On a 400-acre Iowa farm in Delaware County, Trysten Mullis is retracing the steps of a November morning in 2018 that fractured his family. Now 21 years old, Trysten is fighting to clear his father, Todd Mullis, who was on trial for murdering his wife, Amy Mullis, using a corn rake. Standing outside the sprawling white hog barns where he grew up, Trysten maintains that investigators and the jury got it entirely wrong.
The case dates back to a routine morning on the family farm, where Todd and Amy raised pigs and grew corn and soybeans alongside their three children: Trysten, Taylor, and Wyatt. According to trial testimony, Amy had recently undergone a minor medical procedure and was returning to work when she became dizzy and unsteady.
Todd and Amy Mullis rushed her to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
Prosecutors Argue Affair as Motive
Although Todd and Trysten initially assumed the death was a tragic accident involving a fall, the Iowa Office of the State Medical Examiner ruled it a homicide. Dr. Kelly Kruse testified at trial that Amy sustained multiple puncture wounds that indicated she had been struck at least twice, possibly three times, with a corn rake that only had four tines. Investigators with the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, including retired special agent Jon Turbett, asserted that Todd ambushed his wife in the red barn.
Prosecutors argued a compelling motive: Amy was having an extramarital affair and planned to divorce Todd, telling family members that her husband would “flip out” over losing half his land. Friends testified that Amy lived in fear of her husband. Investigators recovered digital evidence from Todd's iPad showing searches regarding unfaithful wives and historical methods of killing cheating spouses.
Todd Mullis testified in his own defense, denying he ever made the damning Google searches, denying knowledge of the affair, and vehemently maintaining his innocence against charges that he murdered his wife and subsequently sent his 13-year-old son to find her body.
Disputing the Timeline
As the only other person working on the farm that morning, Trysten’s testimony was vital to the prosecution’s timeline. At trial, he testified that he briefly lost sight of his father while getting a drink of water from a hose inside the hog barn. Prosecutors argued that brief window gave Todd the opportunity to commit the murder.
However, Trysten now argues that his trial testimony was mischaracterized and that he was pressured by outside parties. Demonstrating the layout for reporters, Trysten points out that the water hose is mere seconds away from where they worked. He notes that Todd would have had to travel the length of four football fields to reach the red shed and return without appearing panicked, out of breath, or disheveled—none of which he observed.
“I know for a fact he didn’t do it,” Trysten said. “Because I was there, nobody else was there but me… they got it wrong.”
The Aftermath and Family Division
Following Todd’s arrest and subsequent conviction, Trysten and his younger siblings, Taylor and Wyatt, went to live three hours away with Amy’s mother, Peggy Munson, and her family. Peggy and other relatives struggled to balance their grief with fulfilling a promise to raise the children. However, deep divisions formed within the household over Todd’s guilt or innocence, with Trysten maintaining his father’s innocence against the belief of his mother’s family. At age 17, Trysten sought legal assistance to manage the ongoing fallout from the case.
The legal battles and familial schisms continue to unfold as Trysten persists in his efforts to challenge the narrative of a crime that reshaped his adolescence and left two sides of a grieving family permanently at odds.
