Slain Blake High Student Had Bright Future

Levi Dixon Jr. wasn't perfect, but to Angela Pratt, he was the best son a mother could have.

"He was a good kid," Pratt said Monday, a day after the 17-year-old was shot to death at a friend's house in Tampa. "He didn't get in trouble. Nothing like that. He liked to have fun."

Dixon was alone at a friend's house at 2536 W. Walnut St. early Sunday, when someone kicked in the door and shot him, police say. Dixon's body was found outside.

No witnesses have stepped forward, and no arrests have been made.

"We're still trying to determine what the motive was," Tampa Police Department spokeswoman Andrea Davis said.

Dixon was preparing for his senior year at Blake High School and had a four-year scholarship available from Bethune-Cookman University, his mother said.

He dreamed of becoming a singer and performed with a group, the Top Prospects, as well as his church choir.

Pratt last spoke with her only son Saturday, when they made his favorite meal: liver and gravy with white rice and broccoli. After they ate, Dixon told his mom he was headed to a friend's house. She wanted him to stay home.

"I'm just going over to chill," Pratt remembers him saying.

"You be safe," she told him.

"That's the last time I heard from my baby," Pratt said as she sobbed in the living room of her Morgan Street home.

About 4:19 a.m., someone kicked in the door of the home where her son was and started shooting, police said.

Dixon ran outside. He was sleeping when it started, his mom said. His brother from his dad's side of the family and some friends returned to find the teen's body, Pratt said.

"He didn't deserve that," she said. "He didn't deserve that at all."

Dixon was focused on his music and education, his family said.

"He was friends with everybody," said his cousin An'Tia Smith, 15. "He believed everybody deserved a chance."

"He was a loving and kind young man," said his aunt, Hazel Washington, who used to cook her nephew vegetables and rice when he asked. "And just like any young man, he was curious about a lot of things. He wasn't perfect."

It's that curiosity, she said, that may have led Dixon to be "in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Funeral arrangements have been set for 2 p.m. Saturday at Mount Olive African Methodist Episcopal Church, 1747 W. LaSalle St. A wake is scheduled for 7 p.m. Friday at Ray Williams Funeral Home at 301 N. Howard Ave.