The ex-girlfriend of a Florida man found buried on a Hastings farm this week denied any role in his murder in an exclusive interview with The Citizen.
Caylen Deller, 30, who has been named as a person of interest in Chad Mullen’s demise, said she had nothing to do with it.
“I don’t know what happened to him,” she said Wednesday morning outside an unrelated court appearance for allegedly stealing a calf in Palatka. “I just know that he was found. It’s upsetting. It’s extremely upsetting.”
Putnam County Sheriff’s Deputies discovered the father of two on the property after police received a tip related to his case.
“I don’t know anything about it,” she said. “But I’m glad that his mother might have some peace and closure now.”
Deller said she has no connection to the Federal Point property where he was found.
The construction worker, 52, was last seen on September 9, and his final phone call — with his teen daughter Holli — pinged from a horse farm once run by Deller in San Mateo.
Mullen’s family reported him missing on September 15, and police searched Deller’s stables soon after.
She told The Citizen Wednesday that they vetted her property on three separate occasions — and even dredged her pond and combed through her firepit in a search for evidence.
“They said they found nothing,” Deller said.
Police took her into custody on an unrelated cow theft case before she made bail. Her young daughter was removed from her care during her time in jail and has not been returned.
Mullen and Deller dated for roughly a year before breaking up this summer, she said.
Mullen’s mother, Willette Arnett, told The Citizen that the relationship became volatile and toxic — and that her son feared Deller’s penchant for violence.
On one occasion, Mullen told his mom that he woke up with Deller holding a knife to his throat. The pair were both prone to bouts of jealousy and explosive fights, she said.
Deller told The Citizen that they ultimately split because “he was cheating on me.”
At one point, Deller and her young daughter moved in with Mullen. Arnett said her son was concerned about Deller’s fitness as a mother at the time.
Deller rejected that portrayal.
“Did you know I was a CNA (certified nursing assistant), do you know that I was a good mom?” she asked. “Do you anything of that? All you care about is the bad.”
Deller claimed Mullen harassed her after their breakup and broke into her apartment in August.
Asked why she thinks she has emerged as a person of interest, Deller said she was in the dark.
“I can’t answer that,” she said. “I question that myself.”
Deller said she was saddened after learning that Mullen had been found.
“Sorrow,” she said. “It’s hard to be told your ex-boyfriend is gone even if they weren’t good to you.”
The Citizen spoke to the horse enthusiast outside the Putnam County Courthouse, where she pleaded not guilty to an alleged cow theft.
According to court papers, police were called to a property on Cracker Swamp Road in East Palatka in February, where a farm owner claimed Deller and another woman were trying steal his calf by squeezing it through a fence.
After being confronted, Deller told the man that she was concerned because she didn’t see the calf’s mother and wanted to take it home to care for it. The cow was eventually recovered, but Deller left the scene before deputies arrived.
Deller faces third degree felony charges in relation to the case.
The Putnam County Sheriffs Office probe into Mullen’s death is ongoing.
