Woman Arrested in 2-Year-Old Stabbing Death of Husband

The common-law wife of a slain Huntington Harbour man was arrested Tuesday night on the eve of a scheduled court appearance to settle her claim to his $140,000 life insurance policy.

Three insurance companies had denied the claim by Dixie Ann Dyson, 42, whose common-law husband, Mel Dulay Dyson, 30, was stabbed to death two years ago in their condominium.

Dyson was arrested at her current home in Carson and booked into the Huntington Beach City Jail on suspicion of murder and of conspiring “with persons unknown” in her husband’s slaying.

Police would not discuss how they linked her to the slaying, except that she has been their prime suspect from the start of the investigation.

In the days after the slaying, Dixie Dyson reportedly told investigators the following story:

One the night of his murder, she and her husband, an accountant, went to bed about 10 p.m. Sometime later, she heard her son coughing and went to his room, where she fell asleep.

About 2 a.m., she awoke and was returning to her bedroom when a man attacked her, wrestled her to the ground and raped her.

She told police the rapist forced her to drive him to a shopping center in Huntington Beach, where he fled. She said she then drove home and found her husband’s body.