Suspect Arrested in 2001 Slaying

DNA found on a cigar butt more than three years ago and recently entered, under a new law, into a national database, has led to the arrest of a suspect in the 2001 slashing death of a Cal Poly Pomona student.

James Winslow Dixon Jr., 32, was arrested Jan. 14 at his Pomona home in connection with the slaying of Christina Burmeister, 20, of Cerritos, authorities said. The former Monrovia gang member is scheduled to be arraigned Thursday in Los Angeles County Superior Court in Pomona.

The November passage of Proposition 69, which requires that all adults and juveniles arrested on suspicion of a felony submit DNA samples to the federal Combined DNA Index System, is largely credited with breaking the case, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Det. Philip Guzman said. Previously, DNA samples were required only from individuals who had been convicted of certain felonies, such as murder or rape.

Dixon, who has a criminal history and was released from prison in 1993, had provided the state with a DNA sample at the time, but his profile was not added to the database until Dec. 30, 2004, authorities said. His name was one of about 10,000 that have been added to the database since Proposition 69 was approved by voters.

On Jan. 4, detectives on the case got their break.

“We got a call from our lab saying they had a match,” Guzman said. “We were ecstatic.”

Burmeister, a merchandising major at Cal Poly Pomona, left her house on Aug. 17, 2001, to attend an off-campus fraternity party in Pomona, Guzman said. The next morning, she was found with her throat slashed inside her pickup truck on California 39 in the Angeles National Forest. The cigar butt that led investigators to Nixon was found in Burmeister’s vehicle, Guzman said.

Police, who believe that Burmeister was kidnapped and robbed before her death, are looking for at least one other person connected to the crime.

The night Burmeister disappeared, cameras recorded a hooded woman using the student’s ATM card at a Washington Mutual bank branch in Montclair. The woman made several withdrawals totaling $400, Guzman said.

Lauded by law enforcement, the DNA database expansion has been criticized by civil liberties advocates, who have raised privacy concerns. They fear that innocent people not convicted of crimes will be added to the list.