Ashley Elaine Morris Mullis

• Missing Since 09/22/2013
• Missing From Royerton, Indiana
• Classification Endangered Missing
• Sex Female
• Race White
• Date of Birth 03/01/1986 (38)
• Age 27 years old
• Height and Weight 5'4 - 5'7, 115 - 145 pounds
• Clothing/Jewelry Description A v-neck shirt and jeans. Mullis may have been wearing a ruby ring and/or a ring with a single small diamond, and she may have been wearing a necklace with a gold cross pendant and/or a necklace with a gold pendant shaped like half a heart with the letters "BFF". Photos of the necklaces are posted with this case summary.
• Distinguishing Characteristics Caucasian female. Brown hair, brown eyes. Mullis has a tattoo of the name "Ashton" on her upper left arm and a tattoo of a small butterfly on her lower right leg. She wears a size 7.5 or 8 shoe.

Details of Disappearance

Mullis visited her parents in Royerton, Indiana on September 19, 2013. She took her two-week-old daughter and went to visit her parents for dinner.

They had a pleasant visit and she showed them some piggy banks she'd bought and planned to resell at a profit; she enjoyed refinishing antiques and woodworking. Her father noted she seemed slightly worried, but nothing appeared out of the ordinary.

On September 22, Mullis attended a family reunion, although her parents did not. This is the last time anyone in her family saw her.

At the time of her disappearance, Mullis was separated from her husband and seeing a married man, Daniel York Sr., a mechanic whom she met in 2012 when she needed her car serviced. He lent her a vehicle to drive and gave her a rental house to live in.

The baby girl Mullis gave birth to a few weeks prior to her disappearance was supposedly Daniel's, and his name appeared on her birth certificate. It's unclear whether his wife, Sheila York, was aware of their affair at the time. Photos of the Yorks are posted with this case summary.

A few days after the family reunion, Mullis's father and brother were unable to reach her on the phone. Her parents drove to her home and found it locked and deserted. They left a note on the door, asking Mullis to contact them. She didn't, but a few days later when her parents came back to the house to check on her, the note they'd left before was gone. They left a second note in its place and called York to ask if he knew where she was.

According to York, Mullis told him she'd decided to move to Virginia with $15,000 he'd given her. She had left her sons with her husband and her baby daughter with York and his wife. When Mullis's parents found out about this, they immediately reported their daughter missing. By then, two weeks had passed since anyone had seen her.

At the time of her disappearance, Mullis had a warrant out for her arrest. She and her husband each thought the other one was caring for their dogs, and due to the miscommunication no one was caring for them, and Mullis had been cited for neglect of the dogs. She wasn't aware of her court date and had missed it, so a warrant was issued.

Her loved ones don't believe she would have walked out of her life and abandoned her three children, all whom were under the age of five, because of the arrest warrant or for any other reason. She occasionally used prescription drugs prior to her disappearance, but it's unclear whether drugs were involved in her case.

Mullis's divorce was granted five months after her disappearance and her husband got custody of their two sons. In August 2015, almost two years after Mullis went missing, Daniel and Sheila York moved to Florida. They took Mullis's baby daughter with them, although the child's paternity had not been legally established. In September of that year, Daniel died suddenly. Sheila remained in Florida with the child.

Mullis's parents in Indiana subsequently filed for visitation rights to their granddaughter. Their case was dismissed without going before an Indiana judge because Sheila stated she'd legally adopted the little girl in Florida in 2016, meaning Florida had jurisdiction.

In January 2023, Sheila was arrested in North Carolina for kidnapping Mullis's now nine-year-old daughter and obstruction of justice. Authorities stated she had hired an attorney to represent Daniel in Mullis's daughter's paternity case, allegedly attempting to mislead the court into thinking Daniel was still alive. She also allegedly lied multiple times in the baby's adoption paperwork.

A witness reportedly said Sheila deliberately attempted to keep the child away from Mullis's parents. It's not clear what, if anything, the Yorks and the paternity case had to do with Mullis's actually disappearance, or whether Sheila is considered a possible suspect in her case.

It's worth noting that prior to his death, Daniel was considered a person of interest in the death of 22-year-old Heather Musick, whose body was found in a burned-out hotel room in Daleville, Indiana in 2010. Daniel had rented the hotel room, and after his initial police interview he hired a lawyer and refused to speak with investigators further.

He was never charged in her case and her murder remains unsolved, as does Mullis's disappearance.