Chapter 1: A Shocking Discovery

On November 10, 2018, Todd Mullis dialed 911 shortly after noon, reporting that he had discovered his wife unresponsive on their hog farm near Earlville, Iowa. He explained that he, Amy, and their eldest son Trysten had been working in an outbuilding. That day, Amy, who had transitioned from her job as a registered nurse to help with the farm, wasn't feeling well and had gone to rest at their home.

Before heading inside, she was asked to retrieve a pet carrier from the shed. When Todd and Trysten entered the house for a drink, they noticed the carrier was missing. Concerned, Todd sent Trysten to check on Amy. The teenager's discovery was shocking: his mother lay face down in the narrow shed walkway, a corn rake protruding from her back.

“I just kinda freaked out,” Trysten recounted during court proceedings. “My anxiety level was zero to 100 in about a split second.” He called for his father, who confirmed Amy was unresponsive.

Todd removed the rake from Amy's back and transported her in his truck toward the Regional Medical Center in Manchester, speaking with a 911 operator as he drove. Tragically, an ambulance intercepted them midway and transported Amy, who was later pronounced dead.

Todd explained to investigators that it was Amy's first day back after a recent surgical procedure. He suggested that she must have accidentally fallen onto the rake. However, an autopsy revealed a more sinister reality: Amy had been impaled twice with the rake — once at an upward angle and once downward — and had additional injuries to her face, hands, and knees.

On February 28, Todd was arrested on charges of murder. During the trial, his son Trysten was compelled to admit that his earlier timeline of events was inaccurate. Initially, he claimed his father was only out of sight for about one minute and forty seconds before the tragedy. Later, he expressed uncertainty about how long Todd had been gone after Amy l