Bio

Floyd Ernest Hill was born in 1936. By 1982, Hill was living near a trailer park area where his neighbors, Virginia Barber and Edward Saffo, were involved in a violent domestic dispute. On the night of the shooting, Hill had been drinking and listening to music in his car with a friend when the disturbance began nearby.

Hill initially declined to get involved when asked to help break up the fight, saying he was too intoxicated. As the situation escalated and police arrived, Hill moved closer to the scene, where the confrontation soon turned deadly. Court records later noted that a blood sample taken after his arrest showed a blood alcohol level of .21.

Murder Story

On February 8, 1982, Austell police officers Gregory Mullinax and Greg Thames responded to a domestic disturbance involving Virginia Barber and Edward Saffo near Hill’s residence in Cobb County, Georgia. The situation was chaotic when the officers arrived, with multiple people involved and at least one person armed with a knife.

During the confrontation, Hill drove toward the scene and parked behind a police vehicle. Officer Thames later said he asked Hill to help move children away from the fight. Moments later, Officer Mullinax shouted a warning, and gunfire broke out.

Mullinax was shot and killed at the scene. Another man, Daryl Toles, was also shot and later died at the hospital. Investigators later determined that the bullets that killed Toles had been fired by Mullinax, while the bullets that killed Mullinax came from a .38 caliber pistol. Hill was found wounded in nearby woods and arrested the same day. Police recovered a .32 caliber pistol from him and later found a .38 caliber pistol near the area between the homes.

Hill was charged with the malice murder of Officer Mullinax and felony murder in the death of Toles. He was convicted on both counts and sentenced to death for Mullinax’s murder and life imprisonment for Toles’s death. On direct appeal, the Georgia Supreme Court upheld the Mullinax conviction and death sentence but reversed the Toles conviction, finding that Hill had not legally caused Toles’s death.

Years later, Hill challenged his conviction and sentence through state and federal appeals. In federal court, his death sentence was vacated, and the Eleventh Circuit later ruled that the prosecutor’s comments about Hill’s post-Miranda silence and request for counsel violated due process. The court vacated his conviction and remanded the case for habeas relief.