Mentally disabled pregnant woman tortured to death by roommates, including children

The website for Alton, Illinois - located about 15 miles north of St. Louis - says that it’s “a great place to live, work, grow, and prosper”.

It wasn’t any of that for Dorothy Dixon (pictured at left), who relocated there last fall from Quincy, about 100 miles from St. Louis.

Ms. Dixon, a 29-year-old mentally disabled pregnant mother of one, with a childlike mind herself, likely didn’t know she was dying. She may not have even realized that she was being tortured.

Yet torture is the only word to describe what happened to her.

It all started when she befriended 35-year-old Michelle Riley. For years, Riley had been a methamphetamine and cocaine addict, and as a result had drug convictions in 2002 and 2004; she had originally been charged with drug distribution, but the charges were reduced because the prosecutor didn’t want to send a woman with underage children to prison. A mother of two, she had struggled for years to raise her children; and after receiving drug treatment and help with obtaining housing, she began to live what appeared to be a perfectly normal life; so normal, in fact, that a local newspaper actually wrote about her as a success story.

What the newspaper didn’t know was that Michelle Riley had been prescribed drugs for “mental issues”, but was medically noncompliant because the drugs caused her to gain weight.

Eventually Riley began working as a coordinator at a regional center for the developmentally disabled, helping that at-risk population with obtaining housing and other needed social services. That’s where and how she met Dorothy Dixon.

Last summer the two women, along with Riley’s 12-year-old son and 15-year-old daughter and Dixon’s one-year-old son, moved into an $800 per month three-bedroom rental home. Three others - a grown woman and two teenage boys - moved into the home as well. The neighbors there say that, from the beginning, they considered Riley to be trouble. Neighbor Chad Hudson has said that “Michelle was evil, vindictive. Manipulative.” Terri Brandt added about Riley, “She was angry, vicious.” Hudson further stated, “Being in their house was like being in a prison day room. They just sat around the kitchen table and fought.” They both agree that Riley ruled the roost, and Hudson is convinced that the teenagers were powerless, and merely Riley’s minions.

A month prior to the situation at hand, Hudson said, he had intervened in a fight between the occupants and Dixon, and was himself hit with a baseball bat; and Brandt said she informed police that Dixon was being abused, but that they did not investigate. Police dispute that account, and say instead that the argument was over a car Hudson had loaned to one of the occupants of the home, and that no one at that time alluded to any abuse.

Their landlord, Steve Atkins, said he saw Riley “barking orders” at everyone else last fall, when he was there to do repairs and upgrades on the home. He joked that maybe he should call the Army to see if they wanted their drill sergeant back, but says, “She didn’t laugh about it at all. Obviously, I hit at nerve.” Atkins described Dorothy Dixon as someone who kept to herself, “but was always nice when she spoke to you.” He saw no sign that she was being abused at that time. However, there was little question in anyone’s mind that Riley ruled the house with an iron fist.

No one realized that she had commandeered Dorothy Dixon’s disability checks. No one knew that she was treating Dorothy Dixon has her personal slave, many times forcing Dixon to rub her feet until she fell asleep. No one even suspected what was really going on in that little white house with the blue shutters, until it was too late.

The reality is that Dorothy Dixon was forced to sleep on what amounted to a thin rug and a mattress on a concrete basement floor. Riley burned her clothing, and she was forced to walk around naked. Whenever a starving and pregnant Dorothy Dixon would go into the kitchen to forage for scraps to eat, Riley and the other occupants of the home would use her for target practice with their BB guns. They burned her with a glue gun, and they poured liquid so hot onto her that her skin peeled away from the burns. They would hit her with an aluminum bat, and a metal handle. She was repeatedly beaten on the head with an unnamed object.

After weeks of such extreme abuse, Dorothy Dixon, six months pregnant at the time, died. She had literally been tortured to death; the medical examiner said she had been tortured to the point that her immune system simply shut down.

Police have charged Michelle Riley (pictured center top at right) and her children, 15-year-old daughter LeShelle McBride and her 12-year-old son; along with Judy Woods (age 43), Michael Elliott (age 18), Benny Wilson (age 16) with first-degree murder, aggravated and heinous battery, intentional homicide of an unborn child, and unlawful restraint. The teenagers are being charged as adults; the 12-year-old is being charged as a juvenile. All of the defendants, with the exception of Elliot, lived in the home. A Grand Jury Indictment was unsealed last week, charging all six with first-degree murder, battery, and unlawful restraint.

According to Police Lieutenant David Hayes, “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. It was just a slow, torturous, tragic way to die. I highly doubt Dorothy Dixon even knew she was dying.”

Police found a bucket of feces in the basement room where Dorothy Dixon and her child were forced to live, and a waist-high door which had been nailed shut. They also found Dorothy Dixon’s blood. There was blood on the wall, in the basement shower, on the concrete floor, and on the washer and dryer.

The autopsy results are extremely disturbing. X-rays revealed about 30 BBs lodged in Dorothy Dixon’s body. Deep-tissue burns covered her face, her chest, her arms, and her feet - about one-third of her body - and left her severely dehydrated. Her face and body showed the tell-tale signs of prolonged abuse, and many of her wounds were infected. Yet none of the injuries, by itself, proved fatal. Six months pregnant at the time her system, already taxed by her unborn child, was unable to withstand the torture; and her body simply stopped functioning.

The small town of Alton is, quite understandably, both horrified and outraged. Police Lieutenant David Hayes said, “It’s disgraceful the way this girl died, as kind and as sweet as this girl was. She didn’t deserve to die the way she did. It’s just terrible, senseless. It’s just a total shame.” Some spoke up in defense of the teens, saying they only did what Riley told them to do, because they were scared of her. They also spoke up in defense of Woods, saying Riley was the most likely murderer and that the rest of the house’s occupants likely were acting upon her demand, afraid to do otherwise.

The youth of most of the defendants is surprising, especially considering that one is only 12 years old. Yet, according to police, none of them appear to show any remorse for having tortured a mentally disabled pregnant woman to death. According to Lieutenant Hayes, “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 are placing much of the blame on Michelle Riley. Police say that Dixon saw little if any of the money from her disability checks, and for months she tolerated the abuse because, due to her mental disability, she didn’t realize she had a choice. She stayed just to keep a roof over her own head, and that of her infant son.

Dorothy Dixon’s one-year-old infant son weighed just 15 pounds when he was taken into state custody following his mother’s death. His current condition is unknown.

Each of the six defendants is being held in lieu of $1 million bond.

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Sources:

Associated Press: Torture Death Shocks Illinois Town

St Louis Dispatch: Police: Abuse Not Mentioned In Earlier Dixon Case

United Press International: Six Charged in Illinois Torture Killing

Bloomington Pantagraph: Teens charged in murder of mentally disabled pregnant woman