A Vermilion Parish jury found a man guilty in connection with a shooting death that happened in Abbeville last summer.
Carlton Eugene Hills, 57, was found guilty of second-degree murder and obstruction of justice.
He was accused in connection with the July 2024 slaying of Dalvin Mullins.
Mullens, 31, was found dead in a coulee south of Abbeville on July 8.
Hills now faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison without benefit of probation, parole or suspension of sentence for the murder conviction, and up to 40 years on the obstruction charge.
The jury decided that Hills shot Mullins four times with a pistol in front of multiple witnesses, including a young child, then ran over the body with his vehicle. Hills then rolled the body into a blanket, loaded it into his car and drove away. He threw the body off a bridge into the coulee where Hills ultimately was found, the jury found.
Testimony revealed that the murder weapon was found when a search warrant was executed at Hills' Abbeville home.
Two others were charged in the case: Eldridge Anthony Petry faces obstruction of justice and failure to report the commission of certain felonies charges and Laticia Lewis faces a failure to report the commission of certain felonies charge. Both cases were set for trial this week, but were continued.
Felony assistant DA Calvin Woodruff prosecuted the case through the trial.
Hills has a record; he had been arrested in 1983 and convicted of Armed Robbery and Aggravated Battery with a Dangerous Weapon, and was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. His parole for those charges ended in 2008.
District Judge Thomas Frederick ordered a Pre-Sentence Investigation and set a potential sentencing date of October 30, 2025, dependent upon his receipt of the pre-sentence investigation from Department of Probation and Parole by that date.
“This is another piece in our commitment to our great Acadiana community to punish violent offenders and send them to prison so they cannot kill others,” said District Attorney Don Landry.
“Hopefully, this conviction will continue to send the message to people who may want to commit these violent crimes: we have great law enforcement agencies in the 15th Judicial District and we have great prosecutors who will put these violent criminals away in prison, so just don’t commit these crimes – we want to deter people from committing these murders,” said Landry.
