An East Palo Alto man pleaded no contest Monday to felony voluntary manslaughter more than three years after he killed a woman by beating her with a baseball bat and strangling her with a pair of pants, according to the San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office.
Jason Charles Dixon, 46, faces 12 years in prison if his plea deal is approved by the court for one count of manslaughter, an enhancement for use of a deadly weapon and additional aggravating factors, the DA’s office said. Dixon killed 48-year-old Marielos Martinez during an argument in 2021.
“We thought that that’s self defense, plain and simple,” said Geoff Carr, one of Dixon’s defense attorneys, adding that Dixon, a combat veteran, is disabled due to post-traumatic stress disorder and a traumatic brain injury.
Matthew Sullivan, Dixon’s other defense attorney, said that “he was attacked by a dangerous tenant in his own home who had a weapon and defended himself consistent with his military training.”
San Mateo County District Attorney Stephen Wagstaffe was not immediately available for comment Thursday.
The defense had sought a sentence of six years, the mid-term for voluntary manslaughter, but the DA’s office sought the aggravated term, Carr said. The lawyer added that the longer sentence is closer to what would be applied for a second-degree murder conviction — 15 years to life — and that prosecutors were being “short sighted.”
Dixon “should have just been dismissed and let go,” he added.
Carr added that Dixon chose to accept a plea deal instead of going to trial because he was worried about the risk of a higher charge or sentence.
“Black males particularly don’t have a lot of confidence in our jury systems and in a mostly white county,” Carr said. “He’s afraid.”
Carr said that Dixon had allowed Martinez to move into his garage at a home on the 200 block of Verbena Drive during the COVID-19 pandemic but that he could not get her to move out and she became “violent and weird.” Carr added that Dixon had previously called the police for assistance with Martinez many times but they “couldn’t do anything.”
On July 2, 2021 around 3:15 p.m., a neighbor called 911 after he heard a woman screaming and glass breaking in the home next to his, prosecutors said. When police arrived and ordered everyone to exit the house, Dixon emerged with blood on his clothes.
Dixon indicated to officers that there had been an argument, prosecutors said.
When officers entered the garage, they found Martinez bloody and beaten on the floor, prosecutors said. After the efforts of paramedics, Martinez was pronounced deceased thirty minutes later.
Carr said that Martinez had come at Dixon with a knife before he confronted her with a baseball bat.
“If you’re trained to use lethal force, and then you’re put into a situation where you’ve had to use that lethal force, often repetitively, (what) you learn in that is it’s difficult once you start it, once that decision is made, deciding when to terminate it is very difficult,” Carr said.
The autopsy revealed that Martinez’s cause of death was being beaten with a baseball bat and strangled with a pair of pants, prosecutors said.
The sentence is set to be imposed at the next hearing set for May 19. Dixon remains in custody with no bail.