The 1985 slaying of two Muncie teenagers remains one of the community's enduring mysteries.
Sep. 16, 2013 5:39 PM
Kimberly Dowell and Ethan Dixon pose for a photo in 1985. The couple are standing in front of the car they were shot inside later that year in Muncie's Westside Park. / Photo provided
The murders
Shortly before midnight on Saturday, Sept. 28, 1985, Muncie police K-9 officer Terry Winters was walking his canine partner in Westside Park, along White River Boulevard not far from Tillotson Avenue. Although city parks closed at 11 p.m., a few cars remained in the park, but that wasn't unusual. Back in his vehicle and ready to leave the park to check out a complaint of a loud party at a westside apartment complex, Winters noticed fresh tire tracks leading to a parked car.
When his headlights swept the car and the occupants didn't react, Winters got out and walked up to the car. Its engine was still idling and a portable stereo was visible in the back. Two fully-clothed people, a young man and a young woman, were in the front seats.
Dixon, president of the junior class at Northside High School and a debate team member, had been shot in the torso. Dowell, a junior varsity cheerleader who two weeks earlier had been elected to the court of the Northside homecoming queen, had been shot in the temple. The window glass on the passenger side of the car was shattered.
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But Weller said the circumstances of the Westside case are such that he remains uncertain "science would help you with that crime" if it had taken place in 2010. The killer likely left behind no DNA. While a gun holster was found in the car, investigators were unable to account for it. Rumors that Dixon had recently bought a gun were checked out by police but never confirmed and the weapon used to kill the teenagers -- a .38 caliber handgun -- was never found.
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"I think there was only one person" involved in the slayings, said Weller, retired from the department and now head of human resources for the city of Muncie. Based on his experience, Weller said, "It's unlikely in my mind that the murderer did not know the victim(s). ... There's almost always a motive for murder."
