Four years ago a New Year’s Eve party in South Richmond Hill that started as a celebration ended up deadly for one man after he tried to break up a fight and escort a woman to her car.
On Tuesday, Carie Dixon, 30, of Jamaica, pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter in the death of that man, Dwayne Haughton, District Attorney Richard Brown said.
Haughton, then a 29-year-old Jamaica resident, had just left a New Year’s Eve bash at a South Richmond Hill banquet hall on Jan. 1, 2011, when a group of women, including Dixon’s current and former girlfriends, got into an argument, according to Brown.
When the other women started to pelt the ex-girlfriend with snowballs, Haughton intervened and offered to escort her to her car.
As they walked toward the vehicle, another man then approached them, punched the woman in the face, and both she and Haughton fell to the ground, the district attorney said. Dixon then took out a gun and fired several shots, striking Haughton in the torso and right thigh. He later died at a local hospital.
Haughton’s death was the city’s first murder of 2011.
At his guilty plea, the judge indicated that Dixon would be sentenced to 20 years in prison.
“A celebration of the New Year turned deadly when the defendant gunned down a man who was doing nothing more than trying to stop an attack on a woman,” Brown said. “This was a senseless act of violence for which the defendant will now be locked behind bars for a lengthy period of time.”
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