Prosecutors in Davenport express frustration that two murder suspects who were captured in last month in Virginia still haven’t been returned to Iowa to face justice. William Smith and Steven Dietz, both of Davenport, were apprehended November 28th after a chase near Richmond, Virginia, while driving the blood-spattered car of 37-year-old Charles Nixon. That Davenport man vanished November 25th. His housemate reported him missing after finding a large pool of blood. Nixon’s badly burned body was found a few days later in rural southern Illinois. Scott County Sheriff’s Department Major Mike Brown says Smith and Dietz are still in Virginia.
Brown says they have no word on when they will arrive or whether they’ll be coming soon. Brown says the legal system often moves slowly in situations like this. While Smith and Dietz are both considered suspects in Nixon’s murder, neither have been charged with murder as yet, pending more test results. They face a host of other charges in Iowa and Virginia. In the meantime, Smith and Dietz remain locked up in Richmond.
In an odd twist to the story, the father of the murder victim was put to death this week. 77-year-old John Nixon was executed by lethal injection in a Mississippi prison on Wednesday. The elder Nixon was convicted of killing a woman for a thousand dollars in 1985. He was the oldest U.S. prisoner to be put to death since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.