On the evening of June 12, 1980, Swainsboro, Georgia’s police chief Bobby Gene Powell, 33, was shot and killed while responding to a domestic disturbance. Powell, a white man who had served eight years with the Swainsboro Police Department and left a wife and four children, confronted a man who reportedly had been discharging a firearm. During an attempted arrest a struggle took place and the suspect, identified as Curtis Lee Foster, concealed a weapon and shot Powell twice. Powell crawled back to his patrol car and radioed for help but died at a local hospital.

Foster was arrested and charged with murder. At trial he said the shooting was accidental, claiming the gun discharged during a struggle while he tried to hand it to Powell. Witnesses described a scuffle followed by two gunshots, and a Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent said a witness heard Powell plead for his life before the shots. A jury convicted Foster of murder and sentenced him to life in prison; he also received a twelve-month sentence for a Georgia Controlled Substances Act violation.