Renton man gets 73 years for 2021 Kent murder, assaults
Published 5:59 pm Thursday, July 2, 2026
A 44-year-old Renton man received a prison sentence of 73 years after a jury convicted him of killing Devon Hill and injuring two others during a 2021 shooting at a Kent gas station.
Joseph Dixon was sentenced July 1 in a King County court at the Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent. A jury convicted Dixon on March 11 of first-degree murder, two counts of first-degree assault and one count of unlawful possession of a firearm, according to King County Superior Court documents. The murder and assault charges also included firearm enhancements.
King County prosecutors requested a sentence of 81 years, but Judge Nikole Hecklinger went with 73 years. Dixon had a high offender score, which led to a longer sentence, because of a lengthy criminal history between 1998 and 2018 when he was sentenced for 10 crimes in King County, including robbery, burglary and assault.
Kristen McEachron, the mother of Hill, spoke to the judge during the sentencing hearing.
“Devon was an innocent bystander who was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time during this tragic event,” said McEachron about her oldest of three children, according to court documents. “No mother should ever have to stand where I am standing today.”
Dixon killed Hill, 23, when he fired into a car at the Circle K gas station, 1809 W. Meeker St. Hill died of a gunshot wound to the head, according to the King County Medical Examiner’s Office.
“Your honor, this loss, this never-ending nightmare, has changed every aspect of my life,” said McEachron, who lives in California, about her son. “I relive the events of Sept. 19, 2021 every day, from the initial call from Devon’s best friend telling me he heard Devon was murdered to the following 10 hours of searching the internet for any clue to find out if it was true, to the phone call from (Kent Police) Detective Whitley confirming my worst nightmare has come true.”
The shootings
At about 1:18 a.m. on Sept. 19, 2021, Kent Police officers were dispatched to Meeker Street Bar and Grill, 1721 W. Meeker St., for multiple reports of a shooting, according to charging papers.
Police found a small crowd in the parking lot surrounding two men who had been shot. A then 36-year-old man had four gunshot wounds. He told officers he was in his baby mother’s Cadillac SUV when a man shot him. He said he got out of the car and the man got in and drove the vehicle away.
A then 23-year-old man had a gunshot wound to his shoulder. He told police that he and two other men came to Circle K, just east of the bar, to get gas. He said his friend, Hill, was still in the car and had been fatally shot. Both men were transported to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle for treatment.
Witnesses told police that a man, later identified as Dixon, appeared to be trying to steal the Cadillac and that shots were fired prior to the vehicle leaving at a high rate of speed westbound on West Meeker Street. An officer was traveling on Reith Road at about 2:40 a.m. looking for the Cadillac when he was flagged down by a pedestrian about a man lying facedown in a gutter along 38th Avenue South.
The officer observed a gunshot wound to the man’s head and he was deceased. That man was later identified as Hill. Shortly after Hill’s body was found, officers a few blocks away found a Cadillac XT6 SUV parked unoccupied in the 3800 block of South 253rd Street.
The driver’s side window was partially rolled down and there was a large pool of blood and a fired cartridge casing in the back passenger seat, according to charging documents. Detectives obtained a search warrant and found inside the car four fired .40 caliber cartridge casings, a fired .40 caliber bullet, a sandwich bag of what appeared to be heroin, and oxycodone pills with the brand name of Percocet, commonly referred to on the street as “Perc30’s,” according to police.
Detectives found a fingerprint on the driver’s side rear exterior quarter panel that they identified as matching a fingerprint of Dixon. Surveillance video from residences in the West Hill area showed a man walking away from the Cadillac and later being picked up by a black sedan.
Detectives later interviewed one of the shooting victims who told them that on the night of the shooting they drove to Circle K to get wrapping papers for rolling marijuana joints. They were at the gas pumps for less than a minute when a man walked up, opened the rear passenger door and began firing into the vehicle.
A day later, detectives received a tip about a man bragging about robbing and shooting people and stealing their car and that the man was at the Morning Glory Motel in Bellingham. Police observed surveillance video of the man leaving the motel and getting into a Toyota Rav4.
After circulating a bulletin to local law enforcement and reviewing jail booking photographs, detectives identified the man as Dixon. Detectives located Facebook pages for Dixon and one of the injured shooting victims. They discovered the man was a Facebook friend with Dixon. They searched the injured man’s cellphone and less than three hours before the shooting saw text messages from a “Joe” requesting to meet.
Police also tracked down another sighting of Dixon on Sept. 21, 2021 at the Muckleshoot Casino in Auburn. Auburn Police responded to an assault after casino security broke up a fight between two men. One of the men, related to the shooting victims, found Dixon and reportedly assaulted him.
In a follow-up interview with one of the shooting victims, detectives asked the man if he knew Dixon. The man said he did but didn’t know why he shot at him.
Eventually, detectives tracked down Dixon in Snohomish County. On Sept. 27, 2021, police tried to take him into custody at a Safeway parking lot when he reportedly rammed his vehicle into unmarked police vehicles. SWAT officers fired shots at him and hit him once in the lower back.
Police took Dixon into custody and he was transported to Harborview Medical Center. Kent detectives tried to interview Dixon the next day at the hospital. When a detective asked him if he would willing to talk about the incident in Kent, he replied, “No, not without my attorney present.”
More statements
McEachron, the mother of Hill, read a statement in court from Lauryn Hill, her daughter and Hill’s sister.
“Devon was only 23 years old when he was brutally executed,” according to the statement. “He was a young man still trying to find his place in this evil world. We will no longer be able to spend holidays, birthdays or celebrate milestones with Devon ever again. Nothing in this world can bring Devon back.
“The court needs to understand how brutal and inhumane this execution was. Our family still grieves Devon and this tragedy has changed us forever. The pain is still heavy in our hearts.”
Jannie Lee, who has a 5-year-old son with one of the men injured in the shooting, said in a July 2 email to the Kent Reporter that sentencing was scheduled for last month but Dixon refused transport from his cell and to show up on Zoom for sentencing.
“But this time he was present as they had a drag order in place just in case he refused again,” Lee said.
In her statement to the court, Lee described how Dixon tried to blame her child’s father, who now has a paralyzed arm from the shooting, for the incident.
“The senseless actions of your choices on Sept. 19, 2021 is what brought us to this point today (July 1),” Lee said. “Instead of taking accountability for yourself you showed how much of a coward you are. You tried to deflect the blame on someone who is actually the victim in this matter. You purposely tried to paint this picture of my son’s father as one who has no regard for others life, lacks accountability, a person driven by rage for the value of a dollar, someone who needed control but the whole time you were describing yourself.”
Lee continued with her statement.
“You forever changed someone who had all the confidence in himself and was always happy,” she said. “Now he deals with the pain and agony of waking up everyday not only with trauma but the lack of confidence he once had. Even if he wanted to forget this ever happened he has no choice but to look at his hand and be reminded of this tragic act of violence.”
In her email, Lee described what it was like to read a statement in court and how Dixon reacted.
“I had bad anxiety reading that I literally was panicking and crying at the same time,” Lee said. “The crazy part about it is Dixon showed no remorse at all. Not saying an apology fixes what can’t be fixed but it shows somewhat of accountability for his senseless actions of violence.”
