Anthony Teron Dixon’s father taught his son how to drive on the dirt back roads of Georgia. The boy was no more than 8, yet he maneuvered the machine like a champ.
“He would get behind your car in a minute and drive,” remembered his mother, Tonya Nesmith. “Anything that got wheels, he would ride.”
As a toddler, Teron, as his family called him, watched his cousin clunk his Big Wheel down their front steps in Germantown. Inspired, Teron took up skateboarding and dirt biking. But cars were his main obsession.
Teron zoomed around in bumper cars at Wildwood during family vacations. He offered to take his older sister, Angrei Gordon, to work just so he could cruise around in her Crown Victoria while the boss kept her late. He snapped up cars at auction and resold them for a profit. For fun, he hid relatives’ car keys and feigned ignorance.
On April 18, 2020, Teron was found shot in the head inside of a grey Chevrolet Impala at 5500 W. Godfrey Ave. in Fern Rock. He was 29.
He left behind two children, Nikiyah Riggin, 10, and Isaac Dixon, 5.
“His kids caused him to take life seriously,” Angrei said, explaining that her brother fell in with the wrong crowd as a pre-teen.
“When he turned 11 or 12, that was the end of his childhood,” she said.
Slowly, Teron was getting his life in order. He earned his GED while in prison, Tonya said, and took a job in welding with his father. He also sold cars and Christmas trees, packed boxes for Amazon, and had a side business assembling seafood platters with his girlfriend of five years. The couple lived together in the West Oak Lane neighborhood and Teron had planned to propose on her birthday.
When the Eagles won the Super Bowl, he jumped up and down and broke out the booze, his mom remembered.
To celebrate what would have been Teron’s 30th birthday on Oct. 4, his family threw a party to the soundtrack of Puff Daddy’s “I’ll Be Missing You.” The event featured a life-size cardboard cutout of Teron, photos on every table, a sprawling sheet cake, and 100 buttons emblazoned with “Long Live Stu,” Teron’s nickname on the streets of the Brickyard section of Germantown.
All laughter and smiles, Teron enjoyed taking his daughter to football practice (she was the league quarterback) and throwing the ball around with his son, Tonya said. He came from a long line of football fans, who tailgated Eagles games with multiple televisions or gathered for Sunday night football dinners (with a side of crab fries) while Teron jokingly placed bets. As a child, Teron sprinted and slid across the living room floor and battled for dominance with his sister during Playstation football games.
Angrei recalled that her brother always asked her for advice, but rarely listened. He did, however, teach Angrei’s son how to behave and to be a decent human being. At age 13, Teron shared a bedroom with his sister and her daughter. He regularly woke up before 6 a.m. to help Angrei place the baby in her carrier.
“Me and Teron are like the same person,” Angrei said. “That’s really my heart. He was my partner in crime.”
“He did have goals but he never shared them,” she added. “He probably kept quiet because he thought he would never accomplish it.”
After Teron’s murder, Angrei felt like she was having a “heart attack” that lasted a month.
Outgoing and outspoken, her brother would still be alive had he remained in jail, she said, sighing. Sometimes, Angrei feels his spirit when the microwave unexpectedly whirs or the doorbell rings and no one is there.
Last spring, she discovered that she was pregnant. Her due date is April 18 — one year to the day of Teron’s death.
“I really feel in my heart that my brother is my baby being reborn,” she said. Her daughter’s middle name will be Tahron, in tribute to Teron.
A reward of up to $20,000 is available to anyone that comes forward with information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the persons responsible for Dixon’s murder. Anonymous calls can be submitted by calling the Citizens Crime Commission at 215-546-TIPS.
Resources are available for people and communities that have endured gun violence in Philadelphia. Click here for more information.
Date: 2020-04-18
Location: 5500 W Godfrey St, Philadelphia, PA
