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Show 4A The Salt Lake Tribune Sunday, July 15, 1984 No Picnics, Trips to Disneyland or Backyard Gardening Familys Obsessive By Scott Kraft Associated Press Writer LOS ANGELES The air was February cool and filled with drizzle, daylight was fading and a man standing under an elm tree at the corner of a neighborhood park was beckoning to Susie Dixon, He forced her into his car, drove to an alley and raped her. Then he disappeared into the San Fernando Valley. ; For the next two years, two months and two days, Susie, her mother, her father, her four sisters and her brother stalked the quiet streets of the val' brown car and its driver their only clues, they hunted one automobile in a valley of three-ca- r garages and more than a million people. One brown needle in the haystack of Los Angeles. For 792 days, there were no picnics, no trips to Disneyland, no back- only a search that yard gardening became one familys obsession. Before it ended, in April 1984, the hunt would consume the family. Susie saw her assailants face in dreams. Her parents showed up at the wedding of a stranger and followed cars down dead-en- d alleys and into driveways. Her sisters, pencils and paper in hand, staked out freeway ramps. Before it began, the Dixons led a rather ordinary suburban life in their $250,000 chocolate brown house. The home, with a tile roof and three-ca- r garage, sits on the crest of a hill, the brown Santa Susana Mountains visible from the backyard pool. Frank Dixons obsession had been that fertile backyard where trees and shrubs produce oranges, lemons, plums, figs and, his daughter Susies favorites, kumquats and pomegrand ates. Quiet, and 54, he owns an investment business in the neighborhood. Lucy Dixons life had centered on the family. With six children, and a seventh on the way, she cooked meals, carted youngsters to school and shopping malls, piano lessons and part-tim- e jobs. She is 39, slim, and looks tanned and more like one of her four teen-ag- e daughters than their mother. All that began to change on Feb. 10, v . 1982. grader with dark ' wavy hair that fell to her waist, had stayed late at school to practice flag routines with the drill team. She tried to call her father for a ride. No answer. She realized later she must have misdialed. She decided to walk the 2Vz miles home. She passed familia7- - landmarks McDonalds, two shopping centers, an Exxon stationAt the edg of Mason Park, she saw the man standing under an elm tree. Tracy, the man called. Then again. Tracy. Susie stopped. Thats not my name, she said. Im Susie. ! said the man, now OK, Susie, close enough to touch her. I have a gun and I want you to close your eyes and come with me. An hour later, still carrying her scho lbooks, Susie walked into a supermarket and told clerks what had happened. They called the police. When we brought her home, she went straight into her older sisters bedroom, remembered Mrs. Dixon. They reached out and grabbed her and pulled her into bed. They just sat there at the headboard and cried with ! her. That night the hunt began. At their request, and to protect the privacy of the rape victim and her family, the Dixons first and last names, and the names of other relatives, have been changed here. Their story was verified by Detective Edward Evans, of the Los Angeles Police Department. In the Dixons den that night, the clues everything Susie had told the - Associated Press Illustration They asked the salesman about gear shifts. They asked about colors. They asked about upholstery. They never let on why they wanted to know. Susie found the brown paint in the salesmans catalog. It was not available on newer cars and had only been used for three years, as had the hairbrush gear shift. The upholstery was the key. It had 1980. been available only one year on the mans descripThey worked tion. He had been wearing dark slacks and a beige jacket with brown elbow patches. The composite, drawn by a police artist with Susies help, could have fit a thousand people, Mrs. Dixon said. But Susie had aneye for detail. Night after night, sitting at the kitchen table or in her bedroom, she would draw the mans features. The lips. The jaw. The forehead. The eyes. He had told her to keep her eyes closed. But she had peeked anyway. The family moved into action. Mrs. Dixon drove to the park every afternoon at 4. Perhaps, she thought, he would return and- - try again. Her older daughters, then 14, 16 and 19, sat on the grass beside the car. They usually stayed until dusk. When they spotted a dark brown Volvo they tailed it until they could get a good look at the driver. If he resembled Susies description, they copied the license number. At his desk in the LAPDs Devonshire office, Evans ran the numbers through the state computer and collected drivers license photographs of the owners. If a photo looked promising, he put together a photo lineup and showed it to Susie. Mrs. Dixon began rising before son and dawn, packing her daughter into the car and parking at an entrance ramp to the freeway. Often she was still wearing her nightgown. The youngest two children didnt understand what had happened to their sister. All they knew was that they were looking for what one of them called the car that hurt Susie. Dixon was keeping an eye out for brown Volvos in his business trips in the region, covering an area 120 miles across. At night, the family would compare notes and decide where to look the next day. ' d, mmsm Sometimes, I stoo back and looked at it on the whole, Mrs. Dixon said. What I was doing was so large and I was like a little ant. Instead of saying, Forget it, lady, I narrowed my vision down to one area. In that area, I would be waiting. Susies friends told her it was hopeless. Mrs. Dixon found her in her closet one afternoon, crying. She took Susie by the shoulders. Under no condition, Mrs. Dixon told her, is he going to destroy us. The rape crisis center suggested that Susie and her family talk it out, then try to forget. They talked, but they could not forget. Susie saw a psychiatrist three times but decided it was a waste of time. If I had guilt, she could cure me, Susie said. I have no guilt. The Dixon teen-agebegan calling their mother Sherlock Holmes. Mrs. Dixon didnt feel much like a detective. Each morning on the phone; Mrs. Dixon confided in two of her sisters who also live in Southern California. Her sisters also looked for the car. After a few months, Mrs. Dixon began dropping one teen-ag- e daughter to the freeway and at the p another at the for evening rush hours. Each girl was armed with pencil and paper. Even at the grocery store, Mrs. Dixon was on the lookout. She studied the men in front of her in line. Every man became a target. Four months later, another girl was molested by a man fitting the same description at the same park. We knew we were on the right track, Mrs. Dixon said. She became a fixture in the park. Police officers patroling in unmarked cars nodded and smiled as they passed her. They knew why she was there. Summer arrived. A hot summer. The smog rolled in over the Hollywood Hills, filling up the valley day after day. The temperature often soared above 100. Mrs'. Dixon, by now five months pregnant, sat sweating in her Chev-etther small children strapped into the back seat. One time, the kids were so quiet and it was so hot in the car, I turned around and saw them sitting back there, their faces all red. And I felt so guilty. But I did that to them a lot, she said. Mrs. Dixon had enjoyed her previous pregnancies. Her nails always rs on-ra- off-ram- red-yello- e, grew strong and her hair lustrous. But not this time. Her hair began to ' fall out in front; the long nails she was so proud of turned brittle. Her rules for the children changed, too. Before, theyd had the run of the neighborhood. The girls used to roller-skat- e to the shopping center and play in the hills behind the house. But no more. She began locking the gate in the front yard and gave her children orders to call home when they arrived at a neighbors house. The family discussed moving, but staying here was my only hope of ever finding him, Mrs. Dixon said. Another school year began. The Dixons seventh child, a boy, was born. They were still looking. Among all the leads that first year, the most promising began when the Dixons spotted a brown Volvo in a restaurant parking lot 30 miles from their home. They went inside for a cup of coffee. When a waitress left in the Volvo, the Dixons followed her home. The waitress pulled into a driveway right next to a red Volvo. Both had dealers tags. The next day, Dixon went to the dealership. He looked for the brown Volvo. It didnt show up. He went back again and again. He was parked on the street waiting when a brown Volvo pulled into the lot. The driver didnt fit the description. For the next few weeks, they parked across the street from the waitresss house for several hours at a time, hoping for a look at the other men who lived there. They had the waitresss first name from her nametag. They called the restaurant and a busboy gave them the last name. But that didnt help, either, until Mrs. Dixon spotted a story in the valley newspaper: one of the Volvo dealers sons was getting married. Dressed in their fanciest clothes, they sat in the church and watched everyone come through the door. No one fit the description, and none of the Volvos parked outside matched the one they were looking for. Anoth- - LOOKING GOOD COUPON Corner Cabinet Reg. 444.95 ONE FREE TANNING SESSION with this ad. 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F 10 AM to 8 PM Sat. 10 AM to 6 PM M-- rooms begin m h 263-444- - Weight Reduction and Smoking Withdrawal d Acupresura-Auisto- 623 well-dress- chain-smokin- SPECIAL Trestle Table Reg. 249.95 Where was getting worse. One night Mrs. Dixon thought she was having a heart attack. Her husband rushed her to the hospital. The doctors blamed nerves. She was sleeping only five hours a night and had begun It was February again. February 1983. And the Dixons were no closer to finding the car. Had he sold it? Had he moved? Mrs. Dixons biggest fear was that he was dead and shed never know. By the second year, Mrs. Dixon wasnt the only one feeling the strain. Barbara, a high school senior, was growing bitter about the hunt and the attention it was getting, causing her to do poorly at school. They used to go to Disneyland two or three times a year, but they stopped going anywhere as a family except to hunt for the stranger. Chores at home seemed unimportant. Vines and shrubs began to climb the black iron fence around the house. The steaks burned and the french fries were soggy one night because Susie had said: Mom, its 4.30 and its sprinkling, and did you see how dark the sky is? That had been the sort of day it was, that Wednesday in 1982. I want to do it now, Susie said. She and her mother headed for the park. They did that often on rainy afternoons. Putting dinner on the table wasnt important, Mrs. Dixon said. We were moving. That was all that was important." By fall 1983, Wz years after the rape, the Dixons had passed the point of wanting revenge. On the afternoon of April 12, 1984, Mrs,- Dixon was at the neighborhood elementary school, two blocks from the park. She and her daughter Mary, by then in first grade, were crossing the street, hand in hand, when a car, going very slowly, passed in front of them. The first thing Mrs. Dixon saw was a beige jacket, draped over the front seat. Then she noticed the car was a Volvo. The right color. The right j INTRODUCTORY OFFER 319.95 6885 So. State St. . er dead end. It was now 10 months after the rape. The strain on Susies mother American Specialty Clinic, Salt Lake's leading smoking and weight reduction clinic, offers a NEW DIMENSION in total well being with the popular WOLFF TANNING SYSTEM. I Open: a father picking up his child, she said. But she couldn't let it go. He seemed to be cruising the school. She raced to her car and followed and they the man. He made a and took passed. She made a up the trail again. So The car made a second did Mrs. Dixon. When the Volvo made on a side street, then another another and another, she got excited. But she needed that license number. With one hand on the wheel, she searched her handbag for a pen and a eiscrap of paper. She couldnt find ther. She panicked. Mary, remember this number! she screamed. The brown Volvo made another and disappeared. turn Mrs. Dixon rushed home. She wasn't sure of the number, but she called the police and reported it anyway. Then she decided to go back to the school. She pulled out of the driveway, started down the street and saw the brown Volvo coming toward her. He must have seen her Chevette tailing him at the school and followed her home. We passed so close, she remembered. His arm was resting on the car door and I could have touched him. Instead, she looked at his license number and realized she had remembered it wrong. She dug into her handbag. All she could find was a silver envelope, which had contained a department store gift certificate, her Christmas present from the children. She carved the number on it with her fingernails. She returned home and made another call to the police. An all points bulletin was issued. The Dixons began their wait. A week passed without the police calling. Evans could not find a photograph on file with the driver's license, and the license address was no longer valid. But exactly two weeks later, at midnight, the telephone rang. It was Evans. He couldnt go to sleep without telling the Dixons the latest news: The man in the brown Volvo was in jail. He had turned himself in when officers "made it known he was under investigation, Evans said. Albert M. Alegrete, 33, a salesman from Panorama City in the valley, has pleaded innocent to 23 felony counts, ranging from kidnapping to child molesting, and is in jail awaiting a preliminary hearing. The charges involve attacks on five girls aged 11 to 15. One of them was Susie. After Evans call, Dixon went out in the moonlight to water his fruit trees. He needed to think. Mrs. Dixon and her daughters hugged each other and cried. Susie was staying overnight with a friend. Mrs. Dixon told her the next day. Sherlock, you finally did it, Susie said, kissing her mother. Thank you, God. Thank you, Detective Evans. Thank you, Sherlock. A week later, Mrs. Dixon found John on his bicycle in the street. She scolded him for going outside the fence. Why Mommy? he asked. Hes in jail now. Mrs. Dixon looked down the empty street. She thought of children who used to play everywhere, children who now play indoors and behind locked gates. Honey, she said, hes not the n. Volvo. : The Dixons returned five times. gray-haire- Susie, a seventh face. I told myself it was probably just drivers e, ley. With Susies pencil sketch of the . year. But she never looked at the police tumbled out. She hadnt seen the license plate, but she sketched the shape of the mans car. It was box-likshe said, and dark brown. She remembered the interior, too. A slanting armrest. Brown-checke- d cloth upholstery. A stick shift that had hairbrushes beside it. On Saturday, Susie and her parents drove to a Mazda dealership in nearby Sepulveda. They had decided to try to identify the car. It was just a way of doing something, Mrs. Dixon said. Everybodys advice was just to block it out of our minds and forget it. We just couldnt. Susie ran from car to car while her parents talked to the salesman. The Mazdas and Oldsmobiles on the lot werent square enough, Susie said. Suddenly, it dawned on us, her father said. It must be a Mercedes." So they drove back across the valley to Roscoe Avenue, where car dealers stand bumper to bumper. AMC. Volkswagen. Ford. Dodge. Plymouth. Mercedes. They stopped at J.M. Bess In the back of the lot where the used cars are kept, Susie found it. ' Thats it! Thats it! she yelled to her father. It wasnt the same color, it didnt have the same interior, but it had the slanted armrest and the hairbrush bristles on both sides pf the stick shift. "It wasnt a- - Mercedes. It was a - dark-haire- Hunt for Daughters Rapist Ends With Suspects Arrest 2-Y- ear & SAVE Financing Available . ty eWg'i) beat any price in town! Quality Materials to Choose From Including Oak and Cedar AFTER 264-888- 7 THEOR!GINAL 5581 So. 320 W. Murray Miwmms 9 a m.-- 5 p m. 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