True crime docuseries always capture viewers' attention, like the case of Patrick Mullins, a librarian from Manatee County, Florida, featured in the third volume of Unsolved Mysteries on Netflix.
This goes back to January 27, 2013, when the Mullins filed a missing person's report after Patrick Mullins didn't return from taking his boat to Braden River near his house.
Initially, Patrick's wife Jill Mullins thought her husband must be in the neighborhood as she could see his truck. However, after an extensive search, neither Patrick's family nor his friends could locate him.
Tensions intensified, and the Mullins immediately told the police about his disappearance. Two days later, Patrick's boat and his belongings inside it were found. Nearly seven days later, his dead body was discovered floating in the water. Read more to explore what happened to Patrick Mullins.
What were the details of Patrick Mullins’ disappearance?
As revealed in Unsolved Mysteries volume 3, episode 7, titled Body in the Bay, Jill Mullins talks about leaving for her sister's house on January 27, 2013, and her husband, Patrick Mullins, had some other plans for the day.
As Jill was leaving, she saw Patrick with outboard motors, thinking that her husband might be working on them. However, when she returned home in the evening, Patrick wasn't there.
Jill called her son and told her brother-in-law about Pat's disappearance and he went to search for him in the river. Despite checking on all the main routes and nearby areas, there were no clues about him.
The Mullins then reported the issue to the Manatee County Sheriff's Office, and they launched a search for Patrick with their marine unit. The search even involved the U.S. Coast Guard as they were notified about the missing person and his boat.
They finally discovered Patrick's 14-foot Stumpnocker but without him. His family grew worried, thinking about what might have happened to Patrick Mullins. After nine days, on February 5, 2013, a group of fishermen found Patrick's dead body floating in four feet of water.
As revealed in Unsolved Mysteries by fishing boat captain Geoffrey Page, he went fishing every day and on February 5, one of his clients noticed something was there at the Emerson Point.
Page recalled that a man was missing and he assumed it must be Patrick Mullins. As they slowly approached the body, they found that Patrick was tied with a rope and an anchor, which was around 25 pounds.
Page said:
"Everything was clean as a whistle... And this rope was wrapped around him... It was very well... intricately wrapped under his arm, around the neck, through the chest."
Jill mentioned that she got a phone call informing her that Pat's body had been found, and it was a "horrible" experience to learn about her husband's death. According to the autopsy report, Patrick Mullins died of a shotgun blast to the head. The police initially declared it a suicide, but the official cause of death was eventually ruled as "undetermined."
However, the Mullins didn't believe that Patrick killed himself. Jill revealed that he was full of life and was also excited about becoming a loving grandfather. There were no signs of depression, and he didn't even own a gun.
Unsolved Mysteries: Leads and theories behind the Patrick Mullins case
After Patrick Mullins' body was found, the sheriff's office initially ruled it as a suicide. However, as they investigated further, there was no suicide note, weapon that Patrick had bought earlier, or any other suspicious things.
Forensic expert Lori Baker also talked about Mullins' death in the Unsolved Mysteries episode, claiming that if he had sustained a gunshot, there would have been massive blood loss and scavenging activities within a few minutes. She said:
"It's not something I've seen in a suicide case... The absence of trace evidence, to me, makes it less likely that it occurred in the boat."
The expert explained that no scavenger activity took place for almost ten days despite the significant presence of sharks and other creatures in the water. It was quite unusual for him to commit suicide inside the boat without a single blood stain.
The murder theory of Patrick Mullins
The Unsolved Mysteries episode also featured Pat's brother claiming that it was a murder. The Mullins family believed that Patrick must have noticed something wrong taking place at the Braden River, possibly a dr*g dealing.
The theory suggests that someone on the other boat killed Patrick to silence him and then might have kept his body for some time before throwing it into the water, as it didn't decompose even after staying there for more than a week.
Was there a suspect in Patrick Mullin's death case?
Though there wasn't any concrete evidence that could directly link Patrick's neighbor and family friend Damon Crestwood, things turned suspicious after they noticed Damon's changed behavior.
According to Dr. Mark Sylvester, a family friend of the Mullins, Damon was a nice person. Crestwood was "a likable, dependable, admirable guy." But after Patrick Mullins went missing, Damon Crestwood started displaying strong emotional imbalance.
He was reportedly taking dr*gs, and even made a public display of himself on Memorial Day in 2013, by tying him up the same way Pat's dead body was tied with a rope.
Jill Mullins also revealed that Damon used to sob in front of the Manatee River, and no one expected such a reaction from him. His actions were incredibly suspicious but nothing could prove his involvement in the death of Patrick Mullins.
In the end, Patrick Mullins' exact cause of death remains a mystery, with his family still believing that he was killed.
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