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In 1994, 22-year-old Tammy Dixon was preparing for a new start in life. She was a recently divorced young mother and was looking ahead to her new beginning. But Tammy would never get to fully realize the dreams she had for herself. What happened the night Tammy was killed
A trial resulted in a conviction for Tammy's accused killer, and for many, there is no doubt that the man in prison was rightfully convicted. For others, however, new information has some wondering if the man who actually murdered Tammy might still be walking free. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is Tammy Dixon's story on Dark Down East.
Tammy was no stranger to new starts. She had been raised in the Biddeford-Saco area, a coastal part of the land we now call Maine, just a few miles from popular Old Orchard Beach. She left home when she was just 15 years old. Tammy later married a man named Anthony Dixon, and they had a child together in 1992, a little boy.
In early 1994, however, Tammy and Anthony divorced and agreed to share custody of their son. According to a 2001 report in the Bangor Daily News, theirs was an amicable divorce that had been finalized just days before Tammy died. Tammy was petite, only standing at 5 foot 2 inches tall and weighing about 100 pounds.
She had a bright smile and dark brown hair, which she kept short and liked to wear in spikes. Eric Russell reported for the Portland Press-Herald that friends described Tammy as outgoing and trusting. She was living at the Cortland Court Apartments in South Portland, Maine in the winter of 1994, but was in the process of packing up her belongings and getting ready to move back to the Old Orchard Beach area nearby where she grew up.
In her third-floor apartment at Cortland Court, Tammy liked to keep her curtains open and didn't usually lock her apartment door. The building required a passcode to even get inside, and for the most part, Tammy felt safe there. She knew a lot of her neighbors and was well-liked. To support herself and provide for her son, Tammy worked multiple jobs.
She not only worked at an answering service, but also as a manicurist and as a dancer at a nearby adult entertainment club called Doctors. When she was working and had the baby, Tammy arranged for help with child care with her neighbor, Foster Bates, and his wife. Besides being a new father, Foster Bates was also a student and an athlete at Southern Maine Technical College.
According to a 2002 article in the Vanguard Daily News, Foster's wife was hospitalized for a few weeks with severe postpartum depression after giving birth to her son, and so Foster, too, needed help with childcare for a time. Sometimes, Tammy would watch the Bates' newborn son when Foster was attending class, and at other times, Foster would watch Tammy's toddler.
Outside of this arrangement, they occasionally saw each other at parties held inside their building. Other than work and spending time with her baby boy, Tammy met up for coffee with two friends from the apartment building on most mornings, a bit of a social hour that she looked forward to. But on the morning of Friday, February 18th, she didn't show up. She didn't show up on Saturday or Sunday either.
That's when her friends noticed that Tammy's curtains were closed and her door was locked. That wasn't like Tammy at all. Her friends were concerned, almost three days without any word from Tammy. So they reached out to Tammy's on-again, off-again boyfriend, William Quinn. They knew he had a key to her apartment. It was Sunday, February 20th, when William entered Tammy's apartment.
Once inside, he discovered Tammy's body, covered by a blanket on her living room floor. One of Tammy's friends followed William inside and found Tammy's 18-month-old son laying nearby in a crib. He was limp and lethargic after days without food, water, or a diaper change, but he was alive.
As reported by Eric Russell for the Portland Press-Herald, a neighbor who accompanied William into Tammy's apartment later testified that William "was so shocked he couldn't speak and nearly fell down the stairs as he backed out of the apartment." Police responded to the scene at Courtland Court Apartments. When they removed the blanket from Tammy's body, they saw that she was blindfolded and her hands and feet were tied. A sock had been stuffed into her mouth.
She was only partially clothed, leading investigators to believe that she had been sexually assaulted. Two days after Tammy's body was discovered, the Bangor Daily News reported that the medical examiner's autopsy determined that Tammy had died from asphyxiation. A 2001 article by the Associated Press confirmed that Tammy had, in fact, been sexually assaulted on the night she was killed.
The Bangor Daily News reported that Tammy's son was being treated at a nearby hospital for dehydration and diaper rash. He eventually made a full recovery and was released into the care of his father. Investigators immediately began questioning residents of the Cortland Court apartment complex, including the man who occasionally babysat Tammy's son, Foster Bates.
According to court records, detectives asked Foster if he and Tammy had a sexual relationship, but he insisted they didn't. As far as his whereabouts on the night of her murder, Foster told police that he was at a basketball game. In a separate questioning, Foster Bates' wife told police that on the night Tammy was murdered, her husband was home with her, asleep in bed.
But police continued to probe the relationship between Foster and Tammy, speaking to friends of Tammy's to learn more. Foster and Tammy were next-door neighbors and helped each other out with babysitting. But Tammy's friends said that, however cordial they appeared, Tammy started to become afraid of Foster Bates.
Greg Kiesik wrote for the Portland Press-Herald that Tammy's neighbor comforted her one night after Tammy awoke to find Bates inside her apartment. He was, quote, "sitting by her bed, stroking her hair," end quote. Another friend reported that Tammy, quote, "ran and hid when she saw Bates dropping by another neighbor's apartment," end quote.
In August of 1994, nearly six months after Tammy's murder, a report in the Bangor Daily News stated that police had collected blood samples from as many as 30 men who were acquainted with Tammy Dixon, the article said. DNA technology, though still new, was improving, and investigators hoped that in time they could match blood samples with semen that had been collected at the crime scene.
Among the samples collected were those from Foster Bates, as well as Tammy's boyfriend William Quinn, the one with the key to her place. It wouldn't happen overnight, but the samples would be tested against evidence found at the scene. As they waited for DNA testing, months without a break in the case turned into years. Suspects were questioned and, ultimately, released.
It took two years for any of the DNA samples to come back from the FBI crime lab. The results pointed to the man holding the keys to Tammy's apartment, William Quinn. According to court records, semen matching William Quinn's DNA sample was found on a bathrobe laying near Tammy's body. Although other swabs of DNA evidence were taken from Tammy's body, those results were inconclusive.
With this match to the bathrobe, though, police returned to William Quinn, intensifying their questioning. Court documents indicated that Quinn admitted not only that he was jealous, but that he also did not like that Tammy made money by dancing at a strip club. He said it was possible that he could have gone to Tammy's apartment on the night she was murdered, fueled by alcohol and rage. He might have blacked out, he said.
He even said he could have killed her, but if he did, he didn't remember. He also told police that there was a green sock in Tammy's mouth when she was found dead in her apartment. This detail had not been previously released to the public. Police were the first to lift the blanket and other items covering Tammy's face, so how did William Quinn know about a green sock? However compelling, it wasn't enough.
William Quinn was not charged with any crimes then or since, as it relates to the murder of Tammy Dixon. The investigation was stagnant without new evidence. It remained that way for years. Days after Tammy's body was discovered, Foster Bates packed up his and his family's belongings and moved to Taunton, Massachusetts, but police continued to keep him on their radar.
As reported by Eric Russell in 2019 for the Portland Press-Herald, Bates was charged and convicted in Massachusetts in 1997 of child rape. He was sentenced to three to five years in prison. Foster's wife filed for divorce while he was in prison, which she was granted in 1998.
The following year, Foster's ex-wife filed a protection from abuse order against her ex-husband, citing numerous instances of violence against her and their son while they were together. She then recanted her original story to police about his whereabouts on the night Tammy was murdered.
In later court testimony, she claimed that Foster did come home that night, but left soon after, and was gone from about 10 p.m. until 3 a.m. In the six-plus years since Tammy's death, DNA technology advanced, allowing investigators to retest the samples collected at the scene. Swabs from Tammy's vagina that once produced inconclusive results now found a match.
and not to William Quinn, whose DNA was found previously at the scene. Instead, this biological evidence belonged to Foster Bates. With that, in August of 2001, Foster Bates was indicted on charges of murder and gross sexual assault, in addition to being charged as a fugitive from justice. Bates waived extradition and returned to Maine from Massachusetts.
Bates' defense attorneys immediately questioned why police had chosen to focus on Bates' DNA and not the DNA evidence that proved Tammy's quote-unquote promiscuity and that other men had been inside Tammy's apartment.
In a January 2002 piece in The Sun-Journal, Cindy Amato, director of the advocacy and support group Sex Assault Response Service, called out the defense lawyers and their offensive attempts to blame the victims' sexual history. Quote,
"It's most discouraging and upsetting that the other person involved here can't defend herself. It seems disrespectful to me." End quote. Foster Bates originally told police that he never had sex with Tammy Dixon, but he would not contest the DNA evidence that proved otherwise. Foster later changed his story, claiming that he had consensual sex with Tammy the day before she was killed,
But he insisted that he did not kill Tammy and only lied to police about their sexual relationship in order to protect his then wife and son. In 2002, Foster Bates stood trial on charges of murder and sexual assault. The state presented a strong case
Foster had a sexual relationship with Tammy, his DNA was found at the scene and on her body, he was in close proximity to the scene of the murder, and his whereabouts could not be confirmed during a five-hour span on the night of the murder, according to witness testimony. The defense pointed to the possible other suspects, to the DNA evidence from William Quinn, also found at the scene.
Foster's defense team argued that yes, Foster had sexual intercourse with Tammy, but he did not rape and kill her. They were having an affair, but that was the extent of it, they argued. Ultimately, the jury did not believe Bates' testimony that he was guilty only of adultery and not murder. Foster Bates was convicted of the 1994 murder of Tammy Dixon.
Prior to his sentencing, Foster Bates addressed Justice Robert E. Crowley, asking, pleading, that his conviction be tossed out. Bates listed off a number of items that he identified as holes in the state's case against him. None of his fingerprints or strands of hair were found in her apartment. He claimed a blood-stained towel was seen, but not collected by detectives.
Bates claimed police lost a six-hour-long video of their interrogation of Tammy's boyfriend, William Quinn. But the judge was unswayed. Justice Crowley sentenced Foster Bates to life in prison with an additional concurrent 30 years for sexual assault. Though you might assume, standing on the outside and looking in,
For many surviving family members of those lost to violent crime, a conviction is not the end. The criminal justice system allows for appeals, for the convicted killer to challenge the outcome of their trial and the sentence they received if they choose to pursue those legal avenues. Tammy Dixon's family had already been through so much, but it was far from over when the jury read their verdict.
The case was not put to rest, despite Foster Bates' conviction and the physical evidence that helped secure that conviction at trial. He has continued to maintain his innocence ever since.
Foster Bates told Press Herald writer Eric Russell in 2019 of his affair with Tammy, "...I don't know if it was opportunity or temptation, but it was the perfect situation. She was in the building, it was the dumbest thing I could do as a man, and it cost me my life." Bates, who is Black, has also publicly shared his concern that race played a role in his conviction.
He had an all-white jury, telling Eric Russell, quote, I can't say the jury was racist, but that was not a jury of my peers, end quote. David Lurie, a chairman at the NAACP, pointed out that the state system is not designed to diversify the jury pools in cases like Foster's.
While Foster Bates' defense team prepared their appeals and pursued a different outcome for their client, a potential alternative suspect emerged in 2014 when two women came forward with new information. I've chosen not to use their names. However, both women's names were published in a piece by Eric Russell, along with the full name of the man I'll refer to only as Michael.
Foster Bates' attorneys took statements from two women concerning a man named Michael's possible connection to the murder of Tammy Dixon. One of the women's sisters was married to Michael, and that sister was losing her fight against cancer.
Just before the woman's sister died, she confessed that in the early morning hours of February 18th, 1994, Michael came home drunk and yelling about "killing a girl" and "a baby in a playpen." The second woman to come forward was Michael's niece. She was just a teenager when she lived with her older sister at Courtland Court Apartments in 1994.
The woman said that there was a party in the apartment building that night, which wasn't unusual, but that she also saw Foster Bates go into Tammy's apartment and come back out in less than half an hour. The woman, who was then a teenager, knocked on Tammy's door after Foster left and asked to use the telephone. Tammy answered the door while wearing a nightgown, but she did not let the teen come inside to use the phone.
The woman believes that she may have been the last person to see Tammy alive, besides Tammy's killer. Court records state, quote, The woman's statement to Bates' attorneys also notes that her uncle, Michael, was at the party that night.
Michael has a criminal record that includes assault, but he did voluntarily submit a DNA sample for Tammy's case. And that DNA sample could not be conclusively matched to any of the DNA evidence found at the crime scene. Though at first a compelling lead for a possible alternative suspect for Tammy Dixon's murder, the lack of conclusive DNA evidence was discouraging for Bates' defense team.
the statements made by the two women were not considered by the court. Even still, Foster Bates has appealed both the rape and murder convictions multiple times. In 2003, a court decision denied the appeal regarding the convictions and sentences. In 2016, Bates appealed for a new trial citing new evidence based on the statements regarding the man named Michael. That appeal was also denied.
In 2017, Bates filed again for a new trial. This time, Bates and his lawyer brought forward the lack of DNA evidence matching Bates to the sample recovered from the green sock that had been stuffed into Tammy's mouth.
Defense attorney Rory McNamara argued that DNA testing revealed samples from unknown males on that sock, and the evidence suggested that there were at least three alternative suspects for Tammy's murder. And William Quinn's DNA, Tammy's boyfriend, was discovered on Tammy's bathrobe. In January of 2018, the motion for a new trial was denied. But Foster Bates' claims of innocence continue.
As recently as 2001, he and his defense team pursued a new avenue: a claim of actual innocence. Essentially, this claim allows Foster Bates to present evidence that was previously barred from consideration for either procedural reasons or time restrictions, like the testimony of the two women who came forward with information about the man named Michael, among other pieces of evidence.
An order signed by Superior Court Justice Thomas R. McKeon on October 18th, 2021 reads, The court hereby orders an evidentiary hearing to address whether either of Bates' surviving claims allow him to revive any of his previous procedural defaults. The hearing is intended to be a final hearing on all remaining issues. I'll say it again.
Ongoing appeals and hearings and court appearances delay a true end to the case for surviving family members. And on the other side of things, justice isn't truly served if the wrong person is convicted of a crime. There is no winning team here. I've reached the end of this story feeling only frustrated and heartbroken for the family torn apart.
for the mother who so clearly loved her baby, and the baby who was denied a life with his mother. During his trial, Foster Bates addressed Tammy's sister and mother directly. As reported by Greg Kiesik in 2002, Bates broke down in tears and told Tammy's family, "...I am truly sorry for your loss, but I did not rape or murder Tammy. I would never take her life."
But Tammy's sister, Wanda, is confident the court convicted the right person. After Bates' sentence was announced, Wanda told reporters outside the courthouse, quote, We were disgusted that he had the gall to even look at us, to try to pretend he was Tammy's friend. He knew what he had done, and he is still lying about it. Tammy knows, and we know, end quote.
Thank you for listening to Dark Down East. This episode was researched and written by Dina Norman, with additional writing, production, and editing by me, Kylie Lowe. Sources for this episode include reporting by Eric Russell for the Portland Press-Herald, Associated Press reporting published in the Bangor Daily News, and Lewiston Sun-Journal, court documents, and more. Additional sources cited and referenced are listed and linked at darkdowneast.com so you can do some digging of your own.
Thank you for supporting this show and allowing me to do what I do. I'm honored to use this platform for the families and friends who have lost their loved ones, and for those who are still searching for answers in cold missing persons and murder cases. I'm not about to let those names or their stories get lost with time. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is Dark Down East.
