Investigators say signs inside and outside a Bay County home helped turn a missing-person inquiry into a search for buried remains.
FOUNTAIN, Fla. — What deputies first heard about this case was not a confession or a body recovery, but a string of physical signs at a home in rural Bay County: missing bedding, repeated laundry, ashes in a firepit and newly turned soil in the yard.
Those details now sit at the center of the case against Ashley Otero Averett, 32, who is accused of killing Joseph Martin Eiler, 38, shooting him while he slept, trying to dismember him in a bathtub and burying his remains around the property. Investigators said the evidence mattered immediately because it suggested the scene had been cleaned and altered before deputies returned with a warrant.
Eiler’s father, who lived on the same property, told deputies he became alarmed by what he saw after Eiler disappeared. According to the probable cause account cited by several news outlets, he said Averett had lit a fire and asked questions about how to dispose of ashes. After looking through the burned material, he reported finding what appeared to be trigger locks. He also said she first refused to let him enter the home. When he did get inside, he noticed stripped bedding, repeated washing, a firearm placed on top of a safe and dirt in the yard that looked newly disturbed. Those observations gave investigators a map of places to revisit before any remains were publicly confirmed.
Only after those clues accumulated did the chronology of the disappearance gain sharper meaning. Deputies said Eiler was last seen in the early morning of March 12 at the Creek Haven Road home. His father reported hearing an argument around 4 a.m., then hearing Eiler cry out and say Averett had hit him with a flashlight. Later, the father said, he heard what sounded like gunshots. On March 14, after Eiler missed two work shifts and still had not been heard from, a missing-person report was filed. When deputies first spoke with Averett, authorities said, she told them Eiler had left with an unknown friend following an argument.
The case then narrowed quickly. Deputies spoke with a family member who said Averett admitted Eiler was dead, according to the affidavit described in reporting. In a post-Miranda interview, investigators say, Averett confessed that she shot Eiler twice in the back with a .380-caliber pistol while he slept. Authorities said she told them she then used a hatchet and knife in an attempt to remove his limbs in the bathtub, carried the body and body parts outside in a gray tote and buried them in several places in the yard. A later search warrant execution led to the recovery of human remains from freshly disturbed soil, reports said.
The physical evidence described publicly also shaped how investigators viewed possible defenses. In follow-up coverage, Capt. Jason Daffin said evidence in the home did not support a claim of self-defense. That point remains part of the larger procedural picture because the state will have to tie together what witnesses heard, what relatives saw afterward and what forensics show about the gunfire, blood evidence, cleanup efforts and recovered remains. Authorities have also said Averett bought cleaning supplies from multiple stores in an effort to scrub away evidence, another detail likely to be tested against receipts, surveillance footage and forensic findings.
Set against that evidence trail is the ordinary rhythm that first made the case noticeable. Eiler stopped showing up for work. Family members kept asking where he was. The yard looked different. The house looked stripped and washed. Those are not dramatic facts on their own, but together they formed the investigative bridge from concern to probable cause. The sheriff’s office has said two small children were also living at the home, adding urgency to relatives’ decision to contact deputies again.
Averett was arrested March 17 and booked on a murder charge. Reporting after the arrest said she was being held in the Bay County Jail without bond, while a next court date had not yet been publicly identified. Where the case stands now is straightforward: prosecutors have a charge, deputies have recovered remains and the next phase will turn on lab work, witness testimony and court filings that show how the physical clues fit the state’s theory of the killing.
Author note: Last updated April 9, 2026.