Trial begins in beating death

Lawyers question potential jurors

RALEIGH -- Charles Darryl Dickerson's first-degree murder trial is under way with one fact uncontested: On Feb. 10, 2006, he beat Brenda Fox to death.

"This case is not a whodunit," David Brannon, one of Dickerson's attorneys, told potential jurors Tuesday in a Wake County courtroom. "This case is about why it happened."

Wake prosecutors have said they will seek the death penalty and will try to prove that Dickerson planned Fox's murder. Dickerson's defense will be that the attack was an act of passion and therefore does not warrant a death sentence.

Fox sold policies and collected premiums for a Chicago insurance company. She was a native of Iowa.

Dickerson was a longtime Raleigh resident with a string of misdemeanor assault convictions.

But the two became friends. In late 2005, Dickerson's son moved in with Fox and her four children, and family members said she hoped to give the child a stable environment. Fox was planning to marry another man.

But on the afternoon before her wedding, she drove to Dickerson's home with the expectation that he would sign papers giving her custody of the boy. When she had not returned several hours later, two of her daughters went to Dickerson's house. Dickerson had left in Fox's car. One of the daughters climbed through an open window and found her mother's body covered by a blanket.

Police arrested Dickerson three days later.

Dickerson has pleaded not guilty.

As lawyers questioned potential jurors, they indicated that Dickerson's home was in foreclosure at the time of the slaying and that he was depressed. Brannon also warned jurors that evidence in the case would include disturbing photographs and video of the death scene that shows a great deal of blood.

Opening arguments will begin this morning.