A woman from South Bend, Indiana, was sentenced Friday to 18 years in prison for fatally shooting a D.C. man who she was casually dating and stalking in 2020, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Officials said Nijinsky Dix, 40, pleaded guilty on Feb. 13 to a charge of second degree murder while armed after shooting 44-year-old Terry Hickman multiple times in his apartment on Nov. 14, 2020.
A police investigation found that Dix, a doctoral student and an employee of the University of Notre Dame, had met Hickman at a bar near South Bend in late February 2020 and the two began “a casual pandemic relationship” that lasted a few months.
Hickman was recently divorced and did not want a serious relationship with Dix, according to a release. Dix didn’t accept this and continued to insinuate herself into Hickman’s life.
The Justice Department said she was “reaching out to members of his family for support and advice, offering money, trips, and jewelry to the victim and the victim’s daughter.” Hickman tried to end the relationship in August 2020, blocking Dix’s number and asking her to not contact him.
Dix’s obsession continued, police said, as she became jealous of other women she believed Hickman was interested in, even arriving unannounced at his apartment in D.C. on Sept. 6 of that year. Officials said that Dix also told a family member that she purchased a gun in Florida.
Leading up to Hickman’s death, he had been texting a woman that he was establishing a business relationship with, according to the police’s investigation. Dix texted a friend on Nov. 12 that she felt Hickman was using her to have a relationship with the other woman. She said she was angry that he may be trying to connect her to a woman with whom he had a romantic relationship.
She texted her friend: “I will kill him. Literally.”
Two days later, Dix flew from Indiana to D.C., with an unloaded handgun and a box of ammunition in her luggage. When she landed, she rented a car, drove to Hickman’s apartment in the 1000 block of 4th Street SW, confronted him and shot him multiple times.
In addition to serving 18 years in prison for killing Hickman, Superior Court Judge Marisa J. Demeo ordered Dix to serve five years of supervised release.
