Wife Found Guilty of Killing Husband for Insurance Money

Dixie Ann Dyson, who claimed a middle-of-the-night intruder killed her husband and raped her in their Huntington Harbour condominium three years ago, was found guilty Friday of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder.

The jurors deliberated about two hours.

“Too many things in her story just didn’t make sense,” said jury foreman Gerald W. Butler of Huntington Beach. “We just thought an innocent person would have done things a lot different from the way she did them.”

Prosecutors said Dyson assisted someone else in the Nov. 18, 1984, stabbing of her common-law husband, Mel Dyson. While no one has been arrested as the killer, Dixie Dyson’s boyfriend, Enrico Vasquez, was listed in court papers as an uncharged co-conspirator.

Prosecutors said they wanted Mel Dyson dead so she could collect $135,000 in insurance benefits.

Murder Being Investigated

“This murder is still very much under investigation,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard M. Toohey said.

Although Huntington Beach police were skeptical of Dyson’s story the night of the killing, she was not arrested until two years later. Law enforcement officials decided to arrest her on the eve of a civil trial in which she was trying to collect from insurance companies.

Prosecutors had two pieces of evidence they believed would convict her: her own story, which was inconsistent with facts, and an eight-page letter she sent to Vasquez in March, 1986, which was intercepted under a federal search warrant.

In that letter, Dyson warned Vasquez: “Take care and don’t get careless. They’re still out there.”

Dyson’s attorney, Andrew M. Stein, said he was “shocked and disappointed” at the brevity of the jury deliberations.

“They didn’t even have time to go over the evidence,” Stein said. “I just can’t believe it.”

Letter Made a Difference

Foreman Butler said that without the letter, jurors might have at least taken more time deliberating, but that it made the difference.

“We read that letter very carefully; there were just too many things in it that bothered us,” Butler said. “She’d want him to call her at a phone booth instead of at home. If you’re innocent, what would you care if the police overheard your conversation?”

The jurors were also suspicious of the intruder story, he said.

It was the intruder story that first led police to suspect Dyson, who said the intruder told her that “the first time” was just a warning, referring to a burglarly two weeks before.

But police said they had ample evidence that the earlier burglary had been faked. For example, a screen had been torn off a window in an apparent attempt to make it seem that the burglar had entered that way--but the window was far too high to have been used for that purpose, investigators said.

Dyson told police that the intruder forced her to drive him out of her gated community to a shopping center at Golden West and Warner avenues. But a drugstore receipt found in Dyson’s purse showed that she had been at the center shopping just a few hours earlier. Police believed that she thought of the address on the spur of the moment.

Guard Contradicted Her

Dyson also said she had talked to the security guard when she drove back to the condominium. But the security guard testified that he did not remember the conversation.

Also, he carefully logged in every car that came back in after midnight, and Dyson’s car was not on the list. There are no other entrances to the complex.

Stein argued that Dyson was the victim of police harassment. Dyson particularly complained about Huntington Beach police detective Dale Mason, who was in charge of investigating her husband’s murder.

But prosecutor Toohey praised Mason’s hard work and his diligence in pursuing the investigation. Mason flew to New York to get a court order permitting the police to intercept Dyson’s letter to Vasquez.

“Like so many people who commit crimes, Dixie got tripped up on her own lies,” Toohey said. “And we gave her enough rope during those two years (before she was arrested) that she hung herself with her own letter.”

Superior Court Judge Donald A. McCartin scheduled sentencing for April 29.