Gospel singer dies in Tampa shooting

TAMPA — A young gospel singer died Sunday morning. His name was Levi Dixon Jr. He was alone in a friend's house on Walnut Street in West Tampa about 4 a.m. when someone kicked open the front door and shot him, police said. He was 17.

No arrest had been reported by late Sunday. Relatives thought the shooter might have mistaken Levi for someone else, and Tampa police Lt. Ronald McMullen acknowledged that possibility.

"By all accounts, he was a good kid," McMullen said.

Levi went to Blake High School, and he loved animals. His MySpace page was covered in pictures of Simba, the young lion from Disney's Lion King.

Relatives said he was on the verge of musical success. His uncle, Ricky Pearson, said Levi wrote his own music and sang in local clubs.

"I just keep seeing his face," Pearson said Sunday afternoon, outside Levi's mother's house in Tampa Heights, as friends and relatives came in their church clothes to grieve with her.

Levi's record was not spotless. He was arrested Feb. 28 in Tampa on a felony battery charge, state records show. While it couldn't be confirmed officially, his uncle said the charge was dropped.

It was not clear why he was left alone in the pink house at 2536 W Walnut St. in the middle of the night. A police statement said "the friends were away" during the shooting, but it did not elaborate.

No one answered the door there Sunday afternoon. There was a young magnolia in the front yard and a 25-pound dumbbell on the porch. Black grime covered the wall by the front door. The screen hung in tatters.

"The police was out here this morning when I was going out to church," said Louise Winters, 80, who lives next door. She sat on her front porch as Major Dixon, Levi's 15-year-old cousin, rode up on his bike.

Major motioned toward the rear of the pink house, to a red smear on the windowsill.

"That's his blood?" he asked.

Winters assumed it was.

"They didn't clean it up?" he said.

Major said his cousin was innocent, that he must have been caught in crossfire.

"He was a singer," he said. "He was fixing to be something."

"I think he had a chance, you feel me? He ain't got no chance no more, though."

Winters fanned herself.

"Seventeen years old," she said.

Times researcher John Martin contributed to this report. Thomas Lake can be reached at tlake@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3416.