An Indiana Uber driver accused of raping and killing his female passenger, Chanti Dixon, initially told police an armed Black man shot her and fled.
The shocking story was just that — a tall tale that played into an old, racist stereotype, otherwise known as “Blame a Black Man” syndrome.
Indianapolis detectives saw through the false accusation, and the perpetrator, Francisco Valadez, was arrested on Sept. 10 and charged with murder. Valadez, 29, allegedly admitted to the crime in police custody and revealed the spine-chilling details of the attack, according to a probable cause affidavit reported by local media.
On Sept 8, Dixon, 30, called an Uber to take her home after her late shift at a local strip club ended around 3:30 a.m. When she never returned, her worried family tracked her phone to the woods behind her residence, where they made a horrifying discovery.
According to court documents, Dixon had been dumped naked and was lying on her stomach. First responders pronounced her dead at the scene, and it was later discovered that she had been shot in the head.
Dixon’s cellphones proved invaluable again as they provided the first clues about a suspect for detectives. That night, she carried two phones with her, and they were both found near her body. Luckily, her mother knew the passcodes, and authorities were able to review her last messages, which led them to the Uber driver. The two reportedly made one stop in his BMW before arriving at her home.
Detectives located Valadez’s address and quickly caught up to him. During questioning, he fabricated an elaborate story about a Black man and an armed robbery gone wrong, telling police an assailant came up to his car and opened fire.
“[Valadez] added that the suspect shot [Dixon] in the thigh and that she kicked herself out of his car and he fled the scene,” according to the probable cause affidavit. “He also said that he had cleaned the blood out of his car.”
After police reportedly questioned his mother and seized evidence from his BMW, including the possible murder weapon, the suspect was brought to the station for further interrogation, where he continued to push the story of a Black assailant along with another story.
But he eventually cracked and confessed to the crime, police said.
Valadez allegedly admitted to raping Dixon in the back of his car and becoming so enraged when she insulted his body that he pulled out his gun and shot her in the head. Police say he then dragged her out of his car and behind a barrier at the end of her dead-end street, where he had sex with her lifeless body.
“For people out there that’s doing stuff like that man did to my child because you picked up a stripper at work and thought that no one would care. We do. And you can’t do that,” the victim’s mother, Rise Dixon, told WRTV.
Thanks to the family’s efforts to track down her cellphones and the detective work by police, Valadez is now in custody on a felony murder charge, with more charges likely coming from the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office.
“This is just disgusting all around, and it did not have to happen,” said Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Chief Chris Bailey in a press conference on Sept. 10.
“This is a family that’s been ripped apart,” Bailey continued. “This woman is gone from the world unnecessarily by an evil act, and I’m glad that we were able to find this individual as quickly as we did so that he didn’t have an opportunity to perpetuate violence further in our community.”
By friends and family, Dixon is remembered as “fun-loving” and a “dedicated mother” of two children, 10 and 13.
“She was goofy, she was happy, always laughing, always caring” but was “a mom before anything … I’m still in disbelief, but I love you, girl, and forever will,” friend Sade Batey told WISH-TV.
