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They often pummeled her with an aluminum bat or metal handle. Dixon—six months pregnant—died after weeks of abuse. Police have charged two adults, three teenagers and a 12-year-old boy with murder in the case that has repulsed many in this Mississippi River town. “This is heartbreaking,” police Lt. David Hayes said. “It was almost as though they were making fun of the abuse they were administering. This woman was almost like living in a prison.” Investigators put much of the blame on Michelle Riley, 35, who they said befriended Dixon but pocketed monthly Social Security checks she got because of her developmental delays.
Dixon saw little, if any, of the money, Hayes said. For months she weathered the torment to keep a roof over her head and that of her year-old son, who weighed just 15 pounds when taken into state custody after his mom’s death. “I’ve never seen an almost conspiratorial effort by a group of people to continuously torture someone until she finally died, then not really show any remorse,” Hayes said. “It was just a slow, torturous, tragic way to die.
I highly doubt Dorothy Dixon even knew she was dying.” Riley, 43-year-old Judy Woods and three teenagers, including Riley’s 15-year-old daughter, LeShelle McBride, are charged with first-degree murder, aggravated and heinous battery, intentional homicide of an unborn child, and unlawful restraint. Riley’s 12-year-old son is charged as a juvenile. Hayes watched the autopsy and found her injuries disturbing. X-rays revealed roughly 30 BBs lodged in her. Deep-tissue burns covered about one-third of her body—her face, her chest, her arms and feet—and left her severely dehydrated. Her face and body showed signs of prolonged abuse. Many of her wounds were infected.
Do you think there is ANY hope for the future of the kids in this incident? If there really is an evil force in this world…this would prove it.
Mans inhumanity to man never ceases to amaze. These monsters need to be put in a deep dark hole.
I could have really done without this horrible story. Geez John. Your blog is getting as bad as the evening news. Perhaps you should add adult verification on your site with this seriously disturbing story.
And people say the death penalty is inhumane?? What kind of justice can this woman recieve??
“an evil force in the world?”
You mean the Same kind of stupidity that leads people to torture those who can’t defend themselves?
Only if you have to be poetic about it?
Everything there is about the human being is on a bell shaped curve. I think we could do without both extremes if the happy middle could get along with each other?
Happy Easter–just another tortured person for the justification of another.
#3, Thinker
while we probably agree on the fact that this story is absolutely revolting, I ask you: what will the death penalty do to better the situation?
Obviously, the fear of the possibility of death was not enough to keep those people from being complete monsters. Centuries of death penalty have also failed to remove the killer genes from the gene pool, so I ask you: what would it be good for?
Put them in jail untill their last day. That’s the right punishment. Sudden death would be too mild for them.
Heck, this story makes me sick… reminds me of a story my ex wife came home with one day. Three youngsters from the group she was looking after at work had managed to catch a pigeon and were slowly killing it in the street. What is it that some people get so much out of seeing a creature, human or not, suffer and ultimately die?
pj
I say eye for an eye, but no that’s “cruel and unusual punishment”. Feh. Softies
#2.” I could have really done without this horrible story. Geez John. Your blog is getting as bad as the evening news. Perhaps you should add adult verification on your site with this seriously disturbing story.”
Give me a break, will ya, I posted a story about Bunnies just before this one.
Geez…Stories like this just make you cry. I felt the same way when I read that story a few months ago about the girl who killed herself after the neigherbor led her on, pretending to be her boyfriend.
Some say that man is fundamentally good. With stories like this, I am not convinced.
Remember:
it’s all part of god’s plan.
May she rest in peace, her suffering is over…
May her whom ever was really responsible for this never see the out side of a prison cell again…
But I somehow doubt the younger people accused were doing anything other then follow the lead of the adults…
Also if she had a child like mind… someone should have made sure she had proper care???
God’s plan??? Stop believing in fairy tales!
The death penalty proves and does nothing: it’s nothing more than government sanctioned revenge. These people involved are inhuman and insensitive to say the very least, letting a 12-year old become involved with this horrific scene. As the article says, they have no remorse for what they’ve done. Killing them will make you feel good, that’s it. It won’t put an end to torture, rape, murder, mutilation, and the abuse of a living thing anywhere. History proves this.
We as a society, indeed, a species need to take a fundamental shift towards the care and understanding of each other.
Life imprisonment is cruel and unusual punishment, the death penalty is much more humane.
Wow… Its hard to even put into words the feelings that this story conjures up. I whole heartedly agree w/ Bruce in #12 — We (the human species) MUST take a fundamental shift in focus towards the caring, understanding and survival of one another.
#9 was actually speaking for the cylons.
There’s a precedent for this.
We can only hope that the people that did this receive the same treatment.
#15 Judge:
and watching that would make you feel better?
Eye for eye is bronze age logics and morality. It has no place in modern times.
pj
#15 We should hope that as a civilization people recognize such treatment is deplorable. Not for one; but for all. We can also hope that others are never subjected to something similar. It is a slippery slope; this eye for an eye concept; and it never seems to lead to justice.
Hey, #16 beat me to it… type faster fingers! faster!
Amazing. Not one person has yet blamed Bush for this. You guys must be slipping.
#19, Thomas,
Another one of your enlightened posts. How do you do it?
#20
Followed by one of your witty responses.
I think these people should be incarcerated and rehabilitated. Maybe given a college education and after maybe 15 years, they could be released and get a nice job in child care taking care of some bleeding liberal “no death penalty” wimps kids.
Jeez, I wish we would develop space travel soon; or at least establish colonies on the moon. Then we could send people like this off planet into a society of like minds and behaviour and let them survive or not. We would not be putting them to death, not torturing them with a severe limitation of freedom, nor costing ourselves mucho money supporting them. Initially, it may be expensive; but, eventually, such colonies would be self-sustaining. Let your imagination run with the idea.
What do you expect in a society where bad is good?
RBG
This is one of those situations where all involved deserve nothing more than a bullet in the head. No free room and board paid for by law-abiding citizens. No lengthy trials for them to use as a means to weasel their way out of punishment. No media circus.
#23 & #26
If I understand what you’re saying here, theres one single thing that makes you advocate the death policy:
You fear that inmates get for free what you have to pay for.
I suggest, if it’s the inmates life that you desire, why don’t you come to a civilized nation (that is, one that doesn’t have the death penalty. Stay out of places like China and the US for that!) and commit a crime that would get you a life time sentence. It’s your choice to get what you seem to think is “the good life”.
pj
#24 (gumchewr), oh you mean like Australia was for Great Britain?!?
This piece might have disturbed me more than others. I served jury duty on a trial where a group of young people (18 to 30 year olds) kidnapped and tortured a man to death over a few days because they thought he narced on the dealer he lived with. Horrible to hear, horrible to see pictures, horrible to observe the deceased family sobbing every day at the trial and wailing when hearing awful details and the remorselessness of the meth addicts testifying.
The death penalty won’t solve any of this.
And locking them up at great taxpayer expense doesn’t make easy sense either. There’s no rehabilitating those sacks.
Australia was a good in-between solution: you’re permanently rid of them but it doesn’t cost a lot. There’s no option like that now because we don’t yet have force fields like Heinlein’s
You read things like this and think maybe it is a good thing we’re all going to be dead by 2012.
That was supposed to read “Heinlein’s Coventry”. I don’t know what happened there. I suspect some kind of conspiracy….