MUNCIE, Ind. - Delaware County sheriff's deputies on Wednesday arrested a woman in connection with the 2013 disappearance of Ashley Morris Mullis.
Former Delaware County resident Sheila York, 66, was arrested in Asheville, North Carolina, where she now resides, on preliminary counts of kidnapping and obstruction of justice.
Mullis, a Muncie resident and the mother of three children, hasn't been seen by friends and family members since September 2013.
The youngest of her children was a daughter reportedly fathered by Dan York, Sheila York's husband. Since Mullis disappeared, that child - still a baby at that time - has apparently lived with members of the York family.
Since 2013, investigators have tried to determine what role, if any, Dan York might have played in the disappearance. York died at age 62 - in Sarasota, Florida - in September 2015.
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Sheila York will be held under a $10,000 cash bond in Buncombe County, North Carolina, pending a return to Delaware County, according to Chief Deputy Jeff Stanley.
In November 2020, a search was conducted of a property - along Delaware County Road 725-W in the Yorktown area - that had been owned by the York family.
Human remains were not recovered during the 2020 search, but unspecified items found at the property have been submitted to an Indiana State Police lab for evaluation.
Mullis' father, Don Morris, for nearly a decade has tried to keep the case alive in the eyes of the public. On Wednesday, Stanley and Sheriff Tony Skinner met with Morris to let him know about the arrest.
According to Stanley, the sheriff's department has been assisted in the investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the Office of Inspector General of Social Security, the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, the North Carolina Department of Social Services, Indian Department of Child Services, the Indiana Attorney General's office and the Delaware County prosecutor's office.
Douglas Walker is a news reporter at The Star Press. Contact him at 765-213-5851 or at dwalker@muncie.gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Muncie Star Press: Arrest made in North Carolina in case tied to Mullis disappearance.
