UPDATE: Dubuque County jury finds man guilty of killing wife with corn rake
Sept 23, 2019
"...Todd M. Mullis 43, flanked by his attorneys, grimaced and shook his head slightly as the verdict was read on the sixth day of his first-degree murder trial at the Dubuque County Courthouse. The 12-person jury deliberated for a total of about seven and a half hours Friday and today before returning the verdict.
In Iowa, a conviction of first-degree murder brings an automatic sentence of life in prison without parole....
Amy Mullis’ family members hugged each other and some were in tears when Iowa District Judge Thomas Bitter read the verdict.
“We aren’t going to have any comments,” said Jeff Fuller, of Eldora, Iowa, as the courtroom was clearing afterward.
Tears streamed down his face.
Fuller is Amy Mullis’ brother and testified on the first day of testimony in the trial....
“I’m happy for the family and maybe I’ll have more for you after sentencing,” Bernau said when asked to comment after the verdict was read....
Defense attorney Gerald “Jake” Feuerhelm said he was disappointed with the verdict and that his client would appeal.
“We’ll sort things out and talk to Todd about that and go from there,” Feuerhelm said.
Feuerhelm said it was too early to assess the defense’s prospects with that appeal.
“Obviously, you go through your notes and look at all the witnesses and make a determination about court rulings and the whole gamut of how the trial rolled out,” he said.
Todd Mullis remained silent in the aftermath of the verdict. He looked at several of his family members in the gallery as bailiffs shackled him in chains. Defense attorneys stared down at the tabletop in front of them....
The jury deliberated for about two and a half hours Friday before being excused for the weekend. Deliberations resumed at 9 a.m. and briefly halted around lunch, when jurors submitted a written question to Iowa District Judge Thomas Bitter at 11:50 a.m.
The jurors asked for a definition of “UTC time” and if the times of internet searches listed on Google records submitted as state’s evidence reflected Iowa’s time zone. The searches were done on Todd Mullis’ iPad.
The defense had argued that UTC time is the successor of Greenwich Mean Time, so that searches that appeared to have been made in the early morning hours – often before 3 a.m. – on the Google list actually were performed in the early evenings because of the time difference between Central Time and UTC...."
UPDATE: Dubuque County jury finds man guilty of killing wife with corn rake
