Florida Woman Gets Life for Boyfriend’s Farm Murder
Jurors rejected the 32-year-old's self-defense claims after prosecutors revealed she called the victim 28 times during the period he went missing.
A Putnam County jury needed barely an hour to reject a Florida woman’s claim that she shot her boyfriend in self-defense, convicting 32-year-old Caylen Deller of first-degree murder and securing a mandatory life sentence.
Deller killed Chad Mullen, her on-again, off-again partner, at her San Mateo horse farm in September 2024. Rather than contacting authorities, she enlisted a friend and used one of her horses to drag the body into a shallow grave. The remains went undiscovered for more than a month while Mullen was listed as a missing person.
Under Florida law, a first-degree murder conviction carries an automatic sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. The state does not require juries to deliberate for any minimum duration before returning a verdict, making the panel’s swift decision legally binding. Jurors also convicted Deller of tampering with evidence and failing to report a death, charges that carry additional consecutive penalties under state sentencing guidelines.
The core dispute at trial centered on whether Mullen posed an imminent lethal threat. Taking the stand Wednesday, Deller testified that Mullen pinned her against a truck by the throat and raised a hammer after she confronted him about unproven allegations that he had sexually abused her young daughter. She told jurors she fired two shots from a handgun she had acquired after Mullen allegedly broke into her apartment weeks earlier, on Aug. 1, 2024.
Florida operates under a “Stand Your Ground” statute that removes the duty to retreat before using deadly force when a person reasonably believes it is necessary to prevent death or great bodily harm. However, successfully claiming self-defense requires a defendant to report the incident promptly and act consistently with someone who feared for their life. Concealing a body fundamentally undermines that legal defense.
Prosecutors dismantled Deller’s narrative by introducing phone records showing she called Mullen 28 times between Sept. 2 and Sept. 9 — dates falling within the window of his disappearance and death. During cross-examination, Deller acknowledged withholding information from both police and Mullen’s family because she feared getting in trouble, conceding that avoiding arrest took priority over reporting what she described as a violent attack.
San Mateo is a rural community in Putnam County where agricultural properties and horse farms are common. The terrain and isolation of such properties frequently complicate homicide investigations, allowing perpetrators to conceal remains far longer than in densely populated areas. Local sheriff’s deputies ultimately located Mullen’s body through investigative work that unraveled Deller’s timeline.
Following the guilty verdict Thursday, Deller was formally sentenced to life behind bars. Her post-conviction options include filing a direct appeal with the Florida Fifth District Court of Appeal, which would review the trial record for procedural errors or evidentiary missteps.
