ORLANDO, Fla. – Accused double murderer Markeith Loyd spent hours on the stand providing intimate details about his relationship with Sade Dixon, the pregnant woman he's accused of killing.
Earlier in the day, the state rested its case after calling witnesses who described the night in 2016 that Dixon was fatally shot outside her family's Pine Hills home. The defense also called a few witnesses before Loyd took the stand at about 2 p.m.
Loyd said his relationship with Dixon began when she sent him a friend request on Facebook. He said he liked some of her pictures and the two began exchanging messages.
"Yeah, you cute and you fine and all that but what else you got to offer in a relationship? What your credit score is?" Loyd messaged Dixon, according to his testimony.
[READ: How the hunt and capture of Markeith Loyd unfolded | 'He was aiming for my heart': Victim's brother testifies in Markeith Loyd murder trial]
He said he asked her those questions because he was looking for a woman with whom he could settle down.
"I wanted a family. I wanted kids. I wanted my kids to be raised in a house with their mother and father," Loyd said.
He said the two went out for drinks during their first date on Sept. 16, 2016.
"So we go out. We go out to clubs. She's drinking. She smoked," Loyd said.
Afterward, he said, Dixon spent the night at the five-bedroom home Loyd was renting.
Loyd said that next morning, he had sex with Dixon and from that point on, she often spent the night at his place.
Watch Loyd's full testimony below
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Posted by News 6 WKMG / ClickOrlando on Monday, October 14, 2019
Based on his testimony, the problems in the relationship began early. He said Dixon's mother didn't like him.
"I guess her mom felt like I was too old for her daughter, however she felt. She was negative, she was disrespectful but I was always respectful," Loyd said.
He also described trust issues between him and Dixon. He said he paid for her to attend real estate classes but he would have to sleep in his car outside the school so she didn't worry about him being with other women.
On Oct. 1, 2016 she told him she believed she was pregnant and a test later confirmed that was the case.
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Video was played in court showing a Facebook Live the couple did as Dixon was getting a sonogram. The doctor said the baby was upside-down, on its head, and the due date would be June 17, 2017.
Loyd sniffled and appeared to be wiping tears from his eyes as the video was played.
Dixon made a comment in the video about how she needed to calculate the conception date, which Loyd took to mean that the baby might not be his. He said he wanted a family so bad, he didn't care.
"I'm gonna be the only father the child knows," Loyd said.
After they found out Dixon was pregnant, the couple began to argue about Dixon eating meat and smoking marijuana, Loyd said. He said he thought it would be better for the baby if she abstained from both, but Dixon said that would be difficult.
The situation escalated when Loyd started to think Dixon was doing those things behind his back.
"If I don't make you happy, leave, if you feel like you have to sneak and do stuff," Loyd said.
He claimed he once came home to find her eating a ham sandwich and he believed she would start fights so she could go off with her friends to smoke marijuana.
Loyd said he'd spoken with his ex-girlfriend, Jameis Slaughter, and let her know that he planned to stay with Dixon for another six months and if she didn't change her ways by then, he would get back together with Slaughter and raise the child with her. He also said he cheated on Dixon with Slaughter at that point.
It was during a fight about marijuana on Dec. 10, 2016 that Loyd and Dixon broke up. Loyd said they texted back and forth about the argument and ultimately the next day, she decided to pack up her things and leave his home.
In the texts, which were read in court, Loyd accused Dixon of lying and vice versa. Dixon texted that Loyd "put his hands" on her during an argument, so it was difficult for her to be open with him when she feared violence. Loyd said he got physical with Dixon during a fight about whether she was at her cousin's house as she said she had been.
"So I grabbed her by her neck and I pushed her down," Loyd said.
He said he felt guilty about "trespassing on her body" so he cut off his dreadlocks in an attempt for atone for what he had done.
"It makes no difference what she did. I had no right to put my hands on her," Loyd said.
After Dixon moved back in with her family, she and Loyd continued texting in the days leading up to her death. She logged into Loyd's Facebook account and took screenshots showing him messaging and calling other women.
"It ain't even been a week and you (expletive) around," Loyd said Dixon wrote to him in a text.
On Dec. 13, 2016, about 40 minutes before Dixon was killed, the two texted about the content of the messages and a video on Loyd's page that showed him in a strip club.
Loyd said that's when he went to Dixon's home to talk to her and explain himself, especially since she'd sent a text hinting she would get an abortion.
"My goal is to talk to her, just explain myself so she won't be so mad and if she wanted to get back together, I would," Loyd said.
[READ: Sade Dixon accused Markeith Loyd of abuse before her death, family says | Police: Markeith Loyd used same gun to kill ex-girlfriend, Orlando officer]
During the confrontation, he admitted to Dixon that he had sex with an ex-girlfriend earlier that day and that's when, Loyd said, Dixon got a gun.
"When I see the gun, I'm like, ‘Sade, what the (expletive) you fixin' to do, shoot me?'" Loyd said.
He stood in the courtroom with his attorney and reenacted the shooting. He said he was on high alert because Dixon's brother grabbed him and attacked him.
#LoydTrial // Markeith Loyd with his attorney acting out Sade Dixon is re-enacting what happened in the minutes before Dixon’s death @news6wkmg pic.twitter.com/qZOKNhZJdo
— Nadeen Yanes (@NadeenNews6) October 14, 2019
Authorities said Dixon and her brother were shot multiple times. Dixon died at the scene but her brother survived, records show.
Loyd said he texted Dixon after the shooting, thinking that she would survive and her brother had died because he shot him so close to his heart. He told Dixon the shooting was her fault. He also said there was a typo in one of his texts and he had meant to say that he hoped she would survive.
"I didn't mean for this to happen. I wanted my child. I didn't want to kill my sister, kill my queen," Loyd said.
He said that, after the shooting, he fled to Volusia County but then came back when he saw that Slaughter had been arrested. He claimed he planned to let Dixon's family turn him in so they could get the Crimeline reward money.
"I tried to turn myself in. I'm not fixin' to let (officers) kill me," Loyd said.
During parts of the testimony, which lasted for about four hours including a few brief breaks, Loyd said that, while he's not religious, he believes that he's received signs from God several times in his life, beginning when he was about 7 years old.
He also spoke of his conviction on a drug charge, what he called an addiction to Facebook, his vegetarianism, being robbed twice while working as a food delivery man, his preference that women he date not smoke or wear revealing clothes and his prior relationships.
He talked at length about the color of his feces, saying he took it as a sign from God when they turned green after he stopped eating meat.
Cross-examination had just begun Monday evening when it had to be cut short because a juror reported filling ill. Proceedings will resume Tuesday at 9:30 a.m. Closing arguments are slated for Wednesday morning.
To read more of what happened in court Monday, click here.