PALATKA, Fla. (Court TV) — A woman is standing trial in Florida on charges that she killed her ex-boyfriend, dumped his body in a pond and then dragged it to a shallow grave with the help of her friend and a horse.
Caylen Deller sits in court on Oct. 13, 2026. (Court TV)
Caylen Deller, 32, is charged with first-degree murder with a firearm, tampering with physical evidence and failure to report a death after her ex-boyfriend, Chad Mullen, was found buried on a neighboring farm. Deller has pleaded not guilty; her friend, Tina Marie Lee-Ellis, has pleaded not guilty to charges of accessory to first-degree murder and will be tried separately.
In his opening statement to the jury on Tuesday, Assistant State Attorney Mike Willard said that Deller confessed to killing the victim — not to police, but to another ex-boyfriend, the father of her 5-year-old daughter. Deller allegedly told that ex that she believed Mullen had been abusing their daughter, and so she shot him at her farm. “She even gave some details of how she did it,” Willard said. “She said that after the first shot, her gun jammed, and as she was unjamming her gun, she said that she could see Mr. Mullen looking at her, staring at her as she was unjamming the gun. And then she shot him again.”
Willard said that after killing the victim, Deller enlisted Lee-Ellis and one of her horses to help her drag Mullen’s body across the street to Dunn’s Creek Preserve. There, the two women allegedly tied Mullen’s body to a cinder block and tried to sink it in the water. Three days later, the two allegedly returned to the pond, removed Mullen’s body and moved it to a neighboring farm where Lee-Ellis worked. Willard said Lee-Ellis used a skid steer to dig a shallow grave and bury the body.
Chad Mullen (Court exhibit)
Investigators didn’t find Mullen’s remains for more than a month. After receiving a tip, investigators brought cadaver dogs to the second farm where the body was buried and found the shallow grave hidden beneath a mound of dirt. Buried with the body was a tarp blanket, several straps used at horse farms, netting and a red hook. A cinder block was tied to one of the victim’s limbs.
After an autopsy, the medical examiner determined that Mullen was killed by two gunshot wounds, one of which went through his chest cavity, perforated his lung and exited his right shoulder.
Deller’s attorney, Brian Smith, did not deliver an opening statement on Tuesday, choosing to defer until the prosecution finishes presenting its case.
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