Good Samaritan gets no thanks

The Associated Press
December 27, 2002

CLEARWATER -- Having been in their shoes years ago, Earnest Green wanted to give the homeless couple a break on Christmas Eve. They were panhandling in the rain outside a Clearwater convenience store Tuesday night. He invited them home to dinner and gave them a place to sleep.

They repaid him by stealing his van, knickknacks from his house, frozen food from his refrigerator, $80 in cash and a wrapped Christmas present, Green said. They were gone when he woke up Christmas morning. "You just can't look at nobody and tell what kind of people they are," said Green, who stayed home alone to work over the holidays while his wife visited relatives in Alabama.

Green called the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office to report the crime. He soon called back to say his van had been returned, but without the stereo and a portable TV. Deputies were responding to Green's call when another deputy spotted James Dixon, 48, walking away after returning the van. He was charged with burglary and auto theft.

Dixon told deputies he left his wife at a nearby gas station, where she was found pushing a shopping cart containing all the stolen goods, including pork chops and hamburger patties from Green's freezer. Venus Dixon, 43, was charged with burglary, auto theft, possession of cocaine, resisting arrest and possession of a crack pipe. Police said she resisted deputies and tried to swallow crack.

Green, who works for a masonry company, said he met the Dixons when he stopped to buy cigars on Christmas Eve. He distributed about $15 to homeless people outside the convenience store, chatted with the Dixons and then invited them home for chitterlings, potato salad and dressing. He showed them a couch on the screened porch where they could sleep. "I fed them good, man," Green said. "It made their day. They couldn't stop thanking me all that night."

Green said it was some consolation that he got all his stuff back and that James Dixon seemed remorseful. Dixon cried and apologized when deputies took him to the house. The couple was in the Pinellas County jail Thursday and had not yet had attorneys appointed, a jail spokeswoman said. James Dixon was being held under $20,000 bail, and his wife's bail was $26,000.

Green said the incident won't deter him from lending a hand to the downtrodden again. "You can't take it out on other people, just because they didn't do right," he said.