The police have to look at Jerry as a possibility. And it sounds like they did and they rolled him out. Despite Todd Mullis always claiming it was a terrible accident that took Amy's life. He was arrested on February 28, 2019, just a little over three months after Amy's death. And he was charged with her murder despite no hard physical evidence linking him to her death.

And there were no eyewitnesses. At trial, Todd took the stand. and during cross-examination, he agreed that Amy's death was not an accident and that someone had stabbed her multiple times with the pitchwork. He could not think of anyone, even as he sat on the stand at his own trial, who would have wanted to kill Amy, including Jerry. One big thing that came up at trial was what prosecutors claimed Todd whispered during the 911 call.

According to prosecutors, Todd whispered cheating whore and go to hell cheating whore, to Amy. The recording is not that clear, and we didn't hear anything that definitively sounded like those words. While Todd was driving to the hospital, the dispatcher told him to pull over and meet an ambulance that was en route. In the time between pulling over and the ambulance getting to them, Todd performed CPR. What the state said was cheating whore could have been three, four, as he counted the compressions out loud. Something that many people find suspicious is that there was a camera surveillance system on the farm property, but no footage from the day Amy died.

One of the cameras had no footage from October 29th and after, but did have footage from November 11th and every day until the system was seized by authorities. There was no proof that anything was deleted from the camera system, but it didn't look good for Todd. He claimed that cats on the property, trying to warm up, had likely knocked the receiver over, which he didn't notice until he was told to check the cameras after Amy's death. Todd not thinking to check his own surveillance system for an intruder or for any clues as to what happened to Amy just makes it seem like he knew there wouldn't be anything to see.

And again, we're talking about a lot of circumstantial stuff here. But, you know, when you put yourself in the position of Todd Molls and your wife dies, and you know you have a surveillance camera system on the property. You're grieving, yes, all of that. But at some point pretty quickly, wouldn't you want to check and see what the surveillance camera footage showed? Maybe it showed an attacker.

Maybe it just showed Amy's movements and would help put the pieces together. sometimes it's the absence of something that can help tell a story, the not doing of something. And in this example, it's Todd not checking the video surveillance system that makes many people suspicious of him. And, you know, not to stick up for Todd, but it could have been a case where he's overlooked it, not thinking of doing that. and the police are the ones that brought it up to him that he should check it. So it's easy to point fingers at him for not checking it,

but it just may not have been something he was thinking about after this happened. Well, I think it's a great point, right? A husband could be in grief, not thinking maybe as clearly as they would on a normal day or in a normal situation. But nevertheless, it's something for the jury to consider. And they have a lot to consider. A jury found Todd Mullis guilty on September 26, 2019, after about two days of deliberation. Todd told the judge, I was a faithful and loving husband, and I never did this.

Iowa District Court judge Thomas Bitter, sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole. the sentence required by law for this crime. Amy's family launched a civil suit against Todd in 2020 seeking damages for her wrongful death and appealed filed by Todd in 2022 was denied. In April 2023, it was reported by KCRG.com that Todd Mullis filed a motion for a new trial due to evidence of material facts not previously presented and heard. that requires vacation of the conviction. One of the reasons Todd wants a new trial is because he claims he never believed.

This was a murder and wanted to argue at trial what really happened, that it was an accident. But his attorney didn't listen. His attorney told the jury that Amy was the victim of a vicious homicide. His argument was that the homicide was not committed by Todd, not that it never happened. And I think this is one of the. dangers of putting your client on the stand, why a lot of defense attorneys never do that, because things can be twisted or the person that's on the stand could slip and say something that damages their case.

Well, and obviously, you're opening them up to cross-examination in a way that they wouldn't be if they were not put on the stand by the defense. Now we see all types of things come up as reasons for appeal, you know, ineffective assistance of counsel. That's a biggie. This is one that, you know, is a little different for me. Todd is saying he thought this was an accident all along. But his attorney went with, this was a homicide. It just wasn't committed by Tom. But what I'm still struggling with Morph is how could this have been an accident? You know, four prongs on the pitchfork, six puncture wounds. How was this pitchfork arranged so that even if Amy was dizzy had fallen that this thing punctured her in the back in a way that killed her?

and punctured her repeatedly more than once. I'm just struggling to envision a scenario in which this could have been an accident. And if it wasn't an accident and was murder, there were only two people on the farm that day. And there's no evidence that anybody snuck in somehow undetected while they were working, killed Amy and then snuck away, were able to get away Scott Free, that's not very likely. So if it is a case of murder, then it seems like it would have to be most likely Todd.

Todd Mullis is currently incarcerated at the Iowa State Penitentiary in Fort Madison, Iowa. He still maintains his innocence. It's been reported that three Mullis children are with Amy's family. This is a tragedy for their kids because now they have neither of their parents, and they have to deal with the knowledge that their father killed their mom. Again, though, there are some people that believe Todd Mullis is innocent. It remains to be seen what will happen as far as appeals, and if any new pertinent information will come to light.

For many people, it's clear that Todd murdered his wife. The issue some people wrestle with is the what? Was it because Amy had had affairs? If that was the case, why not just divorce her rather than murder her and give up your freedom. But, you know, sometimes these cases don't make sense. You can look at cases where husbands made the terrible decisions to murder their wives when they could have simply left them and started over.

You see it in a lot of high profile cases. Sometimes it just doesn't make sense that this outcome is what happens, but sadly it happens more than we'd like to think. So, you know, I asked the question, was it because Amy had affairs? I think the other question is, was it because Todd found out that Amy was planning on leaving him? And he was so worried about what was going to happen to the farm in the case of a divorce.

You know, would it have to be sold? Would he have to pay Amy for her share? Would he be able to do that? and still operate the farm. There's alimony, child support, all of these things to take into consideration. And we never know every piece of evidence that the jury hears in a case. But obviously at the end of the day, a jury of his peers convicted Todd Mullis. So they believed that he murdered Amy.

And the one thing is, clear this marriage had problems, whether you support Todd or think he's guilty. There clearly were issues in this marriage where he had motive, you know, financially, the affairs, whatever it may be. And also, Amy was telling people she was worried about her safety and if anything happened to her to where to look for her body. So I always asked myself in these things. cases, if there's that much unhappiness and lack of trust in a relationship, I wonder why some people stay in it for that long until, you know, up to a point where it leads to this kind of outcome. Well, I think it's easier said than done to extricate yourself from some of these

situations, right? You have children. You're married. And, and we said it, right? A lot of times it's the moment that someone leaves or when they make the decision to leave that can often be the most dangerous time. And that could be what happened here. I think what draws many to this case is obviously there are some strange facets to it. The fact that Amy was impaled by this pitch for it to her back. Not once, but multiple times. You know, it doesn't scream out accident. You add that with the affairs, the things you just talked about, her telling friends that, hey, if I'm ever found dead, it's most likely Todd. And my body is probably going to be in this wooded area. I mean, people don't tell their friends those type of things unless they're worried.

or unless they're really going through some things. Yeah, and we'll never know all the details about what happened, what conversations there were between them. But at the end of the day, I feel really bad for the kids because they've got one parent that's dead and one that's in prison for the rest of his life. And not just that, but Tristan had to find his mom like that.

And if Todd did this, then it makes him extra, makes him an extra terrible person to let his son find his mom like that. And not just let, but direct, right? He directed his son to go look in a place where if he's guilty, he knew Amy was going to be. So I'm with you. That adds an extra layer of wickedness to top.

I mean, there's always a chance more if that something comes out. at appeal. I don't know. People have been thinking that some big bombshells going to come out about Scott Peterson for how many years now? And we've yet to see it. But you never say never. All I can do is look at the known evidence and know that a jury looked at everything. And they came to a decision. And you have to kind of go with that decision. Yeah. Anytime a jury of your peers finds you guilty in their minds, there was enough there to come to that conclusion. It's hard to argue with that. But it doesn't mean that juries haven't gotten it wrong, right? Prosecutors have gotten it wrong. The evidence turns out to not be what it appeared to be, but we'll have to wait.

and see in this case. And we may never know anything more than we know today. But that's it for our episode on Amy Mullis. If you love the show, but haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, give us a five-star rating. You can leave a review. Also, keep telling your friends, word of mouth about the criminology podcast really helps us out. If you want to find us on social media, we're on X with the handle at criminology pod. You can also find us on Facebook by going to Facebook.com slash criminology podcast. And you can join our Facebook discussion group, criminology podcast discussion and fans. So that's it for another episode of criminology.

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving holiday. Before you know it, it's going to be Christmas time. But Morf and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So until then, for Mike and Morph. We'll talk to you next week. Take care, everyone.