BY GABE HERMAN | A man has been sentenced to up to 20 years in prison for a Hamilton Heights rape of an 11-year-old girl in 1993, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr. announced on Friday.
William Dixon, 61, was sentenced for sodomizing a girl at knifepoint. Dixon pleaded guilty on Sept. 4 in New York Supreme Court to one count of first-degree criminal sexual act.
Prosecutors said the attack happened on Feb. 17, 1993, when Dixon approached an 11-year-old girl in the hallway of an apartment building, according to court documents and statement made on the record. He pulled the girl’s hat over her eyes, held a knife to her throat, and forced her to the roof, where he sexually assaulted her.
A rape kit was collected after the attack. In 2002, a DNA profile was developed from the kit, as part of the city’s Rape Kit Backlog Project. A DNA match was not found at the time. However, after Dixon was convicted in 2016 for raping a 12-year-old girl in the Bronx, his DNA profile was added to the database, and a match was found for the 1993 attack.
“This case – a brutal sex assault on an 11-year-old girl – underscores the importance of ending the national rape kit backlog by testing every kit,” said Vance. “For more than two decades, William Dixon evaded law enforcement while this young victim agonized over whether her assailant would ever be held accountable. But thanks to the groundbreaking work of my office’s Sex Crimes and Forensic Sciences Units as well as our resolve to test every kit, the defendant has finally been brought to justice and will serve a lengthy sentence for his horrific crime.”
