Attorney says ‘all of the lies’ led to a Putnam County jury convicting Caylen Deller of her boyfriend’s murder

It wasn’t just the shooting that convinced a Putnam County jury to convict Caylen Deller of first-degree murder — it was everything she did afterward, according to a local attorney who followed the case.Shannon Schott, an attorney with Plata Schott Law, said Deller’s repeated lies to police and to Chad Mullen’s family were likely the deciding factor for jurors, who deliberated for about an hour before returning a guilty verdict -- leading to a mandatory sentence of life in prison.“All of the lies, all the information that was withheld, all the information that was not accurate as she was talking to police, and the fact that she is lying to even family members is absolutely problematic and probably what the jury was looking at when they decided to convict her,” Schott said.Deller admitted on the stand that she shot Mullen in 2024, but told jurors she acted in self-defense, describing a confrontation in which she says Mullen choked her, then grabbed a hammer and advanced toward her.“I sa