A woman previously charged with the fatal shooting of Ricky Floyd, the late senior lead pastor of Pursuit of God Church, during a religious dispute outside a bar in Memphis, Tennessee, is now facing elevated charges as investigators question her claim of self-defense.
The woman, 42-year-old Samantha Marion, was previously charged with voluntary manslaughter for Floyd’s March 12 death. A recent Action News 5 report said a grand jury indicted Marion last week on charges of second-degree murder, employment of a firearm with the intent to commit a felony, and reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon.
Floyd was shot outside Momma’s Bar and Kitchen located at 855 Kentucky Road. During a preliminary hearing of the case in June, Patrolman Cordell Boyd, who was the first officer to arrive at the crime scene, stated that Marion’s self-defense claims contained inconsistencies.
“The first time when the victim approached her, she went to her car and armed herself. She told me she put the gun behind her back. She had it behind her back. She said several times in the exchange, the victim kept approaching her, and she kept telling the victim to ‘back, back,’” Boyd testified.
“The last time she said she then moved her hand, took the gun off safety, and then the last time telling the victim to ‘back, back,’ she reached forward and accidentally fired a shot.”
John Keith Perry, an attorney for Marion, previously told WREG that Marion and a man identified as Steven Newsom, whom she met on the night of the shooting, got into a heated discussion with Floyd, 58, about the Bible on the night of the shooting.
“Reverend Floyd evidently had some, I call them tracts, but the small magazine publication that are of a religious nature, and passes them to the people that are at the bar,” Perry told WREG.
“We are also told the argument centered around how Floyd could tell anyone anything when he, a pastor, was at this bar and grill at 1 a.m.,” Perry explained. “We are also told that Samantha Marion was getting the best of him in that argument.”
Perry said as everyone was leaving outside the bar, Floyd approached Marion, and Newsom got between them. Floyd allegedly knocked Newsom to the ground.
At about 1:17 a.m. Marion called police and confessed to shooting Floyd during the melee. Video surveillance footage reportedly shows Floyd throwing Marion’s phone and a beer can before hopping into his vehicle and driving away. Marion allegedly walked into the roadway and appeared to record the pastor’s vehicle with her phone.
Marion’s recording shows Floyd exiting his car and confronting her before a witness separates them. As Floyd backed away, police said Marion walked toward the pastor, who was seen falling to the ground and never getting up again. Boyd testified that if Marion felt threatened enough to go to her vehicle for a gun, she could have left. The surveillance video reportedly shows that Floyd was shot while backing away from Marion.
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