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From her dying voice came suspect's name
By AMY HERDY © St. Petersburg Times, published November 10, 2000 TAMPA -- Jackie Boyd had just put chicken and rice on the stove when she heard her neighbor's girls clamoring for help. "They were hollering, Ms. Jackie, my mama's over here lying in blood!" Boyd recalled Thursday. Boyd rushed next door to a gruesome scene: 34-year-old Decarla Dixon lay sprawled on her right side on the floor, barely conscious, her throat cut and her upper body covered in blood. Next to Dixon, a paraplegic, lay her phone, also covered in blood, as if she had tried to use it. Boyd ran back to her home and called 911, then received a chilling message from Dixon's oldest daughter: "The 9-year-old said, "Ms. Jackie, my mom said Troy is the one who came around and killed her.' " Two hours later, at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, Dixon was pronounced dead at Tampa General Hospital. Sheriff's officials said she died from multiple stab wounds to her head, neck and back. Thursday, Hillsborough sheriff's detectives charged 45-year-old Troy Lee Green, a part-time mechanic with a history of grand theft arrests, with first-degree murder. Sheriff's spokeswoman Debbie Carter said Green, who lived a block away from Dixon, told detectives he had been to Dixon's apartment at 11720 N 14th St. on Wednesday. Carter would not comment on a motive for the killing. Dixon was discovered by her 6-year-old and 9-year-old daughters about 2:30 p.m. as they arrived home from school at Miles Elementary. The 9-year-old knew Green, Boyd said. "She said, "That's my mom's friend. He's on drugs,' " Boyd recalled. Dixon's death realized the worst fears of her family and friends. Despite being paralyzed from cerebral palsy since birth, the petite single mother, who barely weighed 100 pounds, prided herself on the fact she and her daughters lived alone. "I worried about her living in the back (of the apartment complex) like that, instead of up front," said Roxanne James, Dixon's cousin. "I worried about her living by herself, period." The situation had its difficulties. Since moving into the Pines I Apartments on N 14th Street from her prior home on E 109th Avenue in September, neighbors said, Dixon lacked the strength in her arms to lock and unlock her front door, as well as open and close it. As a result, said nearby resident Thia Sheppard, Dixon's daughters would leave their mother's door open in the morning when they left for school, and it would remain open all day. Dixon was a common sight to neighbors as she sat in her front room on the floor during the day. Yet with her apartment in the heart of a high crime area between the interstate and the University of South Florida known as Suitcase City, the situation worried Dixon, Sheppard said. Boyd, who was Dixon's caregiver through All Ways Support Services in Tampa, said Dixon was a spirited woman who shunned help, even to the point of refusing to take an aspirin for a headache. Although Boyd would clean her apartment, she said, Dixon would refuse help with other chores, such as the laundry. Recently, she said, Dixon was excited at the thought of having Thanksgiving dinner at her home for the first time. "She had just had her nails done," she said. "I was going to take her to get her hair done, and we were going Christmas shopping" until Dixon canceled at the last minute Wednesday morning, she said. Dixon had just gone to the bank the other day, Boyd said, to withdraw money for Christmas shopping, and she wonders if robbery was a motive for the killing. "She was quiet, friendly," Boyd said. - Times researcher John Martin contributed to this report. Amy Herdy can be reached at (813) 226-3386 or herdy@sptimes.com.
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