Manuela Allen Murder: Investigation, Motive, and Guilty Plea

The Manuela Allen murder was the July 6, 2019 killing of a 49-year-old Olney, Texas high school teacher by Julius Orion Xavier Mullins, an 18-year-old former student and the ex-boyfriend of Allen’s daughter Melanie. Mullins broke into the family’s home on West Main Street, stabbed, strangled, and shot Allen in her own bedroom while her husband and two of her children slept elsewhere in the house, then dumped her body at Lake Cooper. He pleaded guilty in 2020 and is serving 55 years at the Allred Unit in Iowa Park, Texas, with parole eligibility beginning in 2047.¹

What Happened the Night of July 6, 2019

Mullins entered the Allen home in the middle of the night. He later said he came to steal Peter Allen’s gun collection, and when Manuela woke up as he rummaged through the bedroom, he grabbed a knife from the dresser and attacked her.² Allen was stabbed roughly 47 times. She was strangled hard enough to fracture bones in her neck. After she was dead, Mullins shot her once in the face.³

He dragged her body through the house into the garage, loaded her into the family’s white SUV, and drove about five miles northwest to Lake Cooper in Archer County. He left her wrapped in blood-stained blankets and sheets near a fence, abandoned the SUV in the grass, and rode a bicycle back toward town.³ Mullins later told investigators the killing happened at around 2:00 a.m.⁴

Peter Allen was asleep on the living room couch, roughly 20 feet from the bedroom. Daughter Kiara had gone to bed with earbuds in. Son Darian, 20, was playing video games with headphones on and later said he heard “something in the middle of the night” but assumed it was his father in the kitchen.³ Melanie was away on a trip and older son William was at college.

How the Family Found Out

On the morning of July 7, Kiara tried to reach the laundry room, which could only be entered through her parents’ bedroom. The door was locked. She saw blood in the hallway and alerted her father. Peter and Kiara first drove to a local hospital looking for Manuela, then called 911.³ Investigators from the Young County Sheriff’s Office and the Texas Rangers arrived to find a blood-soaked bedroom floor, splatter across furniture and closet doors, bloody footprints in the kitchen, a knife, and drag marks leading into the garage.⁵

That same day, Archer County Sheriff’s Lieutenant David Wilk found the abandoned SUV at Lake Cooper and, nearby, Manuela’s body wrapped in bloody bedding.² Bicycle tire tracks and a shoe print were preserved at the scene, and fingerprints on the vehicle tested positive for human blood proteins.⁵

Why Peter Allen Was Investigated and Cleared

Investigators could not initially reconcile the ferocity of the attack with Peter’s account of sleeping through it. He became the primary suspect. Detectives pointed to his background as a former Green Beret, his gun collection, his proximity to the killing, and a bloodstain found on one of his socks. Five days after the murder, police interrogated him for more than five hours. He denied any involvement, telling investigators, “I did not hurt my wife. I cannot explain this. I don’t know what happened.”²

Forensic testing eventually cleared him. The blood on his sock did not belong to Manuela. It belonged to Julius Mullins.²

How Julius Mullins Was Identified

The break came from an unrelated lead. Peter had raised the possibility that someone broke in to steal his guns, which pushed police to look at a recent burglary in the area.³ Olney Police Sergeant Dan Birbeck went to the apartment of a local teenager named Cory Taylor to ask about it. In a storage area, Birbeck spotted a bicycle. Taylor told him it belonged to Julius Mullins.²

The bicycle’s tire treads matched the tracks left at Lake Cooper. Mullins’ sneaker soles matched shoe impressions at both the Allen home and the lake.⁵ When officers found him, he had visible cuts on his arms and legs, and DNA taken from him matched the blood on Peter Allen’s sock.² Mullins was arrested a week after the killing and later gave a full confession.⁴

The Motive

Mullins had dated Melanie Allen, ending the relationship roughly six or seven months before the murder. Melanie later said she broke it off because he had been fighting more, struggling in school, and arguing with her. After the breakup, he began drinking and using drugs, and his grades slipped further. During and after the relationship, Manuela Allen had continued to help Mullins with homework and counsel him. He described her as “basically, kind of my other mom.”²

His explanations for the killing shifted. He first told investigators he was still in love with Melanie and upset about the breakup.³ In a later television interview he said he entered the house to steal Peter’s guns and panicked when Manuela woke up.² At another point he claimed Peter Allen had pressured him to commit the murder, a claim investigators found no evidence to support. Peter Allen described the killing as “twisted revenge,” saying Mullins must have believed killing Melanie’s mother would “break her heart.”

Guilty Plea and Sentence

On May 28, 2020, Julius Orion Xavier Mullins, then 19, pleaded guilty in the 90th District Court in Young County to three charges:⁵

Murder: 55 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
Burglary of a habitation: 20 years in prison, tied to a separate home burglary he committed on June 30, 2019, days before the killing.⁶
Tampering with a human corpse: 20 years in prison.

The three sentences run concurrently, with 318 days of credit for time served.⁷ According to Texas Department of Criminal Justice records, Mullins is held at the James V. Allred Unit in Iowa Park, Texas, is not parole-eligible until January 13, 2047, and has a projected release date of July 14, 2074.¹

Who Manuela Allen Was

Manuela Allen was born Manuela Kammerl on April 9, 1970, in Unterschwarzenberg, Bavaria, Germany. She married Peter Allen in 1996, and the family moved from Crowell to Olney in 2008. She and Peter had four children: William, Darian, Melanie, and Kiara.⁸

She spent 13 years teaching German, English, and writing at Olney High School and held a special education certification. Colleagues called her “a connector” and “an advocate for kids.” Principal Matt Caffey said she reached students who were “falling through the cracks.”⁹ Peter Allen later called her his soul mate: “Manu was my life, she was my soul mate and I don’t think any human being alive could expect for the heart, the core, the soul of the family to be murdered without reason whatsoever.”³

1
Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Inmate Detail – Julius Orion Xavier Mullins
2
A&E. Teacher Manuela Allen Murder Rocks a Texas Small Town
3
Oxygen. Manuela Allen Killed by Daughter’s Ex Julius Mullins
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NewsChannel 6 Now. Olney Community Remembers Teacher Murdered Six Years Ago
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Times Record News. Mullins Pleads Guilty to Murdering Olney Teacher
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Times Record News. Olney Teacher Murder Featured on Dateline
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Texoma’s Homepage. Man Pleads Guilty, Sentenced to 55 Years for Murder of Olney Teacher
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Times Record News. Manuela Allen Obituary
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NewsChannel 6 Now. Olney ISD Reacts to Death of High School Teacher