Mate Already Convicted : 2 Arrested in N.Y. City in 1984 Dyson Slaying

Dixie Ann Dyson’s former boyfriend and a second man have been arrested in New York City in connection with the 1984 stabbing death of her common-law husband at the couple’s Huntington Harbour home, police announced Monday.

The arrests came after Dyson, convicted of first-degree murder two months ago in the slaying, began to cooperate with the police, law enforcement officials say privately.

“There is no question that Dixie is the key,” said one law enforcement official, who asked not to be named.

A source close to Dyson added: “They will never get a conviction on those two without Dixie’s testimony.”

Dyson, who faces an automatic sentence of 25 years to life following her conviction, was scheduled to be sentenced two months ago. But the sentencing was postponed at the request of her attorney, Andrew M. Stein.

Stein said Monday night that the New York arrests have taken him by surprise. But in light of those events, her sentencing will probably be postponed again, he said.

Enrique Vasquez, 31, Dyson’s boyfriend at the time of the killing, and George Ira Lamb, 26, were arrested last week in the Bronx by Huntington Beach police investigators. Both suspects are fighting extradition to California, law enforcement officials said.

Law enforcement officials have said they believe that Lamb was the actual killer, hired by Vasquez and Dyson. Prosecutors claimed at Dyson’s trial that her husband was killed for $135,000 in life insurance benefits that she expected to go to her

Mel Dyson, a 30-year-old financial consultant, was found stabbed to death on Nov. 18, 1984, in the bedroom of the Huntington Harbour condominium he shared with Dixie Dyson and their 7-year-old son. Dixie Dyson told police that an intruder killed her husband and then raped her.

At the time of Dixie Dyson’s arrest in the case two years ago, Vasquez was listed by the Orange County district attorney’s office as an uncharged co-conspirator. The wording of the charges against her left open the possibility that prosecutors believed that a third person may have been involved.

Jurors, after Dyson’s conviction in March, said her story about an intruder who raped her, then forced her to drive him out of the gated complex, was simply not believable.

The panel members also found highly damaging to Dyson’s defense a letter she had written to Vasquez. In the letter, which was intercepted by police under a court order, she told him: “Take care and don’t get careless, they (the police) are still out there.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard M. Toohey said after Dyson’s conviction that Vasquez was not arrested because “at this time we lack enough evidence. . . . But the Huntington Beach police are still vigorously pursuing this case.”

It was shortly after her conviction, law enforcement officials say, that she began to hold private discussions with Huntington Beach Investigator Dale Mason, without her attorney present.

“She very much wants out of jail as soon as possible, and she knows that cooperating with the police is the only way she has a chance,” said the source close to her.

But according to the source, Dyson continues to claim that she was raped.

“The only thing about her original story which wasn’t true was that she knew what was going to happen, and how the intruder got in,” the source said. “The rest of it was true, including the rape. The man who killed Mel Dyson got carried away and raped her, and that wasn’t part of the plan.”

It is highly likely that the case against the two will be filed as a death-penalty case, according to law enforcement officials.

“Whether it was murder for hire, or murder for financial gain--both of those are death-penalty circumstances in California,” one law enforcement official said. “We’ll have to take a look at each man’s case before deciding, but we’re talking about a very serious situation here.”

During Dyson’s trial, evidence was introduced that Vasquez had a visitor from New York at the time of the killing, a young black man, which fits Lamb’s description.

The Huntington Beach police said Monday that Lamb was arrested on suspicion of murder and that Vasquez was arrested on suspicion of welfare fraud but that murder charges would be sought once he is returned to California.

Dyson admitted to authorities before her trial that she and Vasquez had cashed welfare checks fraudulently, authorities say.

What remained unclear Monday is whether Dyson actually has negotiated a deal in exchange for her testimony. The source close to her said that prosecutors had agreed to ask the court to reduce her conviction to second-degree murder “in the best interest of justice,” in exchange for her cooperation with police but that she had turned that deal down.

“Whoever killed Mel Dyson is a vicious killer,” the source said. “If she can help convict that person, they (prosecutors) are likely to offer her the jail key.”