Georgia Town Torn Over Teen's Case

Jan. 24 -- — It's a "great town," says WRGA Radio newsman Doug Walker. But Rome, Ga., is also a town torn apart.

About 60 miles northwest of Atlanta, Rome has been left mostly unaffected by the sprawling growth of the state capital.

"Originally [it] would have been on the path of Interstate 75, but the powers that be, 50 years ago, rejected that, and 75 went east of Rome, and so Rome is not on the heavy-growth pattern," said Walker. "I think most of the folks in this community are probably glad of that."

Rome's comfort over being bypassed was rudely interrupted last year. The town has drawn intense national scrutiny ever since Feb. 10, 2003, when a once-favorite son named Marcus Dixon got into deep legal trouble by having a sexual encounter with a fellow student in a trailer containing classrooms at Floyd County's Peperell High School , a few miles outside Rome.

The case was a classic he said/she said. He, aged 18, called their sex consensual; she, 15, called it rape. There were no other witnesses. Only the principals knew the true story, but the outlines of the case suggested some simplified possibilities.

"I think that the system, the DA's office, the court system, possibly the police, saw in this case what they expected to see," said Dixon's defense attorney, Fred Simpson. "You have a huge black athlete, so much bigger than this little white girl. and I think their mind formed a stereotype. They automatically assumed that Marcus was guilty."

But stereotypes cut both ways. HBO's RealSports saw Dixon as trapped by the prejudices of an old-line, white Southern town, characterized by videotape shot somewhere else of hooded Ku Klux Klansmen on the march.

Simpson called that "over the top, because the Klan has not marched in Rome in over 10 years."

The O'Reilly Factor on Fox News Channel also portrayed Dixon as little more than a victim, although it could find no logic for his victimization.

Was Race a Factor?

In Floyd County, Marcus Dixon was well known as a football hero.