Intruder Story Just a Cover for Murder, Prosecutors Say

Dixie Ann Dyson’s story to the police would be a nightmare in any neighborhood: An intruder broke into her family’s Huntington Harbour condominium sometime after midnight, stabbed her common-law husband to death, raped her and forced her to drive him to safety past the complex’s guarded gate.

But the Huntington Beach police were immediately skeptical--they had heard such stories before.

Dyson, now 44, is one of three Orange County women who have faced murder charges in recent years for allegedly aiding someone else in killing their spouses. Testimony in her trial is scheduled to begin today before Superior Court Judge Donald A. McCartin in Santa Ana.

Prosecutors claim that insurance money was the motive for all three women. By coincidence, all the slayings were in Huntington Beach--and all three occurred in 1984.

The other two women--Anita Lynne Ford and Jeannette Lynn Hughes--already have been convicted of first-degree murder. Hughes is serving a sentence of 25 years to life in prison; Ford is serving a sentence of life without possibility of parole. Hughes claimed an intruder killed her husband and assaulted her.

But Andrew M. Stein, Dyson’s attorney, insists that his client’s case is different.

“The prosecutor had more evidence in those other two cases,” Stein said. “Dixie is an innocent woman who has been hounded by the police from the very beginning.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard F. Toohey smiled at that comment and said: “We’ll see.”

But Toohey acknowledged one frustration with the Dyson murder investigation: Police have been unable to charge anyone as the actual killer.

A friend of Dixie Dyson’s, Enrico Vasquez, last seen in New York, is listed in prosecutors’ papers to the court as a co-conspirator. He is still the primary target of the police investigation. But prosecutors said they lack the evidence to charge him with anything.

Dixie Dyson faces charges of murder and conspiracy to commit murder in the Nov. 18, 1984, death of Mel Dyson, a 30-year-old financial consultant. Except for the several times they were separated, the Dysons lived together for nine years and have a 7-year-old son, Eric. The boy and a young nephew were asleep in a nearby bedroom when Dyson was stabbed 17 times in the master bedroom.

Masked Intruder

Dixie Dyson told police she had heard her son coughing and had gone to check on him. She said she fell asleep in his room. When she awoke and returned to the master bedroom, her husband was dead and a masked intruder was still there, she said.

Despite police skepticism, Dyson was not immediately arrested. The police continued to work on the case, Toohey said, in hopes of gathering evidence on the actual killer.

Over the next several months, the police followed Dyson and even tried to get her to confess to an undercover informant. The police were especially interested in Dyson’s claims to $135,000 in life insurance benefits from Mel Dyson’s death.

Dyson accused the police of harassment. The insurance company refused to pay the claim she made for the money, citing the police investigation.

In a letter--now in court files--that Dyson sent to Vasquez after the slaying, she wrote: “I was followed again today. . . . I just can’t take any more of this mental and emotional pressure. Knowing that they are out there. That they still want me.”

Arrest 2 Years Later

But it was not until two years after the slaying, on the eve of Dyson’s civil trial in her claims over the insurance money, that Dyson was arrested.

Dyson’s lawyer Stein contends that that is indicative of the prosecution’s insufficient case against her.

“They figured she might skip the country if she collected the insurance money, so they decided they had better do something,” Stein said. “If they had a case against her, why didn’t they arrest her before?”

Toohey agreed it was a tactical move out of fear that she might flee to Mexico.

“We did not see her as a serious danger to the community, and we were still pursuing the actual killer,” Toohey said. “But we knew she wanted to leave the country. We decided we had to arrest her before she got the money to do it.”

Dyson, who has been in custody in lieu of $250,000 bail since her arrest, is not expected to testify. But it is Dyson’s story--told numerous times to police investigators--that will be the heart of Toohey’s case against her.

“She’s lying,” Toohey said. “I don’t have any doubt a jury will see that she was somehow involved in Mr. Dyson’s death.”

Burglary Believed Faked

Dyson told police the intruder told her that “the last time was just a warning.” On Halloween, just two weeks before the killing, the Dysons’ condominium was burglarized during the day. But Dixie Dyson, who was separated from Mel Dyson at the time, was seen at the condominium that day by a neighbor. An upstairs bedroom window screen was pushed open, but police said someone was faking a burglary. That window, police said, cannot be reached by a burglar from the outside.

Dyson said the intruder ordered her to drive him to Golden West Street and Warner Avenue. But a receipt from a drugstore at Golden West and Warner was found in Dyson’s purse. She had been shopping there just a few hours before.

“Dixie just wasn’t thinking very fast on that one,” Toohey said.

A key witness will be the security guard at the gated community where the Dysons lived. He testified at the preliminary hearing that he carefully logs every car that comes through the gate in the early morning. Dyson said she talked to the security guard briefly on her return. But the guard said does not remember her, and her return is not in his logs.

Another key part of the prosecution’s case is Dyson’s relationship with Vasquez. One of the receipts in her purse was for flowers for Vasquez, a few weeks before the killing, with this message to him: “Is it too late to start over?”

Stein, however, said Vasquez is simply a good friend of Dyson’s. But prosecutors said they have evidence that the two were lovers. Her letter to him after the slaying states: “There’s never a day goes by I don’t think of you. Sometimes I get mad at myself that you are still so much a part of my thoughts.”

‘Don’t Get Careless’

But the most damning part of that letter, prosecutors said, is her closing line to Vasquez, after her complaints about police harassment: “Take care and don’t get careless. They’re still out there.”

Prosecutors also will attempt to show that Dyson forged Vasquez’s signature on several welfare checks so she could continue collecting for him after he left for New York.

Stein said Dyson had no reason to want her husband dead because they had just reconciled and were about to buy a house together.

Stein also said that the key to the slaying could be Mel Dyson’s life style. Court records show that he had embezzled $8,000 from the company he worked for. Stein claimed the company is now in bankruptcy and is missing other money.

“If the police had pursued other leads instead of pursuing Dixie, we might know who the real killer is,” Stein said.

But Toohey has an answer for that.

“We think we know who the real killer is,” Toohey said. “And there is no statute of limitations on murder.”