A Florida man who challenged police to “find the body” at his Boynton Beach home was arrested Saturday when his wife’s remains were found in his backyard.
The victim, Mary Stella Gomez-Mullet, was reported missing on February 20 when a friend called to tell police she had last spoken to her two days earlier. The friend later revealed that she had heard Gomez-Mullet shout, “No, no, no Roberto!” and calling out her friend’s name before the call was dropped, according to a police report obtained by the South Florida Sun Sentinel and local news station WPTV. When she tried to call back, the phone went straight to voicemail.
That same day, police received a report of a bloody handbag located less than a mile from Colon’s home. Relatives later confirmed that the items, including a crucifix strung on a white rosary necklace, belonged to Gomez-Mullet. According to the police report, “all family members and friends were adamant that something had happened to Gomez.”
Gomez-Mullet, 45, and Colon, 66, were married in January at the Delray Beach courthouse, according to WPTV. Colon described the marriage to detectives as a kind of consideration, with Gomez-Mullet receiving US citizenship in exchange for caring for Colon’s mother, who suffers from dementia.
Apparently, however, the scheme was starting to fall apart. Colon accused Gomez-Mullet of cheating on his mother several thousand dollars, and told police they had a fight about it when she came to his house on February 18 (her friend later told police that Gomez-Mullet was going to Colon’s house to hand over the items he claimed stole and cut off contact with him.) Colon claimed he left home to go to a doctor’s appointment, and when he returned, Gomez-Mullet had disappeared.
When detectives arrived at Colon’s apartment for a follow-up interview on Feb. 24, they found that most of his text messages and call history had been deleted, the police report said. They also saw several red marks on his front door, and what looked like blood splatters on the floor, walls, window, and even the ceiling of his workshop. Colon claimed the blood spatters in his workshop must have come from his dog; it was later confirmed to be human.
Two days later, when detectives arrived to search his apartment, Colon was belligerent and challenged them to “find the body, find the body.” According to the police report, he described his workshop as a “slaughterhouse”, or place where animals are slaughtered, and his wife as a “piece of shit”. When the detectives left, he grinned and said to them, “At least you didn’t find a body at my place.”
But on March 5, detectives were back to arrest Colon – not for the murder of his wife, but for the possession of marijuana found in his apartment during the previous search. Two days earlier, a source had informed police that she had heard Colon and Gomez-Mullet arguing weeks earlier, and that Colon had threatened to strangle her to death and bury her in his backyard.
Sure enough, when detectives swept Colon’s apartment again, they found human remains in the backyard, positively identified Friday as belonging to Gomez-Mullet.
Colon was taken to the Boynton Beach Police Department for processing, but not before detectives heard him say to a friend, “There’s one thing they can’t do, they can’t say his name, Humpty Dumpty back together.”
Colon was placed in Palm Beach County jail on Friday on a charge of first degree murder. A lawyer for Colon could not be immediately identified.