The prime suspect in the murder of a Putnam County father-of-two allegedly confessed to killing him in grisly detail, using a horse to drag his body to a car after shooting him twice, her ex-boyfriend told The Citizen.
Ken Wadell, 55, said Caylen Deller, 30, described the slaying to him just days after Chad Mullen, 53, was reported missing by relatives on Sept. 15.
“She told me she shot him,” Wadell said. “She said he didn’t die, and he just stared at her. The gun jammed and it took a minute for her to reload. For that minute, he stared at her. She said it was a look that would haunt her for the rest of her life.”
Caylen Deller was arrested Friday for first-degree murder and her alleged accomplice, Tina Marie Lee-Ellis, was charged Thursday with accessory to first-degree murder after the fact, the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office said.
The doomed construction worker, who had two kids from prior relationships, vanished on Sept. 9 after placing a routine phone call to his daughter, Holli. He had split with Deller some months prior, and told his mother that he feared her penchant for violence and vindictive streak.
During their Sept. 23 conversation, Wadell said Deller told him that she had a friend help her relocate Mullen’s body after she shot him on land across from her now-shuttered horse farm, Stormy Stables, but that they were unable to move him on their own. She has since been evicted from the farm.
The pair allegedly attached his body to a horse named Stormy with leather straps and had the animal drag him to a car, Wadell recalled Deller telling him.
Mullen’s body was eventually discovered buried on a Federal Point farm earlier this month.
Wadell said he immediately called the local sheriff’s office and relayed Deller’s confession. Deputies arrested her that same day on grand theft charges for an unrelated February incident alleging that she tried to steal a calf from a farm.
Police searched her property — and dredged a pond — during her time in custody but found no sign of Mullen.
Police called Wadell after Deller was arrested and told him to pick up their 5-year-old daughter, Ostara, who remains in his care.
Deller was released on bond says after her arrest and denied any role in the killing in an exclusive interview with The Citizen outside a recent court appearance on the cow theft charges.
Last week, she appeared before a family judge in an attempt to regain custody of Ostara. Judge Rose Marie Preddy denied the request, citing her failure to fill out the necessary paperwork for a formal time-sharing plan. Deller’s two older children from prior relationships were removed from her care due to neglect.
Wadell has launched a GoFundMe to help raise money for their daughter.
He said Deller claimed she killed Mullen because she suspected him of abusing Ostara– a charge he said was a figment of her drug-addled imagination.
“I never saw any evidence of that at all,” said Wadell, who currently lives in Illinois and works on a farm. “She told me he kept coming around her house and wanting to get back together. Maybe that’s true. But he didn’t deserve to die for that.”
Wadell said Deller sent him a curious text on the day Mullen disappeared.
“Everything will be fine,” she wrote him. “Conduct as usual.”
Mullen’s mother previously told The Citizen that her son repeatedly told her that he wanted to leave Putnam County because he was afraid of Deller.
Wadell said she struggled with drugs during their relationship and once attacked him with a knife. She was arrested for aggravated battery , but Deller was only given one year probation as part of a plea deal.
“She should have been in jail for trying to kill me,” Wadell said.
The investigation into the case is ongoing.
5 Responses
Wadell never even paid child support, now you post his go fund me like he was a good father… Sad…
I hope the little girl is placed in a good safe home .
There are agencies out there to help with the little girls experiences …..
I don’t understand why there’s a go fund me up for her ?
The only go fund me page should be for Chad’s family to help with any expenses to help lay him to rest ….
Ken was asking for help because he was having to go back and forth for court from Illinois and was missing work .anyone can do a go fund me account.i am praying for chads family .and I fill the baby is in good hands with her dad Ken.
I was around caylen and Ken when they were together and they both adored that baby he would keep her while we rode horses though the trails.
He did pay child support that’s a total lie I know for a fact he did I worked with him and know for a fact that it came out of his paycheck so whoever you are you have no idea what your talking about.