Neighborhood watch A resident of a diversifying Southern subdivision was arrested on terrorism charges. How would the neighbors react? Evidence doubts, all-white jury: Attorneys make final case to jurors in Dixon trial . Defense attorney Jack Stewart makes closing statements to the all-white, 12-person jury in the trial of Nathaniel Dixon . Dixon is accused of murdering Candace Pickens and critically wounding her 3-year-old son Dixon 's attorneys argued the juror who was aware of the Simuel's killing was obligated to inform the judge. Dixon , 27, was found guilty June 24 of first-degree murder of Candace Pickens and attempted ► Evidence doubts, all-white jury: Attorneys make final case to jurors in Dixon trial .

© Angela Wilhelm/awilhelm@citizentimes.com Jack Stewart, attorney for Nathaniel Dixon, holds a photograph of Candace Pickens June 14, 2019.

ASHEVILLE — In his usual booming voice, defense attorney Jack Stewart echoed throughout the courtroom as he made final statements for his client, criticizing the state's unclear timeline and saying investigators ignored the possibility of other suspects in the murder of 22-year-old Candace Pickens.

"Know that the decision that you make here today or tomorrow, or sometime this week, is going to affect my client over there for the rest of his life," said Stewart, one of Nathaniel Dixon's attorneys, as he spoke to jurors.

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Dixon 's attorneys had claimed juror misconduct Court officials have largely skirted around Simuel's death throughout the trial , though Dixon 's defense team has alleged she was involved in the 2016 murder of ► Evidence doubts, all-white jury: Attorneys make final case to jurors in Dixon trial . Nathaniel Dixon instead will be sentenced to life for murdering Candace Pickens , who was Dixon 's trial "has had more twists and turns than any case I have ever tried," Horne has said in an open courtroom. ► Evidence doubts, all-white jury: Attorneys make final case to jurors in Dixon trial .

"The decision you make will forever affect the course of his life."

Closing arguments wrapped June 25 in Dixon's seven-week long murder trial. His fate will be decided by an all-white jury, white prosecutors and white detectives, as his attorneys pointed out, while Buncombe County District Attorney Todd Williams' office pursues the death penalty.

© Jennifer Bowman/jbowman@citizentimes.com Defense attorney Jack Stewart makes closing statements to the all-white, 12-person jury in the trial of Nathaniel Dixon. Dixon is accused of murdering Candace Pickens and critically wounding her 3-year-old son, Zachaeus Waters. Dixon's father, Richard Pickens, and stepmother, Charlene Pickens, listened to Stewart as they sat in the courtroom. The couple regularly attended the trial.

Dixon and the victims — Pickens' 3-year-old son, Zachaeus, was seriously injured but survived the shooting — are black.

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Nathaniel Dixon found guilty of 2016 murder of Candace Pickens , acquitted of 2 charges. Jurors will begin deliberations on whether 27-year-old Dixon will get Read previous coverage from the Citizen Times here: ► Evidence doubts, all-white jury: Attorneys make final case to jurors in Dixon trial . ► Evidence doubts, all-white jury: Attorneys make final case to jurors in Dixon trial . Dixon is scheduled to be sentenced at 9:30 a.m. July 16 during a sentencing hearing in front of Horne. Court records indicate Pickens ' family is in support of Dixon serving life in prison without the possibility of

Prosecutors say Dixon, upset that Pickens was pregnant and had not agreed to obtain an abortion, shot Pickens and Zachaeus in a North Asheville park in May 2016. A jogger found them laying in the park next morning, where they had been for some eight hours.

Dixon, 27, was apprehended in Columbus, Ohio, shortly after the shooting. He did not testify in his trial.

As part of their closing statements, Assistant District Attorney Doug Edwards reminded jurors of text messages between Dixon and Pickens prior to her murder in which Dixon said he's not ready to "step up." He told Pickens that "you need to do a background check on me," according to cell phone records.

"That's the defendant saying, 'You don't know who you're messing with,'" Edwards said. "'You don't know me very well. You don't know about me.'"

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Candace Pickens ' loved ones wiped away tears as they heard a county prosecutor describe in court how she and her toddler son were found in a park. Prosecutor: Dixon threatened Pickens to 'get rid of' pregnancy before murder . Candace Pickens ' loved ones wiped away tears as they heard a A cold case murder that has yet to be solved. They found James three day after Candace 's murder . Despite their ongoing case against James, he was charged with first Five months after Candace 's death, Dolores filed a complaint at Colorado's Attorney General's office as she believed the case was

The trial's lone black juror was released after he expressed safety concerns, leaving the last of the four alternates to join the 12-person jury. It prompted the defense again to request a mistrial, though the motion was rejected.

Stewart said he can't imagine the "unfairness" Dixon must feel.

"I cannot imagine what that must feel like for my client," Stewart said. "And if that's not enough, it's not just that Nate Dixon is on trial for a crime or crimes. Nate Dixon is on trial for his life because our DA Todd Williams, another white guy, has decided that Nate should pay for this with his own blood."

As Edwards showed jurors an autopsy photo of Pickens' face, her father wouldn't look. Tears welled up in his eyes. Pickens' stepmother cried as she gently rocked in the front row of the courtroom.

Pickens' murder, Edwards argued, was an execution.

"You want to talk about it's not fair to the defendant. It's not fair he's there. It's not fair he's arrested," Edwards said. "What's not fair is what happened to Ms. Pickens and Zachaeus. That’s not fair. The defendant made conscious, deliberate decisions.

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"That’s not fair."

'This case is not about paternity'

Edwards put on gloves and pulled from an evidence bag clothes that 35-pound Zachaeus was wearing the night he was shot. A size 3T, Edwards held up the blue shirt, stained from blood and cut down the front when medical officials removed it to save his life.

"It just shows you how small Zachaeus was when his mother was taken from him forever," he said.

Edwards urged jurors not to let the defense distract from the truth, saying Dixon "made conscious deliberate choices" up to and on the day Pickens was killed. Dixon was the last person to see Pickens alive, Edwards said, and they exchanged in heated conversations after she informed him of his pregnancy.

Pickens was killed eight days after she told Dixon she was pregnant, Edwards said.

Stewart has said that Dixon was a father and had custody of his son prior to Pickens' death. He said evidence shows that Pickens was undecided herself on whether to keep the baby.

"This prosecution, they've taken it where it would ordinarily be the most private of conversations between a couple," Stewart said, "the conversation on whether to bring a child in this world or not. Whether to have a baby. And they have twisted that conversations and turned it and magnified it to have you believe it was some kind of death threat."

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Even though investigators did not test a gestational sac retrieved from Pickens' body to determine paternity — a point raised by Dixon's defense team — Edwards said that was irrelevant. "This case is not about paternity," he said.

"It does not matter who the biological father is when you get down to it. We contend he was the father. The evidence is he thought, and (Pickens) thought that he was the father of the child she was carrying."

Attorneys spar over evidence, witnesses

Stewart argued that for three years, investigators were "wearing blinders" as they looked into Pickens' murder. He said police failed to send evidence collected at the scene to the state crime lab for testing, and brought "an assortment of thugs" to make false claims about Dixon being seen with a weapon on the day of the shooting and a confession to a fellow inmate in Buncombe County jail.

Dixon was never seen by anyone at the crime scene. Neighbors, who Stewart argued changed the timeline of their stories after meeting with prosecutors, testified they heard a loud vehicle that appeared to be a white hatchback leaving the scene after the gunshots, though Stewart argued the description doesn't match Pickens' car.

Prosecutors said Dixon left the park in Pickens' car before dumping it in Weaverville.

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► Dixon's lawyer: Pickens investigation lacked evidence testing, pursuit of other suspects

► In tense testimony, witness says Dixon had gun on day of shooting

But Dixon's attorneys have raised questions about whether the cell phone records were ever verified and presented their own witness questioning testimony from the state's experts. Stewart said there was no blood and no DNA connecting Dixon to the crime, nor did police find gunshot residue or any links to shell casings.

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Meanwhile, Stewart argued, police failed to look into potential other suspects, including men with whom Pickens had relationships.

He also raised doubts on whether Pickens and her son were shot at Ira B. Jones Park, saying an Asheville police officer twice drove by the site without spotting them and that the shell casings were found in a straight line — "a peculiar arrangement," Stewart said.

Edwards repeated testimony from Pickens' friends who said she told them Dixon threatened to kill her if she didn't terminate the pregnancy. He said cell phone records suggest Dixon and Pickens were in the same place at the time of the shooting and that she attempted to connect to his phone's wireless network shortly before gunshots were reported.

Even the defense's own expert didn't dispute that Dixon's and Pickens' phones used the same tower, Edwards said.

"He never puts the defendant anywhere besides where we have shown you," Edwards said.

Stewart clashes with judge over Simuel's text message

Stewart's closing statements were interrupted after he suggested a text message exchange between Dixon and his ex-girlfriend, Tiyquasha Simuel, was a confession by her.

That didn't sit well with Superior Court Judge Greg Horne, who said the defense had made clear at the beginning of the trial it did not intend to argue that someone else killed Pickens.

"What that's doing is asking for forgiveness as opposed to permission," Horne told Stewart after he sent jurors out of the courtroom.

Stewart has said during cross-examination that Pickens' own mother, Keesha Martinez, approached APD when she heard rumors that Simuel, who went by the nickname Black China, was the shooter. Some of that information previously was struck from the record and jurors were instructed not to consider it during deliberations.

© Special to the Citizen Times Tiyquasha Antwonique Simuel, 24, of Asheville at her baby shower.

Martinez was never called to testify.

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Simuel, who testified against Dixon as subpoenaed witness in late May, was killed in a June 12 shooting at Deaverview Apartments. She was in her third trimester of pregnancy; her baby boy survived.

A request by Dixon's attorneys for a mistrial following Simuel's murder, citing media coverage and a press release by Williams, was denied.

Police have declined to say whether Simuel's murder was connected to her testimony.

Stewart did not mention Simuel's death to jurors. He criticized police's decision not to send Simuel's cell phone records to the FBI and pointed to text messages Simuel sent Dixon in which she made disparaging remarks about Pickens and her testimony which she revealed she had slashed Pickens' tires.

"Do you think for one minute that Simuel was happy that another woman was carrying Nate's baby and not her?" Stewart told jurors. "You think she had some reaction to that?"

Stewart told Horne while they have not attempted to identify someone else as the killer and he does not believe Simuel was the perpetrator, he thinks there is evidence of third-party guilt.

"I do believe there is evidence other persons aided or abetted, or assisted, or were accessories," Stewart said.

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This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Candace Pickens' murder: Attorneys make final case in Dixon trial