Even at 90 years old, Clayton Dixon was a gregarious, easy-going man who could take care of himself.
He drove himself to appointments, met regularly with friends and took care of himself around the house. There were very few things that his age prevented him from doing, said Greg Dixon, his son.
That changed on May 15, 2016, after his home was robbed, and he and his wife Ella Mae were tied up by an intruder as their home was robbed.
“He’s very medicated. He basically has no personality whatsoever. He basically doesn’t do anything,” Greg Dixon testified in Johnson County Superior Court 2 on Thursday during the trial of the man accused of robbing his parents.
Testimony and arguments came to a close Thursday in the bench trial of Reese Keith, charged with burglary with a deadly weapon, robbery, criminal confinement, robbery resulting in bodily injury, criminal confinement with a deadly weapon and theft.
A major crux of the bench trial focused on the question of whether or not the incident on May 15 caused Clayton Dixon’s mental decline, constituting serious bodily harm.
Johnson County Prosecutor Brad Cooper argued that Keith’s crimes greatly accelerated the dementia that Clayton Dixon was being treated for. He’s unable to care for himself, and will likely never be able to live in his home again.
Because of the incident, Clayton Dixon had to be admitted to an assisted living facility in Greenwood, Cooper said.
“Each one of these individuals, who have known him for decades and decades and decades, testified that after May 15, he became a very different person, an abusive person, a disconnected person. He was not the same person he was before the event,” he said.
Andrew Borland, Keith’s attorney, countered that Clayton Dixon had been diagnosed with dementia before the incident, there was no scientific or medical evidence to prove his mental decline.
“There is just not enough to base that without a reasonable doubt,” he said.
Because it is a bench trial, Johnson County Superior Court 2 Judge Peter Nugent will deliver the ruling on the case himself. If he rules Keith’s actions did cause serious bodily injury, it would increase the seriousness of the charge against Keith. Instead of a Level 3 felony, which carries a sentence of 3 to 16 years in jail, he would be charged with a Level 1 felony, which carries a sentence of 20 to 40 years.
He will give his ruling during a hearing scheduled for 2 p.m. Thursday.
Keith was accused of breaking into the Dixons’ Franklin home, using duct tape to bind the couple to chairs and taking money, guns and their car.
According to police, Keith was arrested the day before the break-in after running from a crash on State Road 135 in Greenwood. He had needles in his pockets and drug paraphernalia in the stolen vehicle he was driving, possibly overdosed and had a seizure. Greenwood police took him to the hospital twice, and on the third trip, a doctor at Johnson Memorial Hospital decided to admit him.
Ten hours after the incident began, a Greenwood police supervisor decided officers should leave Keith at the hospital in Franklin and ask for a warrant for his arrest, rather than wait for him to be discharged and take him to jail, because he had not been accused of a violent crime. Keith was last seen at the hospital at 4:25 a.m. May 15, and was wearing a hospital gown and his IV was still attached when he left.
Police said Keith got into the Dixon’s home, which is about a block away from the hospital, by breaking a window. Detectives searching the home found a hospital gown and a hospital identification bracelet with the name of Keith Reese, which Keith used as an alias, in the garage, according to court records.
He was arrested in Richmond on May 20.
Keith’s trial started on Oct. 6 as prosecutors outlined the facts of the case, but Nugent put the trial on hold so the defense could prepare for the scientific portion of the case.
On Thursday, Kerria Hardwick, evidence technician for the Franklin Police Department, presented the physical evidence that placed Keith at the Dixons’ home.
Det. Sgt. Scott Carter, lead detective in the case for the Franklin Police Department, also testified about the process of locating Keith. He spoke about two statements Keith voluntarily gave to police essentially admitting to the crime, once the day of his arrest and another three days later at Johnson County jail.
Borland motioned to disallow the statements that Keith had given to Carter. Keith had been in a car accident, had admitted using methamphetamine and had a seizure in the hospital less than a week prior to his arrest, Borland said.
His condition made it impossible for Keith to know what he was doing and clearly understand what he was saying, Borland said.
After watching video of the confession, and reading along with the transcripts, Nugent ruled that the statements were voluntary and appropriately collected, and allowed them as evidence.
Ella Mae Dixon had testified in October about the incident, as well as her husband’s rapid decline afterwards into paranoia, agitation and mood swings.
Greg and Neil Dixon both reiterated the change in their father’s health before and after the break-in. Though he had suffered from some unusual behavior, such as memory lapses and making questionable purchases, Clayton Dixon had been an outgoing, independent person before May 15, 2016, they said.
But after the incident, Clayton Dixon became more paranoid and agitated. At one point, he accused Greg Dixon of breaking into their home with guns and robbing them.
“My mother said that he had a shotgun propped up against the wall,” Greg Dixon said.
Dr. Dawn Zapinski, a neurologist for American Health Network, had started treating Clayton Dixon in August 2015, nine months before the robbery and attack.
She testified that though he was being treated for short-term memory loss consistent with dementia, he was on medication and had stabilized. His condition wasn’t getting worse, she said.
Following the incident, he had greatly declined, she said.
“He seemed more confused, repeating himself. He didn’t seem aware of what was going on around him,” she said. “I feel it was the robbery and assault that caused his rapid mental decline.”
Upon cross-examination, Borland stressed that this was Zapinski’s opinion, and no tests could show that the incident caused his health to get worse. In his closing argument, he brought this to the forefront again.
“Upon cross-examination, she supposes and she can say for certain that it wasn’t something else because she wasn’t around. There was a gap of four months before she even sees him,” Borland said. “She’s basing this opinion that there’s been a physical change in his brain on nothing more than reports from other people and changes in his behavior.”
Borland again called into question the legitimacy of the statements that his client made, reiterating that his words are unreliable and should not be evidence against him. He also said that enough reasonable doubt exists as to whether Keith committed these crimes.
In response, Cooper asserted the evidence, including Keith’s own statements, cast aside any shadow of a doubt about his guilt.
“He was there, he did it, he admitted to doing it. He left his DNA all over the place where he terrorized these people,” he said.
Keith himself did not testify on the stand. But at the close of the trial, he requested to address Nugent on the record. He believes that after his arrest on May 20, he was given some kind of drug at the Johnson County jail that caused him to admit to the crimes. Though his medical reports from the jail do not show any substance in his system, he asked Nugent to look at video footage from the jail.
“There are four cameras in that area that can prove that this happened,” he said.
Nugent will decide whether the battery charge should be increased as a more serious felony, and will also decide if Keith is guilty of the other counts filed against him in the hearing scheduled for next week.
