Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
I'm Kristen Sevey. This is Murder, She Told. This episode contains descriptions of child abuse and domestic violence. Please listen with care. Three adults were in the house the night eight-month-old Asia Dixon was beaten to death. According to her mother, Sarah Johnson, this is what happened.
On Friday, January 6th, 1995, Sarah had been at school all morning, while her baby was at home with her father, Deshawn, and her grandmother, June, in their apartment on Bald Mountain Drive in Bangor, Maine. After returning home from school, Sarah and her mother, June, took baby Asia to the airport mall to buy a new television. At the time, Sarah noticed Asia was fussy, but brushed it off as hunger.
Later that afternoon at home, Sarah played with Asia before giving her a bottle and putting her to bed upstairs for the night. Again, she took note of Asia's persistent fussiness. Sarah's friend and her young son came over while Asia was sleeping, and they watched something on the new TV set while June lay on the couch. Deshawn was upstairs playing video games. At some point, Asia woke up crying. To soothe her, Sarah gave her another bottle.
Asia usually held her own bottles, but this time she didn't even grab for it. Sarah had to feed her the entire time. Before putting her back to bed, she put her in her new walker, thinking it would comfort her. When she stopped crying, Sarah put her back to bed, returned to the living room, and bid her friend goodbye. Around 9.30 p.m., she took a shower before locking up the apartment for the night. Her mother still reclined on the couch.
Before turning in, Sarah checked on the baby. Asia's crib was against the wall, and she was laying on her stomach. Sarah later said that the baby initially looked as though she was sleeping peacefully, and it took her a moment to realize that she'd thrown up her formula and didn't seem to be breathing. Sarah panicked and paced between the bedroom and bathroom upstairs, until running downstairs to tell her mother something was wrong with Asia and to use the phone to call 911.
As the emergency operator told Sarah what to do, Deshawn gave Asia CPR. When the EMTs arrived, they too tried to resuscitate her. A few minutes later, neighbors watched as the infant's limp, naked body was carried out to a waiting ambulance. She was still breathing. Asia and Sarah were taken to Eastern Maine Medical Center, where the baby was pronounced dead an hour later.
Dr. Kristen Sweeney performed Asia's autopsy on Sunday. The baby's body showed signs of blunt force injuries, and Dr. Sweeney ultimately determined the cause of death to be a blow to the head, and her post-mortem examination revealed more than the damage done Friday night.
The medical examiner discovered scars going back to when Asia had been just two months old. While her most fatal injuries were fresh, she also showed signs of healing from past wounds. Nearly every major bone in her little body had been broken at some point in her short life, except for her spine.
Asia, too, was severely underweight. She weighed only 11 pounds at the time of her death, but an average 8-month-old female baby should weigh about 18 pounds. A typical baby is 11 pounds by their second month of life. Asia's weight was alarming.
This examination raised some questions. Had the accumulating injuries Asia had suffered caused a slow death over the last few weeks? Or did she die because of one particularly violent incident that Friday night? Sarah Johnson was 21 years old when she gave birth to Asia.
At the time of her daughter's death, Sarah was attending the Penobscot Job Corps part-time. Since 1964, it was a program for at-risk high schoolers and young adults to train for careers in technical fields such as healthcare, manufacturing, and hospitality. It was at Job Corps that Sarah met Deshaun Dixon, who was in the welding program. They moved in together, and when Asia was just a few months old, they moved to the apartment on Bald Mountain Drive.
Earlier that winter, Sarah's mother, June, moved in with them. Before Asia died, Sarah had been trying to go back to school full-time at Job Corps after getting Asia on their daycare waitlist. Brian and Shirley Storman of Bangor had only known Asia for the six weeks leading up to her death, but for that brief period, they were a constant presence in her life.
Brian, who was 50, taught Sarah at Job Corps. His wife Shirley was 45, and they lived together in a two-story single-family home in a well-kept neighborhood on the west side of Bangor. Shirley and Brian had raised her son, but by 1994, when they met Asia, he was in his mid-20s and on his own. Brian taught Sarah in one of his classes and recognized her as a new and inexperienced mother.
She seemed uncomfortable with Asia. Brian shared his observations with Shirley and encouraged her to reach out to the new mom. Shirley was around kids all the time in her job as a kindergarten and first grade teacher at Downeast Elementary and was confident and capable with children.
He came home one day and said, I have this student at Job Corps. She's a young mom. The dad's kind of questionable. Brian was not a fan of Deshawn's. Had seen a few things with Deshawn pushing Sarah around in the hallways. And he said, I just really think that she could use some help, some support parenting this baby.
And she had asked repeatedly, you know, can I come over sometime? Can I come over sometime? So we eventually invited her over to dinner. And she pretty much spent the next three weeks with us except sleeping time. Asia stole their hearts. And Brian and Shirley took on symbolic roles as Asia's foster grandparents.
Taking Sarah under their wings, the Stormons would have her and her daughter over to their home a few nights a week for dinner. They were concerned about Asia and tried to help Sarah become a better mother.
She was an awkward mother. You know, she did not have what I would consider to be that natural mothering, nurturing instinct. Once I got to know June a little bit, kind of answered a few questions. I don't know that Sarah ever had a nurturing, loving mother either.
Sarah was not a patient mother and would get, you know, pretty frustrated if the baby would be fussy. And we talked a lot about, you know, sometimes the babies are just fussy. Yeah.
Little did I know at the time, Asia had a lot of reason to be fussy. So most of it was just around being a more nurturing patient mom. And we talked a lot about skin contact and eye contact and the importance that is to infants to have that kind of thing. I honestly don't think any of that ever made a difference. I didn't see much of a change.
Asia's father, Deshawn, was opposed to Brian and Shirley's involvement in their lives and interacted with them as little as possible. Just a few weeks after they connected, Brian and Shirley had Asia and her parents over for Christmas at their home. This is the one and only Christmas little Asia ever had. In that brief period of time, Shirley immediately noticed problems with Asia's development.
She was not a normal, healthy baby. Anytime she was picked up, she would fuss, as though she was physically in pain, no matter who was carrying her. And I had concerns about that, about, you know, she would cry really hard when any time that you changed her position, like if she was laying down and you picked her up. Obviously, knowing what we know now, she hurt, I'm sure, a good part of the time.
Shirley got her a bouncing baby walker, and Asia couldn't even make it move. She had no motor skills. Shirley later took in baby twins that were bouncing all over the house at just six months old, but Asia could barely move at eight months old. They noticed injuries to her and began to write them down. On December 18th, they wrote that she had bruises on her forearm and right cheekbone.
On December 23rd, they noticed that Asia had bruises the size of quarters on both sides of her head. Shirley thought it looked as though someone had jammed her head between the bars of a crib. Some of these bruises are even visible in photos. You can see those photos at MurderSheTold.com. Sarah told Shirley that her mother, June, was watching Asia when these injuries happened. And June said that Asia tipped her bouncer over, hurting herself.
But that didn't make sense to Shirley. Asia couldn't even make the thing move, much less topple it over. Shirley believed that part of the explanation of Asia's delayed development was neglect. She was never given stimulation to thrive and was left in her crib or car seat for hours and hours all alone.
Shirley noticed bruises on Sarah as well and suspected that Deshawn was physically abusing her. I've seen bruises on Sarah that, oh, I bumped the door case or I fell or, you know, I tripped going downstairs. And I asked her, all right, is Deshawn hitting you? You know, is he abusing you? And said, no, no, no. I do believe that she was.
Brian and Shirley sensed something disturbing was going on. They contacted Child Protective Services, but were told by DHS there was insufficient evidence to warrant action, so they kept watch themselves as best they could. This is what DHS told Shirley.
It was always the same thing. You know, they take the call, they discuss it with the supervisor, the supervisor makes a decision whether or not it's going to be investigated. I was always fearful that because I did it anonymously, I was always fearful that Sarah would figure that out and estrange me from her and the baby. To my knowledge, that never happened, which led me to believe that DHS never investigated.
Years afterward, Brian struggled with feelings of guilt that he didn't do more to protect Asia. "I just wish that I'd taken her and run," he said. "I should have just grabbed her and gone." On Thursday, January 5th, 1995, the day before Asia's death, Shirley made another entry into her log of injuries.
We were already worried about what might be happening with the baby. Sarah was supposed to come over for a visit and she called and said that she wasn't coming because the baby wasn't feeling well. And I said, "Not feeling well how?" She got a bellyache and she said, "Well, no, but she's just not acting right and she has blood in her mouth." So I said, "Well, if she has blood in her mouth, she needs to be seen by a doctor."
Sarah argued that point and said, no. I said, we're going to come over and we're going to get her and you and go to the hospital and have her checked out. We went over. She said, no, Deshawn doesn't think she needs to go and we don't want to go and she's fine. And
Actually, that was the one and only time that that's probably the most interaction I ever had with Deshaun. And he said that we needed to leave or he'd call the police. My husband said, please do. Good. Let's call the police. They relented and we took them. But Sarah double dressed the baby. She put the baby in two snowsuits. When we got up to the clinic, when they called for her to go in, I stood up and she turned around and she said, I don't want you to come in. And I said, no.
I don't really care what you want. I'm going to go in. And so she had a little fit and didn't want me to go in. And the nurse that was taking her, I assume it was a nurse, said, who is the guardian of this baby? It was Sarah. And she said, if she doesn't want you to come in, you can't.
So, Sarah went in alone with the baby. In the meantime, I had gone to the desk and I don't want to say that I caused a scene, but I said, you know, she's going to say that she cut her mouth on a rattle because that's what she told me. Pass the baby a rattle. She can't hold anything. She doesn't grab for anything. She doesn't hold anything. Anyway, and Sarah came out and they hadn't even undressed the baby. So,
Anything that was wrong with her that night, any bruises or anything that night, wouldn't have been detected because they never undressed her, according to Sarah. I said, did they undress her and look her over? Did they ask you why you had two snowsuits on her? And she said, no, they didn't think they needed to. They looked at her mouth. Said, yeah, it's probably a cut.
We asked Shirley why she thought that Sarah would have put Asia in two snowsuits. Because I think, number one, she wanted her to weigh more if they weighed her. And I don't know if you've ever been to one of those pediatric clinic type places, but it's just crazy busy. And I think that she was hoping they wouldn't take the time to totally undress her. If they saw bruises on the baby that weren't explainable, they would have had to report. And that's what she was trying to avoid.
You know, it's the same reason that Sarah never let me change a diaper when she was there with the baby, ever. I'd say, oh my God, baby's stinky. I'll change. Nope. And she would take her to another room. Evidence of abuse that she didn't want me to see.
To this day, Shirley carries some guilt about that night. She wonders if the pressure she applied to Sarah resulted in the violent and legal consequences the following evening. And we tried to get Sarah to spend the night because I was very worried about sending them home and she wouldn't stay. The Stormonts had no communication with Asia's family the next day until it was already too late. Sarah called Shirley before she called 911.
She was very matter-of-fact.
She said, you know, we found the baby. I went to check the baby before I went to bed and the baby wasn't breathing. And I'm like, well, my God, Sarah, have you called 911? No, I'm going to, you need to call 911. And then when she called me back, she said the ambulance is going to come. I don't know if she called me thinking I'd say, don't call, I'll come over. I don't know. I don't know what the purpose of that call was. That's always puzzled me.
Shirley rushed to the hospital before Asia had died and confronted Sarah. She asked, which one of you did it? With her same rehearsed story that she always had, we don't know. We don't know what happened. We didn't do anything to her. We don't know. And I told her that night and I've told her anytime I've had an opportunity since, you're lying. If you didn't do it, you know who did. Deshawn and June weren't present. They were still at home.
The doctor came into the waiting room and said, we've done everything we could. She's gone. Would you like some time to hold her? Sarah, to my knowledge, never shed a tear. And it was more, I remember thinking she was afraid that night. It was almost like it became more about her than the baby. Like, oh my God, now what?
was just the feeling I got. And when the doctor came out and offered her an opportunity to be with the baby or see the baby, she declined and said, oh my God, gross. No, I don't want to see her if she's dead. My husband and I took the opportunity. I went in and rocked her. The police were in the hallway and I said, they killed her. And he said, we know.
On the Monday following Asia's death, Bangor PD held a press conference and declared her death a homicide. The autopsy, which was conducted Sunday, concluded that she had died of a skull fracture and blunt force trauma. Honestly, there was a little spot of relief because I thought, well, now that they've ruled it a murder, we're going to have some justice here. Because I hadn't felt that in the two days previous. You know, I just hadn't.
felt like there was a lot of support around digging deep into, you know, I had asked a lot of questions of the police and I wasn't really getting a lot of, but I, and rightfully so, probably during an investigation, they're not going to tell me every little thing they're finding. Right. But when I got news of the autopsy, I thought they are, you know, now there'll be an arrest and it just never came.
The Bangor Daily News called the house, got Sarah on the phone, and were told, What happened to my daughter is nobody's business. They spoke to June as well, and she said, Police have no reason to arrest the baby's parents because they weren't responsible for their daughter's death. The language she used, the baby and the baby's parents, was odd and distancing. June was talking about her own daughter and granddaughter.
Tensions ran high at Asia's funeral services on Wednesday, January 11th at Brookings Smith in Bangor. Asia's tiny body lay in an open casket surrounded by pink and white flowers. In the front row sat Sarah, Deshawn, and Deshawn's mother, Elaine. Through most of the service, Deshawn had his face in his hands, while Sarah quietly sobbed. Two police detectives also attended, watching for suspicious behavior and gathering evidence.
According to witnesses, after the ceremony, Elaine accosted Sarah's mother, June, as she stood over the casket touching her granddaughter. Elaine told June to leave Asia alone because she'd hurt her for the last time. June also apparently struck her own daughter in the face after Sarah tried to prevent her from taking a photograph of Asia in her casket. Shirley and Brian were there too, swallowing a potent mix of anger and sadness.
Shirley remembered feeling disgusted when Sarah told her, with morbid fascination, they had to put a bonnet on her because her head was cut open. Shirley remembered how many reporters, videographers, and cameramen were conducting interviews and lingering outside.
After the funeral, Brian and Shirley were consumed with anger. Shirley took matters into her own hands, calling the Bangor PD constantly, speaking out in the community, and even putting up signs in Sarah's neighborhood that read, Baby killers live at 41 Bald Mountain Drive. When DHS director Nancy Carlson said of Asia, Unfortunately, we've never heard of her. There were no referrals made to us.
Shirley was enraged. She'd called DHS multiple times about Asia. They told her that the information was insufficient for them to take action. Asia was killed before DHS took the complaints seriously. Shirley said that Brian's whole world turned to darkness, and he took a different approach. She said, It really changed who I was.
Police immediately suspected Sarah, June, and Deshawn in Asia's murder. The investigation's contact with the three adults was limited and sporadic. They immediately each hired separate legal representation and were uncooperative with police. Investigators also had to consider people outside the family who had contact with Asia in the days before her death.
but nothing immediately indicated that someone besides Asia's parents and grandmother were involved. A few months after the murder, Sarah and June moved back to June's home country of Honduras. Though Sarah returned to Maine a few weeks later, June stayed.
Have you made the switch to NYX? Millions of women have made the switch to the revolutionary period underwear from NYX. That's K-N-I-X. Period panties from NYX are like no other, making them the number one leak-proof underwear brand in North America.
They're comfy, stylish, and absorbent, perfect for period protection from your lightest to your heaviest days. They look, feel, and machine wash just like regular underwear, but feature incognito protection that has you covered. You can shop sizes from extra small to 4XL. Choose from all kinds of colors, prints, and different styles, from bikinis to boy shorts, thongs to high-rise. You've got to try NYX.
I'm sending my Aunt Tina money directly to her bank account in the Philippines with Western Union. Oh!
She's the self-proclaimed bingo queen of Manila. And I know better to interrupt her on bingo night, even to pick up cash. Sending money direct to her bank account is super fast, and Aunt Tina gets more time to be the bingo queen. Western Union. Send money in-store directly to their bank accounts in the Philippines. Services offered by Western Union Financial Services, Inc., NMLS number 906983, or Western Union International Services, LLC, NMLS number 906985. Licensed as money transmitters by the New York State Department of Financial Services. See terms for details.
It took eight months to bury Asia. Sarah told friends that her mother had given her money to bury her, but city officials and the funeral parlor director were concerned when by August, no one had come forward to claim her body. At the time, there were no known statutes governing a situation in which a body was simply abandoned. Asia's parents eventually decided on an unmarked grave at Mount Hope Cemetery, three weeks before her burial permit expired.
Sarah and Deshawn had asked that the exact location where Asia was laid to rest remain a secret. Brian and Shirley were not allowed at the private burial. They later located Asia's grave and left a spray of flowers.
They also donated a small pink granite gravestone to mark her resting spot. It's engraved with a panda bear, which was one of her favorite toys, and a message that reads, We'll see you come morning. Her favorite thing that would make her giggle and smile was a stuffed panda, but it was a silky kind of a crunchy, so if I touched it, it would make a little noise, and she loved that. I just felt that she had been so forgotten about
and I guess in a way unimportant even to her parents through her lifetime. It was important to me that she have a permanent resting place with a permanent marker. Hopefully that people would visit or hoping that she wouldn't be as forgotten and she would stay more on the forefront and that she would have recognition that she hadn't had.
In the years after Asia's murder, law enforcement in the town of Bangor remained focused on Sarah's life. She and Deshawn initially separated before she flew to Honduras, but after she returned, their relationship started back up, and they moved back in together. A year after Asia's death, DHS was made aware that Sarah was expecting another child with Deshawn, due in the summer of 1996.
The police were immediately troubled by this news. How safe would a new baby be under their care? Lieutenant Brian Cox, when he heard that Sarah was pregnant again, said, We are concerned that one child had died in this family as a result of injuries that someone inflicted on her. We can't, however, ban Sarah from having children. We're certainly hoping that DHS will monitor the situation.
DHS reportedly presented evidence of the police investigation to a judge and petitioned that the agency be allowed to take custody of the child immediately. That spring, Deshawn and Sarah had separated again. Around this time, Shirley was on her way to work, saw Sarah standing out in the rain, looking very pregnant. I would prefer to say that I chose to get the baby a place.
The day that I saw Sarah on a street corner in Bangor, it was pouring rain. It was cold. She was pregnant. And I thought, you know what, if she's cold and wet, the baby's cold and the baby's suffering too. I circled the block and I went back and stopped and said, get in and took her back to my house. She hadn't had any prenatal care up to that point. I called my husband and said, I just want you to know I took Sarah in.
You know, we got prenatal care. I went to birthing classes with her. I was present when Dylan was born. I gave Dylan his first bath. I was the first person to hold Dylan. It was quite a while before that day Sarah even held Dylan. Again, totally unattached.
They offered the baby to her, and she knew there was a chance that she wasn't going to be able to keep him. And even in spite of that, when they offered him to her, she said, no, I'm too tired. Give him to mom, which is what she was referring to me at that time. Brian and Shirley were considering adopting her child, but they were worried about the future safety of the child if they were to take him in.
We were getting pretty significant threats, you know, a rock through the window, telephone calls, drive-bys. And we gave up on our hope of adopting Dylan because we did not feel that he could ever be safe.
Before giving birth, Sarah started cooperating more with Asia's murder investigation and sought a restraining order against Deshaun. I don't know that I would say encouraged. You know, Sarah was expressing a lot of fear and I explained the process to her. You know, I said, if you're truly afraid of Deshaun and what he might do to you or the baby, then you need to get a protection order.
I took her to get the protection order. She filled it out. And I don't know who tipped media off, but they showed up outside of the district court, which was at the time on Hammond Street in Bangor, and filmed Sarah and I coming out of court, had it on the news that night. Before they aired that, I called, it was Don Coulson at the time, and I begged him, please don't air this, because at that point, Deshawn didn't know where she was.
And I did not want him to know she was with me, and they aired it anyway. Petitioning the court, she wrote, While I never saw Deshawn hit Asia, there were marks on her that I questioned after she had been in his care. He always had an explanation, or he would just say he didn't know. Asia had been in his care the day she died. I am fearful that because of my cooperation with police that he may hurt me.
Deshawn has been physically abusive to me in the past. He is currently under suspicion for the death of our first child, Asia Mariah Dixon. I am fearful for the life of my unborn child, if he has access to the baby. The legalistic tone of the writing makes it feel carefully crafted and strangely impersonal.
In a phone interview with reporters, she acknowledged that it was odd that such injuries could occur to her daughter the night she died, without her knowledge. I know that I should have known. I feel bad that I didn't know, but I didn't. At the time, she also implied that her mother may have been involved in Asia's death, telling reporters that June often forgot things or had been on medications for lifelong psychological disorders.
That 1996 interview gave the public the only thorough timeline of Asia's last day of life, all through Sarah's eyes. One year and three months after Asia's death, Sarah gave birth to a baby boy in April of 1996. He was immediately taken into DHS custody and later placed with a foster family. Sarah didn't appeal the DHS decision, but was working with the courts on reunification efforts.
She continued to live in Bangor, having occasional supervised visits with her son. That reunification hinged on Sarah staying away from Deshaun, but she moved to Lewiston in December of 1996 to rekindle her relationship with him. She terminated her parental rights at a court hearing, where she was visibly pregnant for a third time.
She gave birth to her third child, a daughter, in 1997. And she too was taken by DHS. The same family that adopted her son took her daughter as well, uniting the siblings. Dishon was the biological father of both of these children. A little more than a year before Asia's death, Capehart was rocked by what happened to another child, five-year-old Taviel Kegas. She had been starved to death by her mother, Tanya Kegas-Porter.
Tanya had locked her young daughter in one room in her apartment for an entire month. Neighbors were particularly disturbed at this shocking episode of abuse. They'd passed by the apartment several times a day, completely unaware of the horror taking place just a few feet behind the locked door. Tanya was found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity and sent to a mental health facility.
Shirley was a teacher at the school that Tavielle attended and wondered how this shocking tragedy went undetected. I think anytime anything like that happens, you, and not me personally, but, you know, whether you're the guidance counselor or the principal or the teacher, you know, you go through, what did I miss? What did we miss as a community? That that little girl was still in that apartment and nobody knew. What happened that we didn't pick up on?
When Asia was killed, the community was again enraged and riddled with guilt. Abuse leading to the death of a child had happened under their noses all over again. One woman who lived close to Asia's family said, We all vowed to pull together when Taviel died. And a couple months go by and we all forget. It's time that we stop acting like hermits and pretending that nothing is going on.
She had promised herself that she would never let anything like that happen to children who lived near her. Maybe I should have gone over there. We all say we're going to pull together and help out young mothers and families who get stressed. People should have helped out. A January 23rd op-ed in the Bangor Daily News also expressed frustration at the community for not stepping in.
I don't understand what the problem is of not being able to arrest anyone for the murder of Asia Dixon. As I see it, anyone who is living in the same household and sees the abuse happening, and you have to see something, bruises, black eyes, etc., going on over that period of time, is just as guilty as the abuser for letting it happen. Even in a bank robbery, the driver of a getaway car is prosecuted.
Eleven days after her death, a small group of people gathered at the community center to discuss how to deal with the second death of a neighborhood child. But not everyone believed the community could make a difference.
A guidance counselor at the Downey School told the frustrated and tearful attendees that there was probably little they could have done to prevent the tragic deaths of Asia or Taviel. While they had to accept that they couldn't prevent every tragedy, they dedicated a community action team to better identify children in their low-income area who might be at risk.
The committee focused on parents of newborn babies to offer a helping hand or an ear for new parents who might be struggling. Instead of coming in as an unyielding authority, they wanted to be seen as a welcoming community, people who could be trusted and asked for help in hard times. The residents of Old Cape Heart had seen the consequences of keeping an arm's length.
Even official organizations began using Asia's name as a rallying cry for increased community funding. The Department of Health and Welfare brought up Asia's case as one that could have been prevented. "We had identified this as a high-risk family," a director told the city council. Staff had visited the house until October of 1994, when Asia was five months old, but stopped because the family had decided they no longer needed our services.
Shirley helped promote a gospel concert to raise funds for the Tavial Kegas Scholarship Fund just a few months before Asia's death. She too expressed outrage at the crawling investigation and the horrors the abused child went through.
Two years after Asia's murder, she wrote,
She couldn't tell anyone of the torture she endured. No one has ever been charged with her abuse and murder. Her parents have had two more children. The following year, Shirley and Brian separated, in no small part due to the ways they coped differently with Asia's death. They didn't stay close, and it was 10 years before they could even be civil with one another again. For a few years, Shirley pulled away from children and pursued real estate.
But at 51 in 2000, Shirley adopted twins who were six months old, and then later, their biological brother. She wanted to help children. Today, in 2023, Shirley has fostered over 100 children, and she's the executive director for the Maine Foster Care Association. Shirley is still in contact with Sarah's daughter, who still lives in Maine. Brian is in the veterans' home in Bangor with dementia, and he's not doing so well.
The Stormonts kept Asia's name alive within the community, visiting her little rosy gravestone and sending memorials on the anniversaries of her death to the local newspaper. In May of 1995, the month that Asia should have turned one, they even published a poem in the Bangor Daily News,
The pain that Brian and Shirley experienced from Asia's death shook them.
You know, it's kind of funny because I questioned God, you know, why would you bring this baby into my life? But Randy Washington, who did her service, you know, he said she had an opportunity to know real life before she left Earth. That's why. So some comfort in that. And I also think that we saved the other two.
You know, which they all three could have suffered the same fate had Asia not been taken. So that's the only comfort, really. Almost three decades have now passed since Asia Dixon was murdered. Brian and Shirley bought a bottle of champagne that they planned to open the day the case was solved.
Still have it. And we bought that the day of her funeral and said, when they solve this and arrest somebody and somebody's in jail, we'll pop it open. Still have it. We asked Shirley what she would say to Asia's killer. I would probably say that they are very lucky that judgment and justice comes from God, not me. I truly hope they burn in hell. Fortunately or unfortunately, I'm not the one that gets to make that call.
I would just hope that somebody someday before they leave this earth does the right thing. And I wish June had before she passed. I tried to encourage that. But I hope that someday, whether I live to see or not, that somebody will do the right thing and there will be some kind of justice.
You know, I had said to the police, put them in separate rooms and say, he told me you did it. You know, she told me you did it. And he told me I watched too much TV. I honestly don't think it was June because I could understand maybe Sarah covering for her mother, but Deshawn never would have.
They did not have, from everything I was told, they didn't have a very good relationship. And I think if June had done it and Deshaun thought he might take the fall for it, I think he'd have given her up in a heartbeat. June, her grandmother, passed away in the early 2010s. Sarah and Deshaun are no longer together. Sarah lives in Maine, and as of 2019, Deshaun was living in Texas.
Shirley said she was last called about four to five years ago, around 2019, by a detective with the Bangor PD. This case is still unsolved. It's one of three of Bangor's unsolved murders. We reached out to the Bangor PD for comment, but they didn't respond. They wouldn't even give us the name of the detective assigned to the case. Even still, they are the custodians of this investigation.
If Asia were alive today, she would be getting ready to turn 29 years old in May. But that life was stolen. It angers me that people don't know her name, that they don't know who she is and what happened to her.
If Asia's story touched your heart, I encourage you to share it and keep her memory alive. After everything this innocent little baby went through, the last thing that should happen is that she's forgotten. An unsolved case buried with time. Asia Mariah Dixon should not be forgotten. Say her name. Remember her story.
If you have any information on the murder of Asia Dixon from January of 1995, I encourage you to call the Bangor Police Department at 207-947-7382.
If you or someone you know are feeling unsafe at home, help is available 24-7. It's never too late. Call the Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233 or text START to 88788.
Thank you so much for listening. If you're enjoying Murder, She Told, I would love it if you shared it with a friend. Word of mouth or sharing on social media or recommending it is one of the best ways to help reach new listeners. And if you want to support the show in other ways, there's a link in the show notes with options. Follow Murder, She Told on social media at Murder, She Told Podcast on Instagram, at Murder, She Told on TikTok, and Murder, She Told on Facebook.
A detailed list of sources and photos from this episode and more can be found at MurderSheTold.com. A very special thanks to Shirley for sharing her memories with us. Thank you to Paige Quinones for her writing, and to Byron Willis and Bridget Rowley for their research. If you have a suggestion or a correction, I would love to hear from you. You can email me at hello at MurderSheTold.com. I'm Kristen Sevey, and this is Murder She Told. Thank you for listening.