Football player sues after wrongful murder accusation in Barnwell County

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WRDW/WAGT) - Ty’Ran Dixon was excited to return to Newberry College for a homecoming game.

He’d been a star defensive lineman for the Wolves before playing pro.

That October 2023 weekend, more than 80 miles away – in something Dixon never guessed would affect him – a man he had never met, didn’t resemble, and was nearly half his size, allegedly shot and killed a killed a pregnant woman.

That’s according to the Barnwell County Sheriff’s Office.

The suspect’s name in that murder case is Tyren Dickson.

The name so similar to Ty’Ran Dixon was enough to land the star defensive lineman in jail for 67 days, according to a lawsuit.

The lawsuit says authorities ignored Dixon telling them they made a mistake; refused to consider his mother’s evidence of Dixon’s alibi; and didn’t ask witnesses to identify Dixon.

“There were days where I was like ‘How’d I just go from playing football and now I’m in a freaking jumpsuit? I’m locked up now. Like, how is this possible?” Dixon said.

Dixon played for the Newberry College football team before he graduated with a master’s degree.

Dixon said he spent time at the NFL academy and played professional football in the XFL for the Vegas Vipers before playing in the European League. In Europe, he not only played on the professional team but also coached the women’s and children’s teams.

On Sept. 30, 2024, Dixon was flying back home to Columbia to see his family after his first season abroad, the lawsuit said.

When he got off his connecting flight at the Boston Logan International Airport, he was arrested by Massachusetts State Police, the lawsuit said.

“I’ve never been arrested, never had any issue with law enforcement,” Dixon said. “So I didn’t know what was going on.”

Dixon said he wasn’t told until he went before a judge in Boston the next day that his arrest warrant was for a murder and attempted murder that happened in Barnwell County.

Dixon said he had never been to Barnwell County in his life.

Dixon says he was terrified and repeatedly told law enforcement he was innocent and there was a mistake, he said.

“Obviously, I knew I was innocent,” he said. “But with these types of things, you don’t know what’s going on.”

Dixon would then spend 67 days in five different jails and detention centers in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Oklahoma, and Georgia before he was taken to Barnwell County, the lawsuit said.

For 21 of those days, Dixon was placed in solitary confinement, the lawsuit said.

“I’m praying like, ‘God, just get me out of these chains,’” Dixon said.

Dixon wouldn’t be freed until after a short interrogation at the Barnwell County Sheriff’s Office, the lawsuit said.

“He has the handcuff key, and he’s a bit shaky trying to take it off. He’s like, ‘look, we got the wrong person, I’m sorry,’” Dixon said as he described the moments in the interrogation room. “And that’s basically it. He unlocked my chains.”

About three weeks later, the Barnwell County Sheriff’s Office posted on its Facebook page that they had arrested Tyren Dickson for the shooting.

Dickson’s case is still pending, according to online court records.

Dixon’s life has changed forever because of his wrongful incarceration, he said.

“They didn’t even have any evidence of me doing anything, and I still got locked up. And even when they did know I wasn’t around when that murder happened, I still didn’t get out. There was nothing in my power to open up the door,” Dixon said.

WIS ed Barnwell County Sheriff Steven Griffith for an interview or response to the allegations in the lawsuit. We did not receive a response.

“SHODDY, INCOMPETANT POLICE WORK”

Less than a year before Dixon was arrested, there was a deadly shooting in Barnwell County, South Carolina.

On October 15, 2023, investigators with the Barnwell County Sheriff’s Office said six people were hurt in a mass shooting.

They say 21-year-old Jasmine Roach was killed. Her family says she was four months pregnant.

The lawsuit claims the Barnwell County Sheriff’s Office failed to properly investigate statements from a “jailhouse snitch” and never showed witnesses to the shooting a photo lineup including Dixon, which would “have instantly eliminated him as a suspect.”

“Not once have we seen where Barnwell County actually presented a picture of Ty’ran Dixon to anyone who was a witness of this tragic murder,” Attorney Robert Goings said.

The lawsuit also claims the sheriff’s office never ed Dixon or his family for an interview or “expeditiously analyze [Dixon’s] phone for text messages, calls, and photographs which would have immediately revealed Dixon’s whereabouts on the date and at the time of the murder.”

Dixon’s mother, Sheryl Brand, said she drove from Columbia to the Barnwell County Sheriff’s Office with evidence that would have cleared her son.

“‘Just make sure he has a solid alibi.’ That’s all they kept saying,” Barnes said.

Brand said she had proof that her son was at the Newberry College homecoming football game at the time of the murder.

“They did not look at it. He didn’t want to hear nothing, they didn’t want to see nothing, know nothing,” Brand said.

67 DAYS BEHIND BARS

When Dixon was taken to court in Massachusetts, he immediately waived extradition, the lawsuit said.

“I’m thinking I’m going back to South Carolina that day, so I’m like, ‘okay I can finally start getting something going here,” Dixon said. “That didn’t happen, and they sent me to the first federal facility.”

Dixon was first taken to the Suffolk County Detention Center, the lawsuit said, and was housed with “convicted murderers, rapists, professed nazis and white supremacists, gang and cartel and other dangerous inmates.”

Dixon was then transferred to the South Bay Jail in Massachusetts and then the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Center in Rhode Island, the lawsuit said.

“When you’re in there and guys are telling you, ‘Hey man, you have state charges, and the feds have you in here, so they have to have something on you. They have a 98 percent conviction rate.’ I’m like I have not done anything, but what could they be trying to put on me?” Dixon said.

When he got to the detention center in Rhode Island, Dixon said he was placed in solitary confinement for three weeks.

Dixon said the corrections officer told him he was being placed in solitary confinement because he was deemed to have “celebrity status” because of his football career.

“I was kind of going crazy in there and seeing different things,” Dixon said.

“He spent days and weeks trying to rub these messages off the walls with his bare hands–messages like “if you’re reading this, the ghost of the guy that died in here will haunt you at night” and “rot in hell.” The only sound Dixon could hear was other inmates yelling and screaming in misery. When Dixon was allowed to leave this cell to take a shower, he was shackled to another cage that allowed water to run over his body. When he was allowed recreation time, he was confined to sitting shackled in another cage.”

The lawsuit said Dixon was then flown “Con Air” to a jail in Chickasaw, Oklahoma, where he was held for four days before he was flown to the Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Georgia.

On December 6, 2024, the Barnwell County Sheriff’s Office picked Dixon up from the Georgia detention center, the lawsuit said.

During the 67 days, the lawsuit said Dixon suffered a deprivation of his liberties and freedom that resulted in “physical, mental, and emotional injuries, mental pain and suffering, emotional anguish, fear, shock, depression, anxiety, and a loss of enjoyment of life.”

MOVING FORWARD

Dixon said it was his family, God, and the hope that he would play football again that got him through the 67 days behind bars.

“I’m always going to deal with this,” Dixon said. “I don’t look at things the same anymore.”

Dixon said he lost 40 pounds while incarcerated and developed pains in his shoulders and knees. He said he still has nightmares.

“Tyran Dixon is one of the most extraordinary clients I’ve had in nearly 50 years. He’s not angry. There is only hurt, and it’s a hurt that fuels him trying to struggle back to this professional football career,” Joe McCulloch, Dixon’s attorney, said. “He’s working out every day. He’s suffering at night and suffering during the day.”

He’s focused now on his football career and trying to keep this from happening to anyone else, he said.

Dixon recently spoke to a criminal law class at the University of South Carolina.

“We hope to have him speak to police departments,” Attorney McCulloch said. “They, of all people, need to understand the consequences of doing their job poorly.

Copyright 2025 WRDW/WAGT. All rights reserved.