{"id":30897,"date":"2023-11-01T16:30:16","date_gmt":"2023-11-01T22:30:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/arizona-man-faces-murder-charge-in-2021-killing\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T01:29:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T07:29:13","slug":"arizona-man-faces-murder-charge-in-2021-killing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/arizona-man-faces-murder-charge-in-2021-killing\/","title":{"rendered":"Arizona man faces murder charge in 2021 killing"},"content":{"rendered":"Vasquez accused in shooting death of William \u2018Billy\u2019 Dixon\n

\"Francisco
Francisco Vasquez Jr., 29, is charged with first-degree murder in the 2021 killing of William \u201cBilly\u201d Dixon, of San Juan County.<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A preliminary hearing has been set for 1 p.m. Nov. 16 in San Juan County Magistrate Court for an Arizona man accused of first-degree murder in San Juan County.<\/p>\n

Francisco Vasquez Jr., 29, was extradited from Douglas, Arizona, and was booked on Oct. 19 into the San Juan County Detention Center, where he is being held for the Aug. 9, 2021, killing of William \u201cBilly\u201d Dixon.<\/p>\n

The arrest affidavit reads like a crime drama filled with drug use, sexual assault and murder.<\/p>\n

The narrative begins Aug. 9, 2021, when Francine Ross stopped at Billy Dixon\u2019s house, at 60 County Road 3400. She had just left the casino, and the two \u201csmoked weed and meth together,\u201d according to the affidavit.<\/p>\n

Ross stated that Dixon exposed himself to her, but she looked away and remained at the house. A while later, while still there, \u201ca Hispanic male, younger and \u2018somewhat cute\u2019\u201d came to the door and \u201casked for drugs,\u201d the affidavit states.<\/p>\n

Dixon reportedly said he did not have any and Ross stated that she \u201coffered him a hit out of the meth pipe she was holding.\u201d The man identified himself as Cisco, who was later identified as Vazquez, and \u201cshook her hand briefly,\u201d the affidavit states.<\/p>\n

Cisco went outside and Dixon followed. This was when Ross said she \u201chear two gunshots\u201d with one that \u201cechoed longer.\u201d Then there were footsteps, a car door slammed and a car left the scene, according to the affidavit.<\/p>\n

Ross reportedly picked up her cellphone and left. When she went outside she saw Dixon \u201con the ground and his head looked deformed,\u201d reportedly from being shot in the head. She left the scene, the affidavit states.<\/p>\n

Ross shared the information with San Juan County Sheriff\u2019s investigators two years after the homicide. It was Dixon\u2019s phone that she picked up when she left the home that day, and she was with tampering with evidence for taking it. Detectives questioned her on July 20, 2023, the affidavit states.<\/p>\n

The detectives asked her if she had any more information about Dixon\u2019s death, and Ross reportedly told them that she heard from Kelly Standifer that \u201ca female named Nora and her boyfriend killed Billy because Billy raped Nora,\u201d the affidavit states.<\/p>\n

Sheriff\u2019s detectives questioned Standifer, who corroborated Ross\u2019 story by telling them that a man named Cisco was picked up by Nora in Phoenix and she brought him back to Farmington, the affidavit states.<\/p>\n

Standifer then reportedly told detectives that Cisco came to his house \u201ccrying\u201d and told him \u201cthat Nora talked him into killing Billy,\u201d because he and two other men reportedly \u201cwere all drugging women and raping them,\u201d and one was reportedly Nora, the affidavit stated.<\/p>\n

Standifer provided a description of Cisco, which matched the description provided by Ross, so the detectives began looking into Nora, who was later identified as Nola. They secured a search warrant for her Facebook accounts and looked at messages sent through the social media network from 2021 around the time of Dixon\u2019s death. It was through Facebook that detectives learned \u201cCisco\u201d was Francisco Vasquez, the affidavit states.<\/p>\n

When they questioned Nola at a Howard Johnson Motel in Albuquerque, she also reportedly told the detectives that Vasquez \u201ckilled Billy.\u201d She also told them that Dixon drugged and raped her and \u201che got what he deserved for raping numerous girls,\u201d the affidavit states.<\/p>\n

Sheriff\u2019s detectives located Vasquez in prison in Douglas, Arizona, and went there on Aug. 22, to interview him. Vasquez reportedly admitted he went by the name \u201cCisco\u201d and that he was in Farmington in 2021.<\/p>\n

Vasquez reportedly told the detective he got a gun from a man at the Farmington Inn and went to Dixon\u2019s home. He reportedly \u201cdemonstrated how he was holding a gun in his right hand inside front hoodie pocket,\u201d according to the affidavit.<\/p>\n

He also reportedly confessed to the homicide saying, \u201cI did it man, he\u2019s a rapist, he raped my home girl! So I went over there and I smoked him! I gave him two to his head! Boom boom,\u201d the affidavit states.<\/p>\n

Vasquez was charged with first-degree murder and possession of a firearm or destructive device by a felon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vasquez accused in shooting death of William \u2018Billy\u2019 Dixon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30898,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-30897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"Website Administrator","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30897"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81242,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30897\/revisions\/81242"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30897"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=30897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}