I started my blogs to write about the funny and inane, but life does not always work out as you planned. There will be humor ahead, I suppose, but this is what is on my mind now and it is not funny. It's painful and sad and demoralizing.This is Dorothy Dixon, the lady I wrote about in my other blog before I stopped being able to access it. A week later, I am still so troubled by what happened to her. It hurts me to see her face and know what people, very sick and evil people, did to this poor lady and her baby.
Dorothy Dixon was a 29-year-old, pregnant, developmentally disabled woman living in a house with her year-old son and 5 other people in Alton, Ill. She was found dead in January. Her autopsy revealed she had been starved, shot with over 30 BB's that were lodged under her skin, scalded with hot liquid that had peeled skin off her body, and beaten with objects. This abuse had gone on from 6 to 8 weeks, reports say. The few clothes she had had been burned and she was forced to roam around naked. She slept on a rug in the cellar and was forced to go to the bathroom in a bucket. Her monthly Social Security check was taken from her by the people she lived with.
To make matters worse, police found her year-old son weighing only 15 pounds, having been deprived of food. The housemates responsible for her cruel treatment were also starving her son. Two women, ages 35 and 43, have been charged, as well as an 18-year-old, a 15-year-old, and a 12-year-old. Only the 12-year-old has been charged as a juvenile because the case is so extreme. One of the minors is the daughter of the 35-year-old who was charged. Not only did she torment Dorothy and her child, she involved her daughter and ensured her child would be a beast like she is. She sealed her daughter's fate as a person who will likely be in and out of correctional facilities for a lifetime.
It is cold in the winter in Illinois, and Dorothy needed shelter for herself and her baby. She was not as bright as you or I, and she was unable to help herself out of this brutal situation. She was beaten down, she was humiliated, and she was hurt. She died because her immune system shut down from all the injuries she had. These people she lived with shot her with a BB gun some 30 times. Some of the wounds in her skin were infected. Some neighbors have described aspects of her abuse, and I am sick that nobody helped her, that nobody helped her baby. Why didn't anybody dial 911?
I look at the picture above. I think, was she a happy person at the time it was taken? Did she know what was ahead for her? Was there family out there who might have intervened if they knew this was going on? Was she pregnant because she was raped by people in that house or by others they let abuse her? How much did she suffer? Did she cry at night out of pain and fear? How could people do this; how could they harm this innocent lady who had a childlike mind? How could they harm a baby?
It keeps me up. It hurts my soul that this lady might have found good souls in the world to move in with, people who had compassion and who might have helped her raise her son and make sure she got OB-gyn visits. And instead, she wound up with the worst possible garbage who are without conscience and humanity and who caused her anguish and pain and who withheld food from her baby. She died suffering and dehumanized, and I don't think we can let her be forgotten. Even if nobody comes to my blogs, they are just a vague fog out there in cyberland, I am not going to let this story die. I will post updates as the people who hurt poor Dorothy Dixon move through the justice system. She did not have peace in life; she deserves peace in death, and I think that means making sure the people who did this pay for their crimes and are never again permitted to get near an innocent person who could be victimized.
Dorothy, I hope your little boy goes on to find peace and happiness in his life once he is out the hospital so you can look down from your place in heaven and have a bit of relief.
No comments:
Post a Comment