Video showed Emma Mullins entering a room with Paul Stottler before he allegedly left alone carrying bags later recovered by detectives.
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The bags carried from a Florida hotel room before dawn became a central part of a homicide investigation hours later when detectives searched a parking lot dumpster and found bloodstained bedding, men’s pants and documents bearing a dead woman’s name.
Pinellas County detectives said surveillance footage showed Paul Mason Stottler leaving the Holiday Inn Express alone after entering with 76-year-old Emma Mullins the night before. He carried several bags outside and discarded them in the hotel dumpster, according to the sheriff’s office. Mullins was found dead in the room later that morning. Stottler was arrested on a charge of second-degree murder and remained accused rather than convicted in the public reports reviewed.
The dumpster search gave investigators more than a record of Stottler’s movements. Inside an ice bucket, detectives found three documents with Mullins’ name on them. They also recovered bedding and men’s pants described as stained with blood. Authorities have not identified the documents or said whether they were a driver’s license, medical paperwork, financial records or other personal materials. Their importance, according to the public account, was that they linked the discarded property to Mullins.
Investigators did not disclose whether the bags remained intact when recovered or whether other hotel waste had been placed around them. They also have not released laboratory reports showing whose blood was on the pants and bedding. Those unanswered questions could matter in court, where prosecutors would need to authenticate the items and establish the chain of custody from the dumpster to the evidence room.
The search followed a report from a hotel employee at about 11:35 a.m. June 25. Deputies entered a room at the Holiday Inn Express at 4816 100th Way North and found Mullins on the floor. She had been wrapped in a blanket and covered with sheets, towels and clothing. The sheriff’s office said the placement appeared intended to conceal her location. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
The room itself contained signs of a violent encounter. Deputies reported bloodstains throughout the space, broken glass and overturned furniture. Mullins had obvious trauma, according to the sheriff’s release. A complaint account published by Law&Crime said she suffered blunt-force injuries to her face and body. Authorities have not publicly named a weapon or released a final autopsy narrative explaining which injuries caused her death.
The surveillance system allowed detectives to work backward. Mullins and Stottler were recorded entering together, and Law&Crime reported that the pair arrived at about 10:45 p.m. Stottler was recorded leaving alone around 4:30 a.m., the outlet reported. The sheriff’s office did not publish those precise times in its release but confirmed that hours passed between their entry and his departure.
Video can provide a clear timeline of who crossed a camera’s field of view, but it cannot necessarily show what happened behind a hotel-room door. The publicly described footage placed Mullins and Stottler together before the alleged killing and showed him removing bags afterward. It did not capture the altercation itself, according to the accounts released so far. Detectives therefore relied on the room’s condition and recovered property to fill in the period the cameras could not see.
The sheriff’s office said investigators determined that an altercation occurred between Mullins and Stottler. It did not say who initiated the confrontation or what caused it. WTSP reported that the agency described the two as friends but offered no additional explanation of their relationship. There is no verified public basis to characterize them as romantic partners, relatives or participants in a financial arrangement.
That absence leaves a major part of the case unresolved in public: motive. Prosecutors do not always need to prove why a defendant committed a crime if they can prove the required criminal intent and acts. A motive can nevertheless help a jury understand a sequence of events. Authorities have not announced whether the alleged violence grew from a personal dispute, an attempt to take property or another conflict. Stottler was listed by the sheriff’s office as transient. He was 38 when Mullins died and turned 39 on June 30. Mullins lived in St. Petersburg and was born Nov. 29, 1949, according to the agency. The official statement included her home address, but repeating it is not necessary to explain the criminal case. Her next of kin had been notified before the sheriff’s office released her identity.
Law&Crime reported that Stottler acknowledged discarding evidence when he left. The sheriff’s public release did not quote him or describe a confession. Without a full interview recording or transcript, it is unclear exactly what Stottler admitted, what explanation he gave for the bags or whether he made any statement about Mullins’ injuries. Any statement attributed to him would be subject to legal challenges over context and admissibility.
The discarded clothing could become particularly important if forensic testing connects it to the room. A pair of men’s pants stained with blood may help identify who wore them, but appearance alone does not establish ownership. DNA, size, surveillance images and other evidence could be used to make that connection. The public reports do not say whether investigators recovered the clothing Stottler was wearing when arrested or compared it with the pants from the dumpster.
The bedding may also carry more than one kind of evidence. Blood patterns, hair, fibers or biological material could help investigators determine whether the items came from the room and how they were used. The sheriff’s office has not released such findings. Its initial announcement described the recovered materials in broad terms while noting that the investigation continued.
The three documents may serve a different evidentiary role. By placing Mullins’ name inside the discarded ice bucket, they connected the dumpster contents to the dead woman without requiring an immediate forensic result. Yet documents can be moved or handled by multiple people. Prosecutors would still need to explain where the papers originated and why their presence supports the allegation against Stottler.
The condition of the room may help establish the force used against Mullins. Broken glass and overturned furniture suggest movement and disruption, while bloodstains can help reconstruct where injuries occurred. Investigators sometimes use blood-pattern analysis and scene mapping to test whether a suspect’s account fits the physical evidence. No such analysis has been publicly released in this case.
The alleged effort to cover Mullins and remove materials may be cited by prosecutors as evidence of consciousness of guilt. Courts generally require care with that concept because people may conceal or discard items for different reasons. Prosecutors could argue that the actions show Stottler knew a crime had occurred. A defense could dispute that interpretation or challenge whether he was the person responsible for every action attributed to him.
The second-degree murder charge indicates that investigators did not initially accuse Stottler of a preplanned killing. Florida’s second-degree murder law generally addresses an unlawful death caused by an act imminently dangerous to another and showing a depraved mind regardless of human life. It does not require the same proof of advance design associated with first-degree premeditated murder. The state’s precise theory may become clearer through formal charging documents.
A charge filed after an arrest may change as prosecutors review evidence. They may keep the same count, file a different degree of homicide or decline a charge if the proof does not support it. The sheriff’s office announces arrests, while the state attorney’s office controls prosecution. The sources reviewed did not identify a later indictment, information or amended charge beyond second-degree murder.
Local reporting described the case as pending and said Stottler was held in the Pinellas County Jail. The initial Law&Crime account said he was being held without bond and had a court appearance scheduled shortly after the arrest. The sources reviewed did not establish the result of that appearance or identify a trial date. Court scheduling can change as attorneys exchange evidence and address pretrial motions. The hotel supplied several forms of evidence without being accused of wrongdoing. Its employee reported the body. Its cameras recorded movement into and out of the room. Its dumpster held items detectives considered important. Investigators may also seek reservation records, electronic key data, payment information and internal video from other areas, though authorities have not publicly said whether those records were obtained.
The employee who found Mullins has not been identified. Officials have not said whether that person entered alone, immediately recognized that Mullins was dead or moved any item before deputies arrived. Those details may be preserved in an incident report or witness statement. The employee’s actions were important because the report prompted a rapid response and allowed investigators to secure the room before routine cleaning or additional guest traffic disturbed it.
No eyewitness to the alleged killing has been publicly identified. That makes the timeline and physical evidence especially important. Prosecutors may seek to prove that Mullins entered the room alive with Stottler, died during the period they were together and remained there when he left. The defense may examine whether another person could have entered, whether the cameras covered every access point and whether the time of death supports the state’s sequence.
Authorities have not said whether cellphone location data, text messages or calls place either person elsewhere during the night. They also have not disclosed who booked the room or how it was paid for. Those records could clarify why the pair were there and whether anyone else communicated with them. Their absence from the initial release should not be read as proof that investigators lack them. Mullins’ relatives have not spoken publicly in the sources reviewed. The official reports identify her mainly through age, residence and the circumstances of her death. That limited description reflects the early stage of the case but leaves much of her life outside the coverage. The criminal investigation centers on what happened in the hotel room, while her identity as a person extends beyond the evidence recovered after she died.
As the case proceeds, forensic testing and formal court filings may determine how strongly the dumpster evidence connects Stottler to Mullins’ death. For now, the public account rests on a compact but consequential sequence: two people entered a room, one man left alone with bags, a hotel worker found the woman dead and detectives recovered her documents and bloodstained materials where the bags had been discarded.
The sheriff’s office said the investigation remained ongoing. No conviction or acquittal had been reported in the sources consulted by July 27. Stottler continues to face the presumption of innocence while prosecutors evaluate evidence they may use to prove the second-degree murder allegation beyond a reasonable doubt.
Author note: Last updated July 27, 2026.