Just when you think you have heard and seen it all, there comes along a story that redefines the depths of cruelty and depravity to which some people are willing to descend. This is a story about a pregnant, mentally retarded mother (Dorothy Dixon) who suffered horribly and was ultimately murdered by the very people who were entrusted with her care. I find it hard to believe that anyone, much less 6 people, could exhibit such wanton disregard for the life of another human being and engage in such reprehensible behavior as described below. Dorothy Dixon was ridiculed, tortured and murdered by monsters. After all that she had to suffer though: May she finally Rest In Peace.

When Dorothy Dixon, 29, died she was six months pregnant and the mother of a one-year-old baby boy. The police believe Dixon died as a result of a blow on the head delivered by 43-year-old Judy Woods. It was however the autopsy that revealed the extent of the torture that Dixon suffered:

X-rays revealed roughly 30 BBs lodged in her. Deep-tissue burns covered about one-third of her body — her face, her chest, her arms and feet — and left her severely dehydrated. Her face and body showed signs of prolonged abuse. Many of her wounds were infected.

A Madison County grand jury indicted Michelle Riley, 35, Judy Woods, 43, Michael Elliott, 18, Benny Lee Wilson, 16, and LeShelle McBride, 15, of first-degree murder, aggravated battery and one count apiece of intentional homicide of an unborn child, heinous battery and unlawful restraint. A 12-year-old boy is charged as a juvenile. The victim Dorothy Dixon, 29, and all the suspects except Elliott lived at at 2957 Hillcrest St. in Alton, Ill. Bail for each person was set at $1 million. Riley and Elliott are being held at the Madison County Jail; Wilson and McBride are charged as adults but are being held at a juvenile detention center. Judy Woods has been held without bail since Feb. 1 at the Madison County Jail. Dixon’s one-year-old son who weighed only 15 pounds, was taken into protective custody. Neither the child’s father nor the unborn child’s father was identified.

In June or July of last year both Dixon and Riley rented the 3-bedroom house on Hillcrest St. The monthly rent was $800. Six people lived in the house. LeShelle McBride and the 12-year-old boy are Riley’s children. Woods and Wilson also moved in. Dixon was made to sleep in an unfinished section of the basement, while the others occupied the rest of the house. Riley was an abusive and controlling person who manipulated and threatened everyone in the house. From the start, neighbors Chad Hudson and Terri Brandt considered Riley trouble saying she was evil, vindictive and manipulative. Riley considered Dixon her slave, making her rub Riley’s feet until Riley fell asleep and forcing her to run naked around the house when she got in trouble, the neighbors said.

Rileyand Dixon had moved to Alton from Quincy, where according to Quincy police, they had lived together for some time. Riley worked for the West Central Illinois Center for Independent Living, which helps developmentally disabled people find housing and jobs. That’s where she met Dixon, who was a client. Riley also had problems with the law. She was a drug abuser and had previously sold drugs to pay for her habit. Riley’s criminal record includes narcotics offenses in Quincy in 2002 and 2004, and fighting in 2003. Riley had been taking Dixon’s monthly Social Security check which she had been receiving as a result of her developmental disabilities. Dixon saw little, if any, of the money.

“I thought I knew them real well,” the landlord, property owner Steve Atkins, said.

Atkins said Dixon was quiet and friendly. “She was always nice when she spoke to you.” He saw no hints she’d been suffering or tortured.

Riley, on the other hand, wasn’t as easy going, Atkins said. He was on the property one day making some repairs, and Riley was barking orders, Atkins said.

“I asked her, ‘Do I need to call the Army and tell them to come get their drill sergeant?’ Atkins, 39, said. “I thought that was funny. But she didn’t laugh about it at all, obviously, I hit a nerve.”

The abuse Dixon suffered at the hands of Riley and the others took place between Dec. 1 and Jan. 30. Banished to the basement, the 29-year-old mother with a childlike mind and another baby on the way had little more than a thin rug and a mattress to call her own on the chilly concrete floor. She ate what she could forage from the refrigerator upstairs, where prosecutors say her housemates used her for target practice with BBs, burned her with a glue gun and doused her with scalding liquid that peeled away her skin. They torched what few clothes she had so she walked around naked. They often pummeled her with an aluminum bat or metal handle.

“This is heartbreaking,” police Lt. David Hayes said. “It was almost as though they were making fun of the abuse they were administering. I’ve never seen an almost conspiratorial effort by a group of people to continuously torture someone until she finally died, then not really show any remorse,” Hayes said. “It was just a slow, torturous, tragic way to die. I highly doubt Dorothy Dixon even knew she was dying. The autopsy sort of indicates her immune system just shut down,” he said. “It was not capable of fending off any more.”

In the rental home’s basement, Atkins said, he found a bucket of feces in Dixon’s former room, a waist-high door that was nailed shut, and blood on the walls, washer, dryer and in the basement shower.

“It’s disgraceful the way this girl died, as kind and as sweet as this girl was,” he said. “She didn’t deserve to die the way she did. It’s just terrible, senseless. It’s just a total shame.”