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Thomas david dixon

Thomas David Dixon

Real Name: Thomas David Dixon Jr.
Aliases: None Known
Wanted For: Armed Robbery
Missing Since: September 11, 1995

Case[]

Details: Forty-nine-year-old Thomas David Dixon is wanted for several bank robberies throughout the United States. He is considered the “walking definition” of a career criminal. On October 4, 1995, a Sheriff’s Deputy in Florence County, South Carolina, responded to what seemed to be a routine call about an abandoned Ford Taurus. It became anything but routine when he discovered that it was Dixon’s getaway car that he used during a recent string of bank robberies.
Polaroids left in the car showed off a formidable arsenal. Maps were found with banks highlighted. A rambling message filled seven pages of a small notebook. It read, in part: “I know the feds are closing in on me, but they need an informant, so I need to really watch who I trust. I will not go back to prison under no conditions, ever, for any length of time.” It was signed, “Tom Dixon.”
It is hardly surprising that Dixon vowed never to be taken alive. During the last twenty-two years, he had been out of prison for a scant eighteen months. When he was not doing hard time, he was robbing banks. The FBI pegged him for at least twelve, but there were probably more. In May 1984, after a ten-year stretch in prison for armed robbery, he and a series of accomplices terrorized banks across North Carolina. His partners may have changed, but his MO never varied.
FBI Special Agent Dodge Frederick describes Dixon as a “takeover robber.” This means that he controls everything inside the bank. When he would enter a bank, usually he or his partner would hold someone at bay with a weapon and make announcements. They would order tellers to put money in a bag and order customers to sit down in chairs with their hands up. In some cases, his partners would fire shots into the ceiling to scare tellers and customers into compliance.
After a string of seven robberies over a five-month period, Dixon went underground. He holed up with a girlfriend in a remote cabin in Cherokee County, North Carolina. Federal agents got wind of the hideout and moved in, but they did not take any chances with him. Based on information that the agents gathered, they knew certain patterns of his that they felt would help in apprehending him. One important piece of information was that he was a jogger. He stayed in great shape and took good care of himself.
On the morning of November 1, 1984, during one of Dixon’s jogs, FBI agents surrounded and arrested him near his cabin. A gun was found on him. A SWAT team searched his cabin and found, along with his girlfriend, several long-barreled guns, seven handguns of various sizes and calibers, and twenty-five sticks of dynamite. Agent Frederick says they were shocked at the amount of weaponry Dixon had inside the cabin.
In December 1984, Dixon pleaded guilty to four armed bank robberies and was sentenced to forty years in prison. Two of his accomplices later claimed that he “coerced” and threatened them into participating in the robberies. When Dixon was paroled from a federal prison around Christmas 1994, he moved to Rockingham, North Carolina, and picked up right where he had left off. This time, however, he only worked alone. He also changed his MO somewhat.
Dixon would go into a bank, walk up to a teller, and quietly announce, “this is a holdup.” He would show the teller his gun and a police scanner, telling them not to “do anything funny.” He would then give them a bag and tell them to put money in it. Sheriff Ronald Hewett of Brunswick County, North Carolina, says that Dixon does not come into a bank as a “flashy guy.” He comes in prepared. He is methodical and thinks about things before he does them. He times his entries and plans his routes days in advance. He also makes notes as he goes along.
During Summer 1995, Dixon showed up on one bank surveillance tape after another, never covering his face or wearing a disguise (other than a hat). He committed five robberies in a seven-week period. During the robbery spree, he began to taunt the FBI with advance notice of his bank jobs and challenged them to catch him.
In one call, Dixon said that he was going to target a bank in Matthews, North Carolina. Instead, he turned up in Columbia, South Carolina, eighty miles away. During that robbery, an ink cartridge exploded in his money bag as he was leaving the scene. His last known heist was on September 11, 1995. As he was leaving, he said, “You all have a nice day. You can turn on that alarm now if you’d like.” He even said, “Excuse me,” to a customer as he left. Customers who knew him identified him as the robber.
FBI agents see Dixon’s flippant self-confidence as a mask for an unstable personality coming apart at the seams. Investigators now believe that he deliberately left the photos, notebook, and getaway car for them to find. On October 4, three weeks after his last robbery, they got the message: a deliberate taunt from a criminal ego running wild.
In another part of the notebook, Dixon wrote: “Now I need a really good score so I can go underground for a few months and get myself back together. I got myself a bulletproof vest. So maybe it’ll save my ass long enough to drop a couple of them before I die. Yes. You keep looking and I’ll keep working. We’ll meet up someday, and we’ll see if it’s you, or is it me.”
Agent Frederick believes that Dixon has become a “walking time bomb.” He feels that Dixon was alerting police to the fact that he is heavily armed and has every intention of using those arms in a confrontation with law enforcement.
Extra Notes:

  • This case first aired on the February 2, 1996 episode. It was updated on the March 29, 1996 episode.
  • Dixon is not to be confused with Tom Dixon, wanted for questioning in the murder of Gary Simmons.
Thomas david dixon arrest

Dixon after his 1996 arrest

Results: Captured - In December 1995, two months before the broadcast, Dixon struck again, this time at a bank in St. Paul, Minnesota. On January 26, 1996, one week before the broadcast, Dixon struck once again, at a bank in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. After the robbery, he fled the area and eventually made his way to Clarksville, Tennessee. While there, he took a room in the Vacation Motor Hotel. Surprisingly, he registered under his own name.
Pam Poteete, a resident housekeeper, first became wary of Dixon when she cleaned his room. She says he was acting weird. He would stand in between the beds by his luggage. He would never sit down. And he did not want her to make the beds. She felt like he was watching her and guarding his luggage for some reason.
When Dixon’s story aired, Pam recognized him instantly. Within minutes, she had contacted both the telecenter and Tennessee authorities. It was soon discovered that he had left the first motel and was staying at a second one in Clarksville. By sunrise, FBI agents had his hideaway staked out. They knew he was armed, dangerous, and had vowed not to be taken alive. FBI Special Agent Bret McMurray says that with that information, they knew they had to approach Dixon with extreme caution. They used a ruse to get him to open his motel door. They quickly overpowered and arrested him after storming into the room.
Once Dixon was subdued, he was cooperative with FBI agents. He said to them, “You got me good,” that the way they arrested him was the right way to do it and was better than “throwing bullets at each other.” Inside his room, agents found guns and other evidence linking him to more robberies. On July 30, 1996, he pleaded guilty in federal court to seven armed robberies in four states. He was sentenced to twenty-eight years in prison. On April 28, 2014, he passed away in custody at the age of sixty-seven.
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