[Amanda] Thursday, October 10th, 1991, was just another fall day in New York City for most people. After dropping her 8-year-old cousin Israel off at Carroll Elementary School, 12-year-old Tiffany Dixon began the four block walk through Brooklyn towards her junior high school. She would never make it, vanishing without a trace and leading to a mystery that has yet to be solved 32 years later. I'm Amanda Morgan, and this is New York's Dark Side. 

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[Amanda] Hey everyone, I'm back with more cold cases today. You may have noticed that two episodes are on your feed today, and that's because there is frustratingly little information on both of these cases. In this episode, we'll be covering the disappearance of 12 year old Tiffany Dixon, but you'll also want to check out the other episode that launched today as well regarding the abduction and murder of 11-year-old Quin-Rong Wu. Before I get started, I just want to give a quick reminder that we are still raising funds for the Polaris Project. The link for the fundraising campaign is in an episode notes. On our website and on our social media platforms, I'll be donating 50% of our Patreon contributions to our fundraising campaign. So, if you want to donate that way, you'll also get exclusive bonus content. And with that, we're going to dive right into the episode today.

[Amanda] Thursday, October 10th, 1991 was a normal fall morning for 12-year-old Tiffany Dixon when she left her Aunt Norma's home on Hart Street in the Bushwick district of Brooklyn with her 8-year-old cousin Israel. Tiffany was a bright student. School officials would report that Tiffany was very responsible, she was studious, and she was very attentive to her school work. They called her a homework freak, actually. She dreamed of becoming a scientist and was taking high level math and science courses to help prepare her for that goal and had been admitted to a magnet program at her junior high. She spent a lot of time studying and her favorite hangout was the library. She sounds like my kind of girl. 

[Amadnda] When Tiffany and Israel left home around 7:00 AM that Thursday morning, they followed their normal routine, catching the bus to Carroll Elementary School on Smith Street, where Tiffany walked Israel to his third grade classroom, as she did every school day to ensure that he made it where he needed to be. She then left Carroll Elementary School to walk the four blocks through Carroll Gardens to her junior high. Tiffany would, unfortunately, not make it to school that Thursday morning. She vanished in broad daylight somewhere in that heavily populated area of Smith St. 

[Amanda] Before I get too far into this, I just wanna explain a little of the family dynamics in case you decide to do some digging on your own in this case. Tiffany had moved in with her Aunt Norma when she was about six years old, after her parents had divorced and her mother felt that she could no longer provide adequate care for Tiffany. Norma had become Tiffany's legal guardian when she was nine, but she treated Tiffany as her daughter, not as her niece, and you'll see in the limited articles on this case that Norma refers to her as her daughter in the press. Tiffany's cousins Israel and Miguel are referred to as her brothers. So it was a very close knit family.

[Amanda] After school, Israel arrived home accompanied by the parents of one of his friends, which was completely out of the ordinary because Tiffany always picked up Israel and they always came home together. When Norma received notification that Tiffany never arrived at school later that evening, she began to panic. And I don't blame her. Tiffany's disappearance was perplexing. In one article, school official said that the community around the schools were extremely vigilant and had a stranger been hanging out around the area of the schools, someone would have stopped to question them regarding it. Norma would notify the police of Tiffany's disappearance and unfortunately they felt that Tiffany had potentially run away and wouldn't issue a missing person's bulletin to the public until a week after she went missing... A week... Valuable time was lost... A few weeks after Tiffany went missing, her birth mother passed away, and a few months after that her father would also pass away. On November 2nd, 1991, Tiffany's aunt Norma would organize a search for her at Carroll Gardens, Tiffany's last known location. Approximately 150 members of the family and community would come to search for Tiffany and hand out fliers. Norma would tell the reporters that covered the event that quote- 'I'm going crazy. The police are doing everything they can, but it's still not enough. My daughter is not***.

[Amanda]  As far as I can tell from the source material, there were no real leads in her case. But again, investigators got a late start on things because they didn't officially release anything about her disappearance until the following week. I find this incredibly frustrating because vital time was lost. Tiffany's body has never been recovered, and if she's still alive, she'd be 44 years old today. At the time of her disappearance, Tiffany was wearing baggy blue pants, a white blouse, black sweater and black Nike sneakers. She had a medium skin complexion, brown eyes, and long black curly hair. She was about 105 lbs and five foot two. I posted her picture on the website for this episode and on our social media pages. Unfortunately though, this is about all the information on Tiffany's disappearance that I was able to find, and it's heartbreaking. I found nothing about any leads. Nothing. Just nothing. This case has been on my mind since I found Tiffany's picture online back in July of last year. Searching through newspaper articles for information on Tiffany brought me very little results. This case, from what I can tell, is stone cold. There was a little bit of a resurgence in coverage in August 2023 when Rex Heuermann was arrested in the Gilgo Beach case because the true crime site Murder Incorporated posted that there could be a connection... But I don't know how I feel about that. I'm 100% not an expert on these things and I'm never going to pretend to be. Much like Richard Cottingham, I'm sure that we don't know the extent of what Rex Heuermann was up to in his dark duties, but Tiffany doesn't really fit the profile for him in my personal opinion. The connection Murder Incorporated presented was that basically Rex was in the area. That's it. His boss lived in Park Slope, the neighborhood where Tiffany was going to school. The other connection proposed was that Heuermann was working in the Bushwick neighborhood. In 1992, months after Tiffany had disappeared, he had a permit to install an Interior fire alarm system and interior particians at a location about 600 feet from where Tiffany lived with her Aunt. Heuermann has not been officially connected to Tiffany's disappearance in any way, shape or form that I can see but I'm just bringing it up because if you do an online search for information about Tiffany Dixon's disappearance you're going to find the Murder Incorporated page and a PIX 11 story covering this possible connection. 

[Amanda] And sadly, that is all I have on Tiffany's disappearance. And as much as this frustrates me, that's why I wanted to cover her today. Maybe someday we'll be able to have an answer to what's happened to her. I'd love to hold out that hope for her. Please make sure that you check out the other episodes that I launched today. This is again on another cold case of Quin-Rong Wu. If you have any information on the October 10th, 1991 disappearance of Tiffany Madia Dixon, please call the New York City Police Department Missing Persons Unit at 1-212-694-7781. 

[Amanda] To close this out, please take a moment to make sure you are following the show on your podcast platform of choice so that you get updates on when new episodes drop. The link to our Patreon, Social Medias, and webpage where you can find out more information about the show or this episode are all in the episode description. You can obtain exclusive early access to episodes via our Patreon page along with other awesome bonus content, so I hope you'll consider checking that out as well. I also post weekly discussion posts to deep dive into the episodes. I hope you have a great week ahead and I'll be back next week with an all new episode. I hope you keep listening and I hope you stay curious.