Pod Insights Criminology Amy Mullis About this episode 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
Transcript 0:02 Speaker 00 Are you fascinated by unexplainable crimes, conspiracies, and fringe culture? We'll step into the CrawlSpace. 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. CrawlSpace, where crime meets culture.
0:28 Speaker 01 Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised.
1:05 Speaker 02 Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 336 of the Criminology Podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson.
1:12 Speaker 03 And this is Mike Morford.
1:13 Speaker 02 Mr. Morford, how you doing, buddy?
1:16 Speaker 03 I'm doing good. I'm thinking about Thanksgiving tomorrow. This episode's coming out right after Thanksgiving, but I hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving. But we're talking about what we're going to eat and getting a little bit hungry here. What's going on with you?
1:31 Speaker 02 Yeah, my whole family is getting ready. And yeah, 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's going to be together, under one roof. And, you know, for us, that just doesn't happen as or that much anymore.
1:59 Speaker 03 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 turkey chemicals kick in.
2:10 Speaker 02 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.
2:23 Speaker 03 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.
2:40 Speaker 02 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.
2:50 Speaker 03 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 were 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 re-listen with the latest news reports to help piece together what may have happened.
3:34 Speaker 02 Ain't no 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 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.
4:10 Speaker 03 Yeah, it's good for those families that have been waiting for, for answers for so long to finally get some.
4:15 Speaker 02 So we'll just have to wait and see what the recoveries, if anything, uncover. 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 belongs.
4:54 Speaker 03 On November 10th, 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 prong 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."
5:33 Speaker 02 To the dispatcher, Todd sounded panicked and confused by the 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 his face, he did everything he could to save his wife. But just under a year later, Todd would be found guilty of her murder.
6:15 Speaker 02 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 calls 911 and says that his wife has been impaled by this large pitchfork. 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.
6:59 Speaker 03 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 turn, 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
7:40 Speaker 03 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 Turbit 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 three kids together, a boy, a girl, and another boy.
8:13 Speaker 02 So there are a couple of things here that kind of stand out to me. First off, they got married on September 11, 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.
8:53 Speaker 02 And many people are convicted on mostly circumstantial evidence. I've noticed that.
9:01 Speaker 03 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.
9:27 Speaker 02 In 2013, Amy had an affair with a coworker 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.
10:02 Speaker 03 Starting around May 2018, Amy began having another affair. And once again, it was technically with a coworker. This time it was with Jerry Frasher, a married father of two, who managed a 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 in July when he was looking over a cellphone bill and noticed that they were texting each other a lot. Todd asked Jerry about it and he denied any kind of relationship.
10:47 Speaker 03 According to Jerry, their texts were just about the farm and their kids and that was it.
10:52 Speaker 02 Todd didn't believe Jerry and even texted Jerry's wife about it, but she said it was probably nothing and 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
11:36 Speaker 02 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,
12:17 Speaker 02 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?
12:40 Speaker 03 Yeah, and I think the affairs are certainly, we're getting into
12:46 Speaker 03 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. The person doesn't knock their spouse off. They work things out or they sometimes even get divorced and go their several ways. Doesn't always lead to violence.
13:10 Speaker 02 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 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 leery knowing that Amy had had an affair earlier on?
13:52 Speaker 03 It certainly wouldn't build the level of trust. If anything, it would, 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 focus 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.
14:26 Speaker 02 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 dead, but they also dug deeper to see if there could be any other motives not as obvious. 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.
15:10 Speaker 02 This caused periods of time where she would be away from the farm, the kids and talk. Texts from Todd's phone show that he wasn't happy with Amy. Messages like Amy hasn't done any farm chores 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?
15:53 Speaker 03 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 hopkinsofmedicine.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.
16:27 Speaker 02 And I asked the question more, 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.
17:03 Speaker 03 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.
17:22 Speaker 02 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 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
18:03 Speaker 02 to 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 transcripts, she wrote to Jerry, do you know what I'm doing today? Cleaning fucking light fixtures in the barn WTF? This was her first day really out and about since the surgery and it showed.
18:48 Speaker 02 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 to trap so he wouldn't run over them with their heavy equipment.
19:14 Speaker 03 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 concerned 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.
19:59 Speaker 03 Tristan would later admit that he did lose sight of his dad when he went into the front office 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.
20:19 Speaker 02 You know, there's probably a goal weight in your head and getting there on your own is the hard part. Weight loss by Hers offers access to a range of FDA-approved GLP-1 medications, including the Wegovy pill and the Wegovy pen, plus support along the way. With Wegovy, you can lose up to 20% of your body weight. People lost an average of 14% body weight in 64 weeks in a clinical trial of Wegovy alongside diet and exercise. To get started with Wegovy, just go to forhers.com and complete an online consultation with a licensed provider who will determine if a prescription is appropriate. And Hers doesn't stop there. Nutrition and lifestyle guidance are part of the plan, along with access to 24/7 messaging
21:04 Speaker 02 with your care team. So support is always in reach. Ready to reach your goals? Visit forhers.com/criminology to access personalized, affordable care for weight loss, hair, menopause, and more. Individual results may vary and stopping treatment may result in weight regain. Weight loss by Hers is not available in all 50 states. Wegovy is the registered trademark of Novo Nordisk AS. To get started and learn more, including important safety information, Wegovy clinical study information and restrictions, visit forhers.com. 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,
21:47 Speaker 02 was sticking out of her back. He screened 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 PM,
22:27 Speaker 02 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 coworkers.
23:03 Speaker 03 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 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 lung 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.
23:47 Speaker 03 Kelly Cruz said Amy was struck at least twice, possibly three times with the corn rake.
23:54 Speaker 02 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 pitchfork 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 pitchfork 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?
24:35 Speaker 02 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 of 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, the medical examiner comes out with what is probably some pretty damning information, right? The pitchfork had four prongs, but Amy had six puncture wounds.
25:19 Speaker 02 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.
25:39 Speaker 02 You know, we've all grown up watching cartoons where, you know, someone steps on a rake or 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.
26:19 Speaker 02 It's hard to envision being impaled in the way that has been described.
26:25 Speaker 03 Yeah, well, you, you would have to think almost that the pitchfork was inverted and sticking up out of the ground at a, at a straight angle so that if she, 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 pitchfork, that somehow some
27:05 Speaker 03 of the holes were, were hit again in the exact same spot as the first one, which, which I think is kind of interesting. But the, the holes, you know, in, 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.
27:30 Speaker 02 Yeah, either that, or if there was a, a second stabbing, then only two of the prongs hit and the other two didn't maybe, or I, 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.
28:02 Speaker 03 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 weakened 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
28:46 Speaker 03 has happened to her and that she's still inside that shed. Directing Tristan to the shed was probably Todd's most damning error.
28:53 Speaker 02 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.
29:38 Speaker 02 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 coworker, 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 cry. This was late summer or early fall in 2018, so not long before her death.
30:23 Speaker 02 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 forward.
30:49 Speaker 03 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 a lenient 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 Herald, "To believe Mr. Mullis murdered Mrs. Mullis, one must also believe the 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."
31:20 Speaker 02 Despite doubts by some people that Todd is guilty of murdering his wife, there are multiple conversations Amy had with friends that strongly suggest 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 time.
31:55 Speaker 02 The end of August, she told the 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 then, 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, Morph, I I'm blown away.
32:39 Speaker 02 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.
32:56 Speaker 03 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 joked about that with me. I've joked about that with her. But if if there was ever anything going on between a married couple and there was a situation where there were there were bad feelings, 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 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,
33:39 Speaker 03 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 coworker, Deb Sherbrun. 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.
34:02 Speaker 02 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 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
34:43 Speaker 02 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 healthcare. 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
35:22 Speaker 02 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
36:06 Speaker 02 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?
36:32 Speaker 03 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.
37:14 Speaker 02 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,
37:57 Speaker 02 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.
38:28 Speaker 03 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 couples counseling they were going to. According to Court TV, at 3:04 in the morning on Christmas 2017, there was a search for, was killing more accepted centuries ago? On January 5th, 2018, there was a search for characteristics of cheating woman. Just before 3:00 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,
39:12 Speaker 03 and 16 facts about cheating women. Then there were Google searches, what did ancient cultures do to infidelity? And did ancient cultures kill adulterers?
39:23 Speaker 02 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 cry 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.
40:04 Speaker 03 Yeah, I can see your point. On one hand, it could be Todd is just trying to cope with 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.
40:32 Speaker 02 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 AM hour. Shortly after this, DNATesting.com was visited when there was a search for how to test DNA
41:17 Speaker 02 at home. Oddly, there was a search for how to do a DNA test without the father knowing. 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.
41:35 Speaker 03 I just want to point out one thing that seems odd to me. These 3 AM 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 AM doing these searches, to me, kind of seems odd. You'd think that would be when he'd be sleeping, because he'd have to be up in a couple hours.
41:59 Speaker 02 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.
42:09 Speaker 03 According to LawandCrime.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 Aztec tribes.
42:24 Speaker 03 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.
42:44 Speaker 02 On November 6, 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
43:28 Speaker 02 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 regard for the fact that these types of searches are easily recoverable. It's almost as if they they either don't know, or they don't care,
44:13 Speaker 02 or they're not thinking straight because their mind is solely focused on one thing.
44:22 Speaker 03 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 haunt 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 talked about wanting to be married with Jerry eventually.
45:04 Speaker 03 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.
45:32 Speaker 02 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 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,
46:15 Speaker 02 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.
46:40 Speaker 03 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.
47:14 Speaker 02 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 ruled him out.
47:32 Speaker 03 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 a 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 pitchfork. 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.
48:09 Speaker 02 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 in 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.
48:53 Speaker 03 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.
49:35 Speaker 02 And again, we're talking about a lot of circumstantial stuff here, but you know, when you put yourself in the position of Todd Mullis 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, you know, put the pieces together.
50:16 Speaker 02 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.
50:34 Speaker 03 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 I, 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.
50:59 Speaker 02 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, 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.
51:44 Speaker 02 Amy's family launched a civil suit against Todd in 2020, seeking damages for her wrongful death. An appeal 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.
52:27 Speaker 02 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.
52:38 Speaker 03 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.
52:55 Speaker 02 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.
53:09 Speaker 02 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 Todd. 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,
53:55 Speaker 02 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.
54:17 Speaker 03 And if it wasn't an accident, well, it 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 scot-free. How, 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 the 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.
55:01 Speaker 03 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.
55:11 Speaker 02 For many people, it's clear that Todd murdered his wife. The issue some people wrestle with is the why? 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.
55:53 Speaker 02 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.
56:35 Speaker 02 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.
56:54 Speaker 03 And the one thing is clear, this marriage had problems, whether you support Todd or think he's guilty.
57:03 Speaker 03 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 ask myself in these 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.
57:41 Speaker 02 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 pitchfork to her back. Not once, but multiple times.
58:25 Speaker 02 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.
58:53 Speaker 03 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, if Todd did this, then it makes him extra, makes him an extra terrible person to let his son find his mom like that.
59:25 Speaker 02 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, that adds an extra layer of wickedness to Todd. I mean, there's always a chance morph that something comes out at appeal. I don't know. People have been thinking that some big bombshell is going to come out about Scott Peterson for how many years now? And we've yet to see it, but
1:00:01 Speaker 02 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.
1:00:19 Speaker 03 Yeah. Anytime a jury of your peers finds you guilty, in their minds, there was enough there to, to come to that conclusion. It's hard to argue with that.
1:00:29 Speaker 02 But it doesn't mean that juries haven't gotten it wrong, right? Prosecutors have, 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.
1:01:06 Speaker 03 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/criminologypodcast. And you can join our Facebook discussion group, Criminology Podcast Discussion and Fans.
1:01:21 Speaker 02 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 Morphe and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So until then, from Mike.
1:01:40 Speaker 03 And Morphe.
1:01:41 Speaker 02 We'll talk to you next week.
1:01:42 Speaker 03 Take care, everyone.
Previous Suzanne Simpson Next Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom Page updated November 6, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated