A state appeals court panel Wednesday rejected a man’s contention that he should be re-sentenced in connection with the murder of a Cal Poly Pomona student who was driven into the mountains above Azusa, where her throat was slit.
The three-justice panel from California’s 2nd District Court of Appeal noted in its 13-page ruling that Henry Arnold Singer agreed to drive the truck in which the victim, Christina Burmeister, was bound and lying face-down in the back cab area of the vehicle, and that he subsequently left the 20-year-old Cerritos woman alone with one of his co-defendants, James Winslow Dixon Jr., whom he knew had a handgun.
Dixon was sentenced in 2008 to death after being convicted of first-degree murder along with the special circumstance allegations of murder during the commission of a robbery and a kidnapping. He was also convicted of raping two Cal Poly Pomona students in July 1996. His automatic appeal is still pending.
Singer and Markeisha Nicole Dixon, who was Dixon’s husband at the time of the crime, each pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and were sentenced to 25 years to life in state prison.
The appellate court panel — which two weeks ago turned down Markeisha Dixon’s request to be re-sentenced — found that Singer was “a major participant in the crimes, and his behavior demonstrated a reckless disregard for the life of Ms. Burmeister.”
“The trial court did not err in concluding, beyond a reasonable doubt, that defendant was ineligible for re-sentencing,” the panel concluded.
The day before her body was found, Burmeister had stopped to buy cigarettes in Pomona before being kidnapped near a Holt Avenue fraternity house. The young woman — whose bank account had three ATM withdrawals totaling $400 within a 90-second span on the evening of Aug. 17, 2001 — was found dead the next day in her pickup truck, according to the appellate court panel’s ruling.
DNA testing from a cigar butt on the floorboard beneath the driver’s seat of the truck subsequently matched James Dixon’s DNA, according to the ruling.
>> Want to read more stories like this? Get our Free Daily Newsletters Here!