Grandma held in fatal hit-and-run
Cops say she dragged her crack dealer
WORCESTER — A father of seven who was peddling dope before sunrise Christmas Day was dragged to a grisly death by a Worcester grandma who has nearly killed two other drug dealers the same way since 2015, prosecutors said.
“They have almost the same exact M.O. as this case,” Assistant Worcester District Attorney Lisa Casella said yesterday of defendant Susan Anne Dixon.
Dixon, 58, tightly flanked by three court officers and hiding under a white plaid hoodie, was ordered held on $35,000 cash bail by Worcester District Court Judge Mark Goldstein after pleading not guilty to charges including motor vehicle homicide and leaving the scene of an accident causing death.
When Felix Bonilla’s mangled body slipped from the driver’s window of her Nissan Pathfinder Monday, Dixon’s driver’s license had been revoked for less than a month after she was declared a habitual traffic offender by the Registry of Motor Vehicles. And, court records show, Dixon pleaded guilty to hit-and-run accidents in 2015 and 2016 that left one accused drug dealer with leg injuries and the other with a broken ankle, collapsed lung and blood on the brain.
In both cases, Dixon walked away with time served.
“We just want justice for my brother. We want her off the street. We want her to stay in jail,” Bonilla’s younger sister Melissa Bonilla said as their mother, Mildred Ayala, silently wept at her side.
“She has done this three times, and three times she has said the same thing — that it was over drugs,” Bonilla said. “She dragged people, she has no license at all . ... Enough is enough. The other two people, thank God they’re alive. My brother was the one who died.”
Bonilla said her “lovable” 33-year-old brother lived in Jamaica Plain with their mother and stepfather. She said he traveled to Worcester Sunday to spend the holiday with her and his children.
Police said Dixon went to the parking lot of the BP Gas Station at 30 Chandler St. — also the scene of her 2016 hitand-run — to buy $20 worth of crack from Felix Bonilla at 5:30 Monday morning. “The victim was either hanging on her car or partially in her car when she drove away,” Casella told Goldstein.
Felix Bonilla suffered “severe” neck and torso trauma when Dixon plowed into a utility pole before backing into a chain-link fence, police said. After she abandoned the SUV 200 feet up the road, officers said they found Dixon at home.
“She said she was at the scene to purchase some narcotics from the victim,” Casella said.
One year ago, Dixon pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident causing personal injury after dragging an alleged female drug dealer from the same gas station with her husband’s pickup truck on Sept. 17, 2016.
Police said, “Susan stated that she looked in the rearview mirror and (it) did not look like (the victim) was injured.” Surveillance video captured the victim’s legs dragging on the road as she was nearly struck by an oncoming car.