Charon's Dixon's story is one that starts like so many others, but the ending is one she never imagined. "I loved him because he was him," the Blacksburg woman says. "But he had a horrible temper." That horrible temper of her husband of 27 years, Ricky Dixon, played out in the worst way this week. "He jumped up, he grabbed me by the throat, he slung me on the bed, bounced my head off the headboard. I guess that must have been what John heard." Dixon says her years of abuse were shattered by three gun shots. She says, since she didn't stop the cycle, her brother, Johnny, did. "There's no telling what Ricky would have done, if John hadn't been there."
The story is one abuse counselors like Lynn Hawkins have heard hundreds of times. Hawkins is the executive director of the Safe Homes Rape Crisis Coalition. She says battered women are often too scared to leave, so they stay until the violence turns tragic. "We're taught to give people another chance. We're taught to forgive. We're taught maybe this won't happen again," she says. "Suddently he's the prince charming you fell in love with, rather than the monster you've been living with."
Hawkins is hoping this gives victims the courage they need to get out before it's too late. "We can help," she says. It's strength Charon Dixon wishes she had. "It just feels like it's my fault. If I had just left, it wouldn't have happened. It's got to be my fault," Dixon says. Now, her only comfor is telling others not to make her mistake. "It could be your mama, it could be your grandma, it could be anybody and you'd never know."
Dixon's brother, Johnny Mueller, is charged with murder. He's being held at the Cherokee County Detention Center.
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