Sara Dixon’s husband required full-time care but her stepson was not happy about his inheritance getting spent and he decided to have her murdered, Grave Secrets examines the deadly family feud.
November 28, 2007, in Graham, North Carolina, and Sara Jones Bright Dixon, 68, was at home when two men kicked in her door and shot her twice in the head.
In 2009 police arrested her stepson Robert Dixon, 49, and two men detectives thought he’d hired to kill his stepmother.
Thomas Clay Friday, 40, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in exchange for a life sentence and he also testified that Dixon offered him $10,000 to kill Sara. Friday explained that Dixon even sketched him out a map of Sara’s house and told him how he wanted the murder to be carried out.
Friday enlisted the help of Matthew Devon Fields and the pair then carried out the hit.
The prosecution at Dixon’s trial explained that his motive was money, with Sara having put his ageing father into a care home. The administrators of his father’s estate then began selling various assets to pay for the care. This included parts of the large estate where Dixon also lived, he was concerned that he’d end up with no inheritance.
In November 2013 Dixon was found guilty of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and first-degree burglary – he was later sentenced to life in prison.
Watch the Latest on our YouTube ChannelIn 2014 Fields, 26, was found guilty of conspiracy to commit the first-degree murder but he was acquitted on the charges of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit burglary. He was sentenced to a minimum of 17 years in prison, with five years already served.
Grave Secrets – The Manner of Murder airs at 2:00 PM on Investigation Discovery.