Patrick Mullins On Netflix’s ‘Unsolved Mysteries’: Everything We Know About The Bizarre “Body in the Bay” Episode

By Josh Sorokach @joshsorokach
Published Nov. 1, 2022, 3:45 p.m. ET

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Unsolved Mysteries (2020)

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“Any reasonable person looks at this and decides, ‘Boom this is not a suicide. It’s a murder.'”

The final three episodes of Unsolved Mysteries Volume 3 are now streaming on Netflix. We previously covered the suspicious deaths of Tiffany Valiante (“The Mystery at Mile Marker 45”) and Josh Guimond (“What Happened to Josh?”), but today we’re doing a deep dive on the bizarre case of Patrick Mullins from the Volume 3 episode “Body in the Bay.”

The seventh episode of the new season follows the story of Patrick Lee Mullins, a beloved school librarian and experienced boater who was found floating in a shallow area of Tampa Bay, carefully tied to his own anchor. There are a variety of theories surrounding this peculiar story. Here’s a brief summary of “Body in the Bay,” followed by some additional information we found about the case online.

What We Know About The Death Of Patrick Mullins:

Around 3:00 p.m. on January 27, 2013, Pat Mullins took his boat out on Florida’s Braden River. Later that night, his wife, Jill, returned from visiting her sister and realized that Pat wasn’t there. Jill noticed Pat’s Stumpnocker boat was gone, and he didn’t have his cellphone. Hours passed and Pat didn’t return, so his family went out on the river to look for him.

A little after 11:00 p.m., Jill contacted the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office to report her husband missing. A search and rescue operation commenced on the Braden and Manatee Rivers. The next day, Pat’s Stumpnocker was located. His belongings were on the boat (including a life vest), but both Pat and the boat’s anchor were nowhere to be found. The Stumpnocker was set to idle, the ignition was on, and the boat was out of gas. There was no indication of a crime scene or obvious signs of injury.

Nine days after Pat’s disappearance, a fisherman found Pat’s body floating in four feet of water near the opening to Tampa Bay. He was attached to a 25-pound anchor and “wrapped up in rope like a gruesome package.” Per Unsolved.com, he’d been shot in the head with a shotgun and, strangely, his body showed “few signs of decomposition or predator activity, given how long his body had been in the water.”

The autopsy revealed that Pat had suffered severe head trauma, with six separate exit perforations on the left side of the skull and one larger perforation on the right (a pattern consistent with a shotgun with some kind of buckshot). The medical examiner classified the manner of death as “undetermined.” Per Netflix, “detectives quickly assumed he committed suicide, but Patrick’s family believes that he encountered illegal activity during a boat outing and was killed and dumped in the Bay.”

Puzzling Details/Theories Surrounding The Case Of Patrick Mullins:

  • Per Netflix’s Tudum, a week before he died, Patrick began to suffer from severe headaches that may have been a result of stress. “I was talking to a medical professional who suggested that Pat’s severe headaches might very likely be tied to something that was of extreme stress to him,” Pat’s wife Jill said. “I’m just wondering if whatever this was may have led to his death.”
  • Pat didn’t own a gun, and according to his wife he had no interest in them. Authorities couldn’t find any record of Pat purchasing a gun prior to his death.
  • There was no suicide note found, and the knot tied to Pat’s body, according to Pat’s family, wasn’t the type of knot he would use.
  • In 2021, the Mullins family brought in a forensic expert, Lori Baker, to examine the suicide theory. She found that the lack of a contact wound on the skull makes suicide an unlikely option. The expert also noted that if it were suicide, it would be “almost impossible” to not get blood in the boat. “The absence of trace evidence, to me, makes it less likely that it occurred in the boat,” Baker said.
  • The lack of scavenging activity by animals in regards to Pat’s body makes it appear unlikely that Pat was actually in the water for ten days.
  • One theory is that Pat encountered something on the river that he wasn’t supposed to see. He may have gone over to help as a Good Samaritan and came across some criminal activity. There’s been speculation that people use the Braden River to move drugs.
  • Damon Crestwood, a family friend, was interviewed multiple times in regards to Pat’s death. After Pat’s disappearance, Damon’s behavior became “markedly different,” with Damon having a mental breakdown every year near the anniversary of Pat’s death. Damon eventually intimated that he’d been using crystal meth and had episodes of “extreme erratic behavior.”
  • On the Memorial Day after Pat’s death, a family member noticed Damon tie a rope around his dog and then himself in a manner that was similar to the rope tied around Pat’s body.
  • Pat’s family noticed light-red paint markings on the side of his boat, which were not there in the past. Damon owned a boat with a red stripe on it.
  • About four and a half years after Pat’s death, Damon died from an overdose. His daughter allowed a paint chip to be taken from his boat to be tested against the marks on Pat’s boat. The police department told Pat’s family that the paint chip was a match but that it wasn’t important. Per the report, “The boat cannot be eliminated as a possible source of red paint smears on the victim’s boat.”

After streaming “Body in the Bay,” true crime fanatics are on the hunt for any additional information about Mullins’ death. Here are a few links to help get you started:

If you have any additional information, you can submit a tip at Unsolved.com.

If you or someone you know are experiencing suicidal thoughts, call the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at 988.