Vermilion Parish Jury finds Carlton Eugene Hills guilty of murder

A Vermilion Parish jury found Carlton Eugene Hills guilty on Wednesday, July 30, 2025 of the Second Degree Murder of Dalvin Mullins, and Obstruction of Justice.
The crimes occurred on July 8, 2024 in the city of Abbeville, and the defendant faces a mandatory life sentence in prison for the Second Degree Murder and up to an additional 40 years for the Obstruction of Justice.
The 57-year-old defendant shot Mullins four times with a 9mm pistol in front of multiple witnesses, including a young child, then ran over the victim’s body with his vehicle. Hills then rolled the victim’s body in a blanket, put the body in his car and drove away from the scene, and threw the body off a bridge into a coulee south of Abbeville. The victim’s body was recovered by detectives from Youngs South Coulee underneath the South Guegnon Road bridge. The bloody murder weapon was located by Abbeville Police Department detectives executing a search warrant at Hills’ Abbeville residence.
Felony assistant DA Calvin Woodruff prosecuted the case through the trial. Second Degree Murder is a felony with a mandatory sentence of life at hard labor, without the benefit of probation, parole, or suspension of sentence. Obstruction of Justice carries a potential sentence of up to 40 years in prison.
Hills had been arrested in 1983 and convicted of Armed Robbery and Aggravated Battery with a Dangerous Weapon, and was sentenced to 25 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 Oct. 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.