29-Year-Old Disabled Pregnant Mom Used for Target Practice

[Lizard]

ALTON, Illinois (AP) -- Banished to the basement, the 29-year-old mother with a childlike mind and another baby on the way had little more than a thin rug and a mattress to call her own on the chilly concrete floor.

Five adults and a 12-year-old child were charged with Dorothy Dixon's murder.

Dorothy Dixon ate what she could forage from the refrigerator upstairs, where housemates used her for target practice with BBs, burned her with a glue gun and doused her with scalding liquid that peeled away her skin.

They burned her few clothes, so she walked around naked. They often hit 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. Dixon's year-old son weighed just 15 pounds when rescued.

At her autopsy, X-rays revealed roughly 30 BBs lodged in her. Deep-tissue burns covered about one-third of her body and left her severely dehydrated. Her face and body showed signs of prolonged abuse. Many of her wounds were infected.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/03/21/....ap/index.html

[Unamused Cat]

That is just so pitiful. Here are three of them.


From left to right: Michelle Riley, 35, Michael Elliott, 18, and Judy Woods, 43

[Lizard]

Thanks, Unamused Cat. I was having a hard time finding good pics. I think at least one of them has a MySpace, but it's set to private and indicates his location is Quincy.

[skeptical]

Your fucking kidding me right? Those scumbags should have someone use them for target practice. Aim for their big fucking ugly heads!

[Mom of 4]

Your fucking kidding me right? Those scumbags should have someone use them for target practice. Aim for their big fucking ugly heads!

They should be stripped down and put in a room where someone fires BB guns at them and someone else whacks them with a bat at the same time. Then they should be blasted with boiling water from a high pressure hose!

Wonder if they would find their torture as amusing as they did when they all did it to this poor woman?

[Unamused Cat]

They should be stripped down and put in a room where someone fires BB guns at them and someone else whacks them with a bat at the same time. Then they should be blasted with boiling water from a high pressure hose!

Wonder if they would find their torture as amusing as they did when they all did it to this poor woman?

Probably not. Unfortunately they are going to receive human treatment and three square meals a day. Doesn't seem fair.

[Lizard]

Dixon's year-old son weighed just 15 pounds when rescued.

Parents out there, what would the weight range be for a healthy one-year-old boy?

[Zora]

Parents out there, what would the weight range be for a healthy one-year-old boy?

Not completely sure on this ... my guess is at least 20 pounds, and that would be for a smaller, healthy, one-year-old.

Just for comparison's sake, my granddaughter is not yet five months old, and she weighs almost 16 pounds.

Hell, my Ragdoll cat weighs 15 pounds.

[ImmortalOne]

Parents out there, what would the weight range be for a healthy one-year-old boy?

My seven month old weighs around 15 1/2 lbs and she's right on "target" at the 50% for her height/weight/age. 20lbs is probably on the "average" area, being probably 18-25lbs being "normal" depending on frame and size at birth.

[Angel]

They should be stripped down and put in a room where someone fires BB guns at them and someone else whacks them with a bat at the same time. Then they should be blasted with boiling water from a high pressure hose!

Wonder if they would find their torture as amusing as they did when they all did it to this poor woman?

Using this as a form of punishment would only halfway even the score. In order for them to get the full benefit, they would all need to be lobotomized first. Because you know that this woman had no idea WHY they were treating her that way. All she knew was that she was being hurt, and probably sat around wondering why, and trying (like a child) to come up with ways to make amends to her abusers, in hopes that they would 'forgive' her and start being nice. Shit like this makes me sick.

I have to go and throw up now.........

[Mom of 4]

Using this as a form of punishment would only halfway even the score. In order for them to get the full benefit, they would all need to be lobotomized first. Because you know that this woman had no idea WHY they were treating her that way. All she knew was that she was being hurt, and probably sat around wondering why, and trying (like a child) to come up with ways to make amends to her abusers, in hopes that they would 'forgive' her and start being nice. Shit like this makes me sick.

I have to go and throw up now.........

You are so right about that. Scumbags that prey on those with disabilities make me sick. They even had the 12 year old doing it. The rest of his life is messed up too. The poor malnourished baby has no mother left. Asshats is too nice a word.:grrrrrr:

[GoldenChild20k]

Parents out there, what would the weight range be for a healthy one-year-old boy?

Hard to say...a year old boy could be anywhere from 12 months old right up to nearly two. And a 12 month old boy's healthy weight range is very different to an 18 month old or 23 month old boy.

Anyway, for a 12 month old boy, the weight range is roughly 18.4 pounds to 26.2. So this poor boy didn't even reach the lowest percentile for weight. Not that this is always a problem, especially if a child has a pre-existing condition that may cause low weight gain, but in this instance it seems clear that the child is underweight due to neglect and abuse.

[mrbishop77]

I am with the majority here about the baby weight. My daughter, who just turned one, is 20lbs, but she has always been labeled as a "petite" baby.

[Lizard]

A story in the Quincy Herald Whig says Michelle Riley "was featured in a February 2007 Herald-Whig story about poverty. She struggled with economic issues and a drug addiction for many years, overcame the addiction with treatment, and received help from the Quincy YWCA’s housing program." [Didn't stop her from killing someone, though.]

The police "inventory sheet lists 21 items seized by investigators that provide a possible glimpse into the abuse and eventual killing: two gray sweatshirts with red, blood-like stains; broken wood handle; red plastic ax handle; aluminum bat; personal massager; dish wand; hot glue gun; Powerline pellet pistol; hammer; six towels; black plunger head; carbon dioxide cartridge; metal pole with a cloth wrapped around it; and a strip of white, floral-patterned cloth."

http://www.whig.com/Riley-Web--MON

[TheMorningStar]

Long time lurker, first time posting here.

This crime bothered me more than most and I found the following tidbit to share:
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/new...C?OpenDocument

Am I reading this right? A neighbor's boyfriend tried to stop the abuse that he was witnessing. He got his ass kicked with a baseball bat and when the police arrived [wait for it]......................................they arrested him! That was last October! WTF!
***********
Dixon's roommates had even been beating her that October day before police responded, neighbor Terri Brandt said. Her boyfriend, Chad Hudson, went over to intervene, she said.

"They were beating Dorothy and Chad tried to break it up," Brandt said. "They all turned on him and hit him in the back of the head with a baseball bat."

Hayes, though, said occupants told police that Hudson and Elliot had been arguing over a car Hudson had loaned Elliot. Hudson threatened occupants with a 33-inch bat, Hayes said.

Brandt said she told police that Dixon was being abused, but they didn't investigate further.

Hudson, who did not return calls requesting an interview, was arrested and charged with assault with a deadly weapon. He pleaded not guilty, and the case was dropped in November.

***********

It appears that later that same day "According to court records, Dorothy Dixon complained to police Oct. 18 that a 31-year-old neighbor pointed a knife at her and threatened her at the home in the 2900 block of Hillcrest Avenue that she shared with several other people."

The cops were there twice in the same day last October. The charges against Hudson were dropped in November. I would like to know why. I am sure he was most vocal about what was going on. Nobody investigated?

[Dakota Valkyrie]

One of six people charged in the 2008 torture and murder of a developmentally disabled woman and her unborn child pleaded guilty in Edwardsville today of first-degree murder.

Michelle Riley, 37, entered the plea in exchange for an agreed sentencing range of 30 to 45 years in prison when she is sentenced at a later date. Riley would have to serve 100 percent of the sentence.

Authorities said two months of torture caused the deaths of Dorothy Dixon, 29, and her unborn fetus in a rented house that she shared with five other people. Police said Dixon was clubbed with a plunger, tortured with a motorized dish scrubber, doused with scalding water, shot with a BB gun and burned with a glue gun. She was found dead on Jan. 31, 2008.

Alton Police Chief David Hayes said Riley collected Dixon’s monthly Social Security disability check, dominated the other residents of the house and was the ringleader in the abuse and torture of Dixon.
[...]

Four other people are awaiting trial on murder and other charges. They are: Judy E. Woods, 44; Benny L. Wilson, 18; LeShelle McBride, 17; all of the Hillcrest address; and Michael J. Elliott, 20, of the 2200 block of Johnson Street in Alton.

Also charged in the case was a 12-year-old boy who was prosecuted as a juvenile. Stephanee Smith, a spokeswoman for the Madison County state’s attorney’s office said he was found guilty of second-degree murder and sentenced to 60 days of detention and five years’ probation, the maximum allowed under the law.

http://www.stltoday.com/blogzone/st-...e-murder-case/

[Abroad]

Thank you for the update, DV.

Good to be reminded that thought the wheels of justice revolve only slowly, they do get there in the end.




A motorized dish-scrubber?

[Dakota Valkyrie]

A motorized dish-scrubber?

[Dakota Valkyrie]

An Illinois judge sentenced a woman to 45 years in prison Friday in the torture slaying of a pregnant, developmentally impaired mother, saying the beatings, scalds and gunshot wounds she suffered were beyond anything anyone should have to endure.

Madison County Circuit Judge Charles Romani Jr. was not swayed by convict Michelle Riley's expressions of remorse.

"These were things done to this woman you don't see done to human beings, let alone animals," Romani said in handing down his punishment in the January 2008 death of 29-year-old Dorothy Dixon. "This woman suffered, and suffered greatly. No one deserves to be treated like that."

What Riley and her cohorts inflicted on Dixon, who had been five or six months pregnant when she died, "was brutal and heinous to say the least," he said.

Riley, 37, told the court, "I'm sorry that I can't take it back."
[...]

Riley, who has three previous felony drug convictions, must serve all of the sentence except for the 700 days Romani credited her for the time she has already spent in jail.
[...]

Four other defendants, including three teenagers, await trial on first-degree murder charges. Another defendant, Riley's now-14-year-old son, has been sentenced as a juvenile to probation.
[...]

In arguing for the 45-year sentence, prosecutor Stewart called Riley's conduct "unconscionable" and pressed that Riley encouraged the torture instead of stopping it. Delaney countered that Riley acknowledges "she made a grave error" and accepts responsibility but didn't act alone.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nati...y/1465348.html

[luvmy82vette]

Who fathered the children?

[this is going badly]

Good, at least this one will most certianly die in prison.

The kid got sixty day and probation?...Hoping for the best here, but I expect that the then 12 year old will be someone to watch out for. The situation was not his fault but he participated in something that most 12 year olds would know to be wrong and basically got away with it.

[AmyB80]

I was not aware of this case until now, but it brought eerie deja-vu chills to my spine in the similarities to the case of Sylvia Marie Likens who was murdered in 1965 by a group of youth, some as young as 11, led by a 37 year old woman named Gertrude Baniszewski over a span of a few months. Most of the youth were Gertrude's own kids along with a few neighborhood kids. I hope the juveniles in this current case do not get to walk away as the ones that killed Sylvia pretty much did in 1965.

When the verdicts, came back, only Gertrude Baniszewski was convicted of first-degree murder. To the surprise and consternation of many observers, the jury did not sentence her to death. She appealed and was granted a new trial in which she was again convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.
Paula was convicted of second-degree murder. She appealed and was granted a new trial but passed it up to plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter. She was released after a few years.
The murder charge against Stephanie Baniszewski was dropped as were the injury to person charges against Anna Siscoe, Judy Duke, Randy Lepper and Mike Monroe.
John Baniszewski, Coy Hubbard, and Richard Hobbs were convicted of manslaughter. Each spent a grand total of eighteen months in a juvenile detention facility.

Gertrude Baniszewski had, in the two decades of her incarceration, become that of an Indianapolis "bogeywoman."

Quoted information taken from http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/n.../likens/1.html
about the murder of Sylvia Likens.

[Hellsbells]

Teen sentenced to 30 years for Ill. torture death

EDWARDSVILLE, Ill. - A judge has sentenced an 18-year-old man to 30 years in prison for the 2008 torture killing of a pregnant, developmentally impaired mother in southwestern Illinois.

Benny Wilson declined to comment during Friday's sentencing hearing in Madison County.

Prosecutors had sought 45 years in prison for Wilson, while his attorney asked for 20 years.

http://www.kansas.com/2011/04/15/180...years-for.html