Remember a segment in 1992 about a young man who had eerie feelings about a cave near a busyard where he worked at. He went into the cave and found a skeleton. It was the skeleton of a businessman who was murdered in 1974. That segment creeped me out.

Yes I remember. What was the man's name? Didn't they find his car at the bottom of a lake? Wasn't it somehow linked to an employee of his or something like that? Was it ever solved?

The victim's name was Gary Simmons and his remains were found 17 years after he went missing. He disappeared the day he was supposedly making a deal to buy a $30,000 horse. Tom Dixon is wanted for his murder. Another friend of Simmon's was interviewed and said he thought the murder had something to do with black market gas. As far as I know Dixon hasn't been caught.

The victim's name was Gary Simmons and his remains were found 17 years after he went missing. He disappeared the day he was supposedly making a deal to buy a $30,000 horse. Tom Dixon is wanted for his murder. Another friend of Simmon's was interviewed and said he thought the murder had something to do with black market gas. As far as I know Dixon hasn't been caught.

Of course, don't confuse this Tom Dixon with the bank robber Tom Dixon, who was profiled on UM in 1996 (and was caught shortly afterwards). Obviously, Dixon is not a rare surname.

Watched this a little while ago. Gary Simmons, a gas station owner in the Kansas City metro area disappeared in 1974. His remains were found in a cave in Independence in 1991. Obviously Tom Dixon most likely murdered Gary Simmons. I actually believe it is possible he wasnt murdered because of the horse but the 30,000 dollars was a major player in the murder too. Why Simmons was murdered exactly is anyone's guess? There is probably only two real motives. The horse and the black market gas. I am sure Tom Dixon was the one behind the murder considering he tried to get Gary's car crushed in a salvage yard and when that didnt work he ditched it in the river. There was probably evidence in the car. Dixon I think shot and killed Simmons probably after getting the money. He got the money but didnt want to give Simmons the horse. Such a strange case. Dixon would be in his 70's today. He disappeared shortly after Simmons disappeared so that just makes him look even more guilty.

Never heard of this, but then I have never been involved in this kind of thing until the last 11 yrs. Now with this site I am finding things that I want to know more about. Where is Independence and how can I get a copy of what ever program might have aired about it.

That name is a very common name - did they ever show a picture of this Tom Dixon. How did he disappear off the face of the earth? How can some one kill some one and then Poof?

Independence, Missouri is a suburb of Kansas City. Yes, they had a photo of Tom Dixon taken in the early 1970's. It actually looked like a mugshot, booking photo. Tom Dixon was 42 in 1974 and would if alive today be 74 years old.

Another weird thing about this segment was that the bus driver who located the remains had always had a bad feeling about that cave. I think it said that he passed by it every day for many, many years before finally taking a peek inside. Sure enough, he was right.

Tom Dixon is a bad ass bank robber.:D

This is another case that get's far too little attention, IMO. Like the Los Angeles sewer robbers. Speaking of that, what happened to SiberianKiss?

Actually, maybe this case doesn't need more press. I get a bit queasy when I read about a Gary ending up like this.

You guys got me so interested in this Independence murder that I even contacted the paper there but they can't help. It was the web site and not the direct line to the paper. I absolutely have to see a photo of this Tom Dixon. There is something eerily familiar in this story - I am sure it is just that I read or heard something about it or saw a segement on tv.

Something makes me believe that it was not a REAL cave in the sense that most of us think of a cave, but it would still have be referred to as a cave. I can't find anything on the web about it (the murder or the finding of the body or Tom Dixon).

Something makes me believe that it was not a REAL cave in the sense that most of us think of a cave, but it would still have be referred to as a cave. I can't find anything on the web about it (the murder or the finding of the body or Tom Dixon).

Well, I'm sure that you could find SOMETHING on Tom Dixon... especially since he's a character in one of the soap operas my mother watches religiously...:lol:

Seriously, I'll stop being a smarta** now. :)

This was a real interesting case.

Just watched this one on Amazon. The black market gas angle certainly is interesting. But it seems more like rumors. Gary's brother points out in the segment that the type of purchases Gary made for gasoline were legal, but as they were not regulated by the government, many called it black market trading. So it may be a situation of a misunderstanding spawning a rumor.

But the horse angle seems like the real place to start. Gary obviously had someone tell him of a $30,000 horse for sale. Unsolved Mysteries has some strange dialog at this point. I am replaying the segment while typing this to be certain the following is accurate.

Pay close attention here because I had to replay this several times to be sure I heard correctly. Supposedly the OWNER of the horse was Tom Dixon who apparently had some credentials in the horse show/trading community. He was asking for 30k for this horse. Now according to the segment, to make the deal with Gary, an agent acting on behalf of the horses owner comes to work out the sale with Gary. The agent is Tom Dixon. So if the verbiage in the segment is accurate, the owner, Tom Dixon sent an agent named Tom Dixon to make the deal. So either the segment is incorrect in how they are saying this, or Tom Dixon supposedly hired a guy named Tom Dixon to make his deals for him. Confused yet? I am.

That bit may or may not be important. But it could show that a shady deal was going down if some of the info from the get go was already not adding up.

From here, the timeline is what seems strange to me. The timeline of the deal breaks down like this:

Oct 15th 1974
-10:15 am Tom Dixon and Gary depart from Gary's office

-10:30 am Gary calls his secretary. Has her make out a check to Dixon for 30k

-11:00 am Dixon goes back to Gary's office to get the check. He is told he will need Gary's signature on the check.

-11:30 am Gary is seen at a truck stop 10 miles from his office repeatedly looking out the window (presumably waiting for someone).

-No time give, but somewhere around this time, Gary calls his bank's manager informing him that Dixon will be by to cash a check.

-12pm Dixon goes into Gary's bank to cash the check.

-5-6pm (time is given as around 5 hours after the check is cashed) Dixon is seen at a wrecking yard driving Gary's car, trying to have it crushed.

- Dixon is dropped off at a truck stop looking to hitch a ride out of the area.

-6 months later the car is found in the Missouri River

-17 years later, Gary's body is found.

Okay, not knowing the actual locations or distances between many of the locations, I'll just assume that the distance between each of the locations/sightings above makes sense logically. So assuming that, I will point out the things that don't make sense logically.

-Whether or not this horse actually existed, 15 minutes (10:15-10:30) seems like a fast timeframe to make a 30k decision. If there was a horse, it could not have been far from Gary's office. And according to the secretary, Gary planned to return shortly. But then he sends Dixon back for the check alone? Doesn't make sense.

-Gary could not have been held anywhere and force to make the calls to his secretary and the bank as he was seen alone in the diner. Why not just call the police from the diner if he was alone?

-So, why not just go to the bank directly with Dixon in the first place? If it was some black market transaction that seems the best way to leave less of a paper trail.

-If Dixon insisted on a check for some reason, why? That is just more witnesses to come in contact with in the process. Then he cashes it in the end anyway.

-Safe to assume that Gary was killed after the check was cashed. So given for some time to pass at the bank while cashing the check, somewhere in between 12:30 and 5-6pm, Dixon is seen trying to get rid of Gary's car. What happened during this time frame of 5 hours?

-The cave seems like a very inconvenient place to drag a body into. The segment shows it pretty much had to be crawled in to get to where Gary was. Good hiding place, but a real b--ch to drag a body into. So how did he get Gary's body there? If he took him there and killed him at the site, it makes some sense but this seems problematic to me.

-Dixon is later seen hitching a ride out of town with a truck driver? After just scoring 30k he as resorted basically to hitchhiking? Why wouldn't he just drive the pick up truck he originally drove to Gary's office?

All in all, they didn't give too many forensic details of the case on UM. Just a timeline. But this whole case just is weird. I'm not sure what would make sense given the timeline, witness statements and oddities.

This case always freaked me out as a kid, especially that photo of Tom Dixon. How someone just walked away like he did is amazing, but it was also a heck of a lot easier to just disappear in 1974 as compared to today (or even in 2006 when this thread started). I tend to believe he just started a new life, and by the time this case was publicized in 1992, he had aged sufficiently enough to avoid identification or people with who he was acquainted never learned of the case.
He'd be, what, 85 today? Certainly plausible that he's still alive.
Ms. Cooper: In case you never saw a photo of Tom Dixon, here's the photo used on UM.http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/unsolvedmysteries/images/e/e7/Tom_dixon1.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20110913195510

Apparently Simmons had previously mentioned (https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1908&dat=19911020&id=Wv0fAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Nv4EAAAAIBAJ&pg=1386,1249725&hl=en) his fear of being kidnapped and forced to write checks. Based on those fears, it's difficult to understand why Simmons didn't check out Dixon with the horse association prior to meeting up with him. If Simmons actually went to see the horse as the witness on UM claimed, whose horse was it? Who did Dixon claim to be the agent for?

It sounds like investigators at the time believed that there was third party involved, because they didn't think Dixon was smart enough to pull it off, but there's never been any evidence of involvement of a third party. My guess is that Dixon had heard gossip about Simmons via the horse association and decided to con him.

the bank robber is a different tom dixon from a different episode of unsolved mysteries

Tom Dixon is a bad ass bank robber.:D

This is another case that get's far too little attention, IMO. Like the Los Angeles sewer robbers. Speaking of that, what happened to SiberianKiss?

Actually, maybe this case doesn't need more press. I get a bit queasy when I read about a Gary ending up like this.

This was a real interesting case.