Woman to Stand Trial in Spouse’s Death : Huntington Harbour Murder in 1984 Was Blamed on Intruder

A Huntington Beach woman was ordered Wednesday to stand trial in the 1984 murder of her husband in a case involving a love affair, insurance money, embezzled funds and a tenacious, two-year police investigation.

West Orange County Municipal Court Judge William L. Mock ordered 42-year-old Dixie Dyson to appear in Orange County Superior Court on April 6 to be arraigned on murder charges in the stabbing death of Mel D. Dyson at their three-story condominium in a gated Huntington Harbour community.

Preliminary Hearing

But, after a four-day preliminary hearing, Mock questioned whether prosecutors have sufficient evidence to win a guilty verdict.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard F. Toohey claimed that Dyson’s own statements about events on the night of the killing have “more holes than a sieve” and that a letter she wrote to her lover helps to incriminate her.

But Dyson’s attorney, Andrew M. Stein, said: “This is the thinnest case I’ve ever seen. . . . I kept waiting for the evidence but there was none.”

Dyson was arrested last December on the eve of a civil trial in which she tried to collect $100,000 in life insurance her husband had carried.

Dyson’s boyfriend, Enrico Vasquez, is listed in police documents as a suspected participant in the victim’s death. But he has not been arrested, and Toohey said the investigation is still open.

Dyson told police that in the early morning hours of Nov. 18, 1984, an intruder killed her husband in their bedroom, then raped her. The man then forced her to drive to a shopping center 4 1/2 miles away and let him out, she said.

Toohey attempted to shoot holes in her version. He said there was no forced entry, she had no blood on her, even though there was blood all over the bedroom, and she did not call police until more than 2 1/2 hours after her husband’s death. Also, Toohey introduced a receipt found in the Dyson house showing that the day before, she had been to a store at Golden West Street and Warner Avenue, the same area where she said the rapist had forced her to drop him off.

Embezzlement Hinted

It was also revealed through police records at Dyson’s preliminary hearing that her husband may have embezzled $8,000 in the months preceding his death.

Stein claims that the embezzlement is more likely a key to the murder than Dyson’s affair with Vasquez and her claims to the insurance money.

“If the police had spent as much time investigating Mr. Dyson as they did investigating Mrs. Dyson, they might know who the killer is by now,” Stein said.