A case that lingered without direction now had a name
Nearly a year after Steven Dixon II was shot and killed on a Baton Rouge street with no suspects in sight, investigators quietly assembled the pieces of a case that had seemed to go cold. In late September 2020, that patience yielded an arrest: Damon Cain, nineteen years old, charged with murder — a young man who had already been sitting in custody on unrelated charges while the homicide case built itself around him. It is a reminder that justice, when it comes, often arrives not in a flash but through the slow, unglamorous accumulation of evidence.
- A man was shot multiple times and left dead on Blueberry Street in November 2019, and police initially had nothing — no suspects, no clear leads, no direction.
- The case went quiet for months, the kind of silence that can mean a family waits indefinitely for answers.
- Investigators kept working, following threads that weren't visible in the first hours, building a case piece by careful piece over nearly a year.
- Damon Cain, already behind bars since December 2019 on sexual battery and burglary charges, was formally charged with Dixon's murder in September 2020.
- The arrest moves the case from unsolved to prosecutable — but what evidence finally closed the gap remains unknown, and what comes next belongs to the courts.
On November 9, 2019, Steven Dixon II was shot multiple times on Blueberry Street in Baton Rouge. When police arrived, they had no suspects and no clear path forward. The case went cold.
Ten months later, in late September 2020, Baton Rouge Police announced an arrest. Damon Cain, nineteen years old, was charged with murder in connection with Dixon's death — the result of nearly a year of methodical investigative work that had not been visible to the public.
Cain had actually been in custody since December 2019, arrested just weeks after Dixon's killing on separate charges of sexual battery and burglary. While he sat in jail on those unrelated charges, homicide investigators continued building their case, eventually developing enough evidence to formally connect him to the shooting.
The public record does not reveal what evidence ultimately made the case prosecutable, or what shifted during those ten months. What the arrest does signal is that the slow, unglamorous work of following cold leads had finally reached a threshold. A case that once had no name now had one. What happens next is for the courts to decide.
Steven Dixon II was shot multiple times on Blueberry Street in Baton Rouge on November 9, 2019. When police found him that day, they had no leads, no suspects, and no clear direction for the investigation. The case sat. Months passed. Then, ten months later, on a Tuesday in late September 2020, Baton Rouge Police announced they had made an arrest.
Damon Cain, nineteen years old, was charged with murder in connection with Dixon's death. The arrest came after investigators spent nearly a year building their case, following threads and evidence that had not been immediately apparent in those first hours after the shooting.
Cain had already been in police custody for months by the time he was charged with Dixon's murder. He was arrested in December 2019—just weeks after Dixon was killed—on separate charges of sexual battery and burglary. While held on those charges, investigators continued their work on the homicide, eventually developing enough evidence to connect him to Dixon's death.
The case represents the kind of investigative persistence that often goes unnoticed: the slow, methodical work of following leads that don't immediately pan out, of building a case piece by piece until the picture becomes clear enough to charge someone. In the immediate aftermath of Dixon's shooting, there was nothing. By the time Cain was formally charged, the investigation had moved from a dead end to a conclusion.
With the arrest, a case that had lingered for nearly a year without direction now had a name and a face. What remains unclear from the public record is what evidence ultimately connected Cain to the shooting, or what investigators discovered during those ten months that shifted the case from unsolved to prosecutable. The arrest itself signals that the investigation had reached a threshold—enough to charge, enough to move forward. What happens next belongs to the courts.
Notable Quotes
Investigators believe Cain is connected to the victim's death— Baton Rouge Police
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why did it take ten months to charge him if he was already in custody?
He was arrested on other charges—sexual battery and burglary—in December. While he was sitting in jail on those, investigators were still working the Dixon case separately, building evidence.
So they had him, but not for this crime yet.
Exactly. They needed to connect him to the shooting. That takes time—witnesses, forensics, whatever evidence they could develop.
And they found it.
They say they did. Enough to charge him with murder, anyway.
What about Dixon's family? Did they have to wait all that time without answers?
The reporting doesn't say. But yes—ten months is a long time to not know who killed someone you loved.