‘He’s 180 pounds. I’m 300 pounds’: Former college football player who spent two months in jail for a murder he did not commit says he never matched the suspect’s description
A former South Carolina college football player has filed a second lawsuit after spending more than two months behind bars for a murder he did not commit – claiming investigators ignored clear evidence that pointed to another suspect.
Ty’Ran Dixon, who was a 300-pound defensive lineman at Newberry College, was arrested in August 2024 for the murder of 21-year-old Jasmine Roach, which happened nearly a year earlier.
Now, Dixon has lodged a federal civil rights complaint against Barnwell County Sheriff Steven Griffith, individual deputies, and other law enforcement officials, as his attorneys say they uncovered “incredible” investigative mistakes during discovery in an earlier state lawsuit.
“They didn’t even have any evidence of me doing anything, and I still got locked up,” Dixon said, according to WRDW. “I’m praying like, ‘God, just get me out of these chains.’”
Roach, who was four-months pregnant, died after a man opened fire at a gathering of people in Barnwell.
According to court documents, within 12 hours of Roach’s murder in October 2023, Sheriff Griffith received a text from a trusted source identifying the correct suspect – complete with accurate spelling of the name and social media links. That man had a similar name but spelt differently, Tyren Dickson, and also was physically much smaller, weighing about 180 pounds.
Despite the tip, Dixon’s attorneys allege deputies took no immediate action. Instead, they arrested Dixon nearly a year later, in August 2024.
The lawsuit also claims that nine days after Dixon’s arrest, internal emails show investigators questioned whether they had the right man. It further alleges that officers discussed showing Dixon’s photo to a witness in custody for identification, but never followed through.
In December 2024, police finally arrested Dickson and charged him with murder. His case is still pending.
“His name’s not even spelled like mine, and he looks nothing like me,” Dixon said. “Second of all, he’s 180 pounds. I’m 300 pounds.”
“They were with the solution to the crime, and it only took them 15 months, 14 months and about two weeks, after they receive this information the week after the murder, to go and arrest the suspect that they had originally been pointed to,” Dixon’s attorney Joe McCulloch said.
“I know this about legal and police work,” McCulloch added. “Measure twice and cut once, because the consequences of making a mistake like this are catastrophic for people like our client.”
WRDW reported that while the Barnwell County Sheriff’s Office has not commented on the federal complaint, the agency did respond to a separate state lawsuit, denying the allegations and asserting that any misidentification was not done with malice.
