Jury Will Decide if Suspect Was Killer for Hire : Trial: George Lamb’s fate hinges on the credibility of Dixie Dyson’s testimony that she employed him to murder her husband.

The fate of George Ira Lamb of New York, accused of killing a Huntington Harbour man for money, could hinge on whether a jury believes the testimony of the woman who claims she hired him to carry out the murder.

Jurors at Lamb’s three-week trial in Superior Court in Santa Ana will begin deliberations today. Lamb, 27, faces a possible sentence of life without parole if convicted in the Nov. 18, 1984, death of Mel Dyson, who lived in a gated condominium complex. Dyson was stabbed 20 times.

Lamb was free for nearly four years after the murder, until he was accused by the victim’s wife, Dixie Ann Dyson, as the killer she and her boyfriend hired.

“The case boils down to whether the jurors believe Dixie’s story,” Deputy Public Defender Jeff Lund said during one break in the trial. “And she has told a lot of different stories.”

Dixie Dyson, 45, was convicted of first-degree murder in March, 1988, in her husband’s death. Dyson at first claimed that her husband was killed by an intruder who had raped her, then forced her to drive him to safety past the security guard.

At the time, Huntington Beach police believed that her then-boyfriend, Enrico Vasquez, 32, was involved along with Lamb. But the two were not arrested until June 1988, after Dyson changed her story and admitted to police that she had helped arrange her husband’s death to gain $135,000 in life insurance benefits.

Dyson has testified that she and Vasquez had discussed the killing for years, and then hired Lamb to actually carry it out, in exchange for letting him share in the proceeds once the insurance was paid.

But in closing arguments at Lamb’s trial Monday, defense attorney Lund pointed to a letter Dyson had written to Vasquez, intercepted by the police, in which she told him: “Be careful; they (the police) are still out there.”

“Why didn’t she say in that letter, ‘and be sure to take care of our friend,’ ” Lund asked the jury.

Lund told the jurors that the number of stab wounds does not indicate a murder-for-hire.

“Those stab wounds indicate Mel Dyson was killed by someone with a deep rage, a hatred,” Lund said. “Not someone who just wanted to get the job done.”

But Deputy Dist. Atty. Charles Middleton pointed out to jurors that Lamb’s fingerprints were found in the trunk of Dixie Dyson’s car. She testified at his trial that she got Lamb past the security guards by hiding him in her trunk.

Middleton also pointed to evidence that Lamb was in Southern California at the time of the shooting, and that Dyson’s testimony about what happened was consistent with the other evidence.

“There is no question about the motive,” Middleton said. “There is easy money to be made.”

If Dyson were lying, Middleton added, “why would she put it off on two people. She has already spilled the beans on Enrico.”

Vasquez’s trial is still pending. Lamb faces the stiffer penalty if convicted because prosecutors added a special circumstance of murder for financial gain in his case.

Lamb’s wife and 2-year-old son have been in Santa Ana throughout the trial. They were joined Tuesday by other family members who had flown in from New York, including a state legislator who is Lamb’s great aunt.

NEXT STEP

Dixie Ann Dyson is not expected to be sentenced on her first-degree murder conviction in connection with the death of her husband, Mel Dyson of Huntington Harbour, until after she testifies at the trial of Enrico Vasquez, her ex-boyfriend who is accused of participating in the killing. Vasquez’s trial is pending completion of the trial of the third person accused in the killing, George Ira Lamb, whose defense concluded Tuesday. That case is in the hands of the jury.