The Passaic County Prosecutor’s Office did not comment on whether Dixon is considered a suspect in the killing from 30 years ago.

“He has not been charged and he has absolutely nothing to do with it,” said Feinstein, who began representing Dixon when Lee and Kelley made their claims against him in their legal battle for freedom.įeinstein said “if there’s DNA evidence” linking Dixon to the hat, there must be some “innocent reason” explaining that unconnected with the homicide. More: Legal groups help wrongfully convicted win freedom, but what help is in place post-release? 'Absolutely nothing to do with it'ĭixon’s lawyer, Miles Feinstein, on Wednesday said his client did not commit the murder. Without confessions, authorities had little other evidence against the two men, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit - in which Lee and Kelley are seeking $48 million apiece from the city - contends that the coerced confessions and other misconduct during the police probe allowed the killer to remain free and resulted in convictions of two innocent men. The DNA results found no evidence connecting Lee and Kelley to the baseball hat, which matched the description of one worn by the killer, according to court records.īut in 2014, after Lee and Kelley already spent more than 20 years in prison, the FBI matched the DNA evidence from the hat to Dixon, whose genetic profile was in the federal system because of his conviction in a Virginia case, according to a civil lawsuit. The courts nullified Lee and Kelley’s convictions after improved DNA testing was done on a green and purple baseball hat left behind at the Union Avenue video store where clerk Tito Merino was fatally stabbed during a robbery.

“The DNA evidence in this case establishes that Eric Dixon was the true assailant in the murder of Tito Moreno,” wrote Paul Casteleiro, one of the lawyers representing Lee and Kelley. and Eric Kelley - who spent 24 years in prison until their murder convictions were overturned in 2017 - are trying to force Dixon to give a sworn deposition in their pending federal civil rights lawsuits against Paterson and its police officers, who they claim coerced their confessions. PATERSON - Eric Dixon, the man whose DNA allegedly connects him to a 1993 Paterson murder, twice has been a no-show in a civil lawsuit in that case that could cost city government tens of millions of dollars.

Confessions of a murder suspect