The mother of an ex-con stabbed to death outside a Bronx liquor store is reliving her “worst nightmare” after losing the victim’s older brother to gun violence 12 years ago.
Sharon Dixon’s son Katrell Dixon, 31, got into an argument outside the liquor store on Third Ave. near E. 165th St. in the South Bronx at about 10:30 p.m. Monday, cops said. As the clash escalated, the killer whipped out a knife and stabbed Dixon in the chest multiple times.
“It’s the second son I lost,” Sharon, 61, a retired MTA supervisor, told the Daily News from her home in Soundview. “It’s a mother’s worst nightmare. But there is growth in tragedy. … It just draws me closer to God.”
Katrell was released from prison on July 12, 2023, after serving a six-year stint for attempted murder for a Queens shooting that took place four years after his brother was gunned down. HIs parole was due to expire next June.
“He was turning his life around,” said Katrell’s surviving brother Darnell Dixon, 40, who works as a line cook. “He was on the right track. … He was a good brother, father and son.”
Katrell’s family says his life went off the rails when his older brother Cory Dixon, whom they described as Katrell’s “protector,” was slain.
“When Cory died, Katrell’s life changed completely,” Darnell said. “It affected all of our lives — and now it’s happened again.”
“Cory was the greatest man I ever knew,” Darnell added. “He left three daughters. He was the rock of our family.”
Anton Harden shot 27-year-old Cory after a house party for Harden’s girlfriend at the killer’s apartment on 57th Ave. in Corona, Queens, on Oct. 27, 2013.
Cory, who lived with family, including Katrell, next-door in LeFrak CIty, had just left the party at 2:55 a.m. when Harden shot him, police said.
Investigators soon learned Harden had argued with Cory after seeing him chat up Harden’s girlfriend at the party.
Cops arrested Harden for murder. Now 45, he is serving a sentence of 16 years in state prison after being convicted of manslaughter.
On Nov. 21, 2017, Katrell shot a man about 2:30 p.m. outside outside LeFrak City on 57th Ave. — the same street where his brother was shot to death.
Even after the victim ran away, Katrell kept firing at him, a witness told police.
The victim was hit eight times in the hand, thigh and buttocks and was hospitalized but survived. He also suffered a fractured femur, according to court records.
Katrell ran into one of the LeFrak City apartment buildings and chucked a .22-caliber Beretta into a trash compactor. Cops recovered the gun, and the fingerprints matched Katrell’s, who had been convicted of attempted burglary a few years before the shooting, officials said.
Cops charged Katrell with attempted murder, and in 2018 he pleaded guilty to attempted assault.
Katrell had a criminal record with 21 arrests, many of which had been sealed, a police source said.
Cops believe he was a member of the “Billy Bad A–” gang, which is a subset of the Nine Trey Gangsters and the Bloods, although it wasn’t immediately clear if the stabbing that killed him last week was gang-related, the source said.
“[Katrell] was lying down on the ground against a car,” said Basilio Bellow, 57, who owns a restaurant near the liquor store. “He was stabbed, bleeding from the chest. He was unconscious and he wasn’t moving.”
Medics rushed Dixon to Lincoln Hospital, but he could not be saved.
His killer, who has not been caught, and a woman the killer was with at the time of the stabbing were last seen running south on Third Ave. Cops have not released a motive.
In addition to his brother, Darnell, Katrell is survived by a sister.
