About Martha Dixon
Special Agent Martha Dixon, (January 10, 1959- November 22, 1994), was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and was raised with her seven brothers and sisters in Mt. Lebanon, Pennsylvania. Dixon received her undergraduate degree in Chemistry from the University of Pittsburgh in 1982 and worked as a forensic chemist for the Arkansas State Crime Lab. She joined the FBI in 1987 and, while assigned to the Knoxville Field Office, became a technically trained agent and the first female SWAT team member for that field office. Dixon came to WFO in 1992 and worked drug cases, violent crimes, and cold cases. Dixon was a founding member of WFO’s Evidence Response Team, which was renamed the Dixon-Martinez Evidence Response Team in her honor.
Paul Dixon recalled a story about his sister, Martha, who threatened to quit her elementary school when it wanted to move her into a higher-level class. She didn’t want to leave her friends. Dixon said the same was true when her fellow squad members were attacked in 1994. She could have escaped, but stayed to help her colleagues.
“She was going to stay there and fight for her friends and defend them. And that’s what she did. That’s an illustration of Martha’s character. That’s the woman that was taken from us,” Dixon said. “So I would encourage everybody here not to focus on the deaths of these people. It’s not how they died that made them heroes, but it’s how they lived.”
Her family and friends channeled their grief into efforts to continue Martha’s two passions, running and children. The Martha Fund was formed in 1995 to raise funding for playground projects in her hometown. The Martha Fund’s main fundraising effort is Martha’s Run, a challenging 10K run and 2K run and walk through the rolling hills of Mt. Lebanon. Since the first fundraiser in 1995, The Martha Fund has gifted many smaller grants to assist playground projects, and in 2007, the signature project, Martha’s Playground, was unveiled in Mt. Lebanon Park. The Fund continues to support playground projects in the Pittsburgh area and is poised for another Martha’s Playground in the future.
