China murders reignite memories

Photos by Mark M. Hancock / © The Beaumont Enterprise
Darline Williams talks about the 1997 murder of her family at her home in Beaumont on Friday, June 30, 2006. Today's murder in China, Texas features many similarities to when Paul Dixon killed Williams' sister Evelyn Williams, her 9-year-old niece Amber Taylor and mother Altre Mae Williams.


Darline Williams holds the obituaries of her family members murdered at her home in 1997 in Beaumont. She said she sleeps with the memorial display to feel closer to her family.

..."That's when they (neighbors) say I took the knife and stabbed him," she told The Enterprise, adding she has no independent recollection of her actions.

Autopsy results reported in The Enterprise said Dixon was stabbed 21 times in the head and neck - all inflicted after the gunshot wound. Wounds on his neck were a half-inch to 2½ inches deep, hitting the left carotid artery and jugular vein. Cuts to the left side of his head penetrated about a fourth of an inch and his skull was chipped in one spot.

Though the stab wounds were potentially fatal, medical examiners ruled the death a suicide resulting from the gunshot wound, The Enterprise reported.

The knife never was found and in 1998, the Beaumont Police Department turned the stabbing case over to the district attorney's office for further action that didn't come.

It remained a story many neighbors and friends knew, but no one really talked about...

Please read "China family slayings stir memory of 1997 domestic nightmare" by Jennifer Avilla.