Missing woman's work worries dad

He says modeling job could be tied to disappearance

Julie Poppen, Rocky Mountain News

Published July 4, 2007 at midnight

Text size

More Local News

More stories »

A missing Mesa County mother of three whose car was found torched a few miles from her upscale home may have been working as a model or escort at the time of her disappearance, her father said Tuesday.

Now, Frank Birgfeld worries that one of his daughter's many entrepreneurial jobs could be at the root of her mysterious disappearance.

Paige Birgfeld, 34, was last seen about 9 p.m. Thursday and was officially reported missing Saturday. She was last seen wearing a blue flowered tube top and blue jean shorts.

Her red 2005 Ford Focus was found engulfed in flames Sunday night in a parking lot of an industrial area in northwest Grand Junction, about three miles from her home.

Frank Birgfeld, of Centennial, said he saw a business card with his daughter's name on it indicating that she was involved in modeling. It's a business neither he nor some close friends knew anything about.

"I did not know what that is," said Birgfeld, former vice president and district director of the National Association of Securities Dealers. "As a dad, I don't know that I like the sound of it. It is an area that is ripe for speculation."

His daughter also sold baby carriers, had a dance company called Brain Dance and was an independent sales director for the Pampered Chef, an Illinois company that sells kitchen items through home-based salespeople.

Authorities tight-lipped

In April, Paige Birgfeld posted a message on a Pampered Chef-related Web site indicating that her "modeling agency" provided her primary income. There is no record of a modeling business under her name with the Colorado Secretary of State's Office.

"I got a hunch this wasn't because she had an irate Pampered Chef customer," said Frank Birgfeld, who was busy plastering the Grand Junction area with fliers Tuesday.

But that isn't the only line of speculation related to his daughter's disappearance. Another is that she left on her own.

Her father rules that one out, though, describing his twice-divorced daughter as "an absolutely devoted mother" who would never leave her children. Indeed, many of her Internet postings refer to her children and how involved she was in their lives.

"When you hear 'missing person,' there is always the idea that maybe they just found their circumstances untenable and left," Frank Birgfeld said. "That is not the case here. Once you remove that, the rest of the scenarios get bad."

Authorities, meanwhile, are tight-lipped about the case.

"I don't know of any specific evidence that says there was foul play involved," said Lt. Jim Fogg of the Mesa County Sheriff's Office.

But, he added, "We're definitely treating it as a very serious missing persons case."

Tempestuous relationship

Recent Web postings by Paige Birgfeld hint at various scenarios.

For instance, she told friends 2 1/2 months ago that she had recently hooked up again with her first husband. And Web posts on a Pampered Chef forum indicated she was worried what her second husband, Rob Dixon, might think.

"(My first husband) and I didn't have any kids, they are all from my second husband, who won't like hearing about me having anything to do with the first husband again," she wrote under her former name, Paige Dixon, on April 18.

Other posts told of her tempestuous relationship with Dixon, whom she divorced last year, and talked of fears for her safety.

On March 24, she wrote, "Oh, man! My children would ask me if Dad was going to kill me. I can't imagine what they were thinking life would be like after he killed me."

Dixon's attorney, Scott Robinson, said he was familiar with the worrisome writings on the Web.

"Either she is the victim of foul play or she has staged her own disappearance and left behind evidence to implicate Rob," Robinson said. "Rob is still hoping that the latter is true."

Dixon was not in Colorado last week and only learned of his ex-wife's disappearance on Sunday, Robinson said.

Robinson said Dixon has returned to the state and is cooperating fully with investigators.

Court records show that in October 2005, Dixon allegedly slapped his wife on the shoulder and punched her in the throat as she held their baby after accusing her of giving topless massages.

Dixon was arrested on suspicion of third-degree assault and misdemeanor child abuse. He pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of harassment.

The case against him was dismissed last month after he completed terms of a yearlong deferred sentence, Robinson said.

Additionally, in October 2004, the Daily Sentinel in Grand Junction reported that authorities were called to the family's $909,000 home after Paige Birgfeld reported that her husband threatened her and their children. Police determined Dixon was not a threat to himself or anyone else and he was not arrested.

Robinson said Dixon has stayed out of trouble for the past year and has an amicable relationship with his ex-wife.

"They've basically joined forces to make sure things are going well with the kids," who are 8, 6 and 3, Robinson said.

Controversial figure

Rob Dixon is a controversial figure in Grand Junction for other reasons.

He was once on the board of the Grand Junction Rural Fire Protection District. In that role, he recommended investing fire district funds in a New York Internet company in which he had once owned stock, the Sentinel reported.

Once the investments, which totaled $3.24 million, became public knowledge in 2004, the fire district attempted to get its money back. It has since received all but about $1 million, the Sentinel reported.

Dixon was not named in any of the lawsuits filed in connection with the case because he had filed for bankruptcy, it said.

Robinson said the Sentinel report mischaracterized Dixon's role in the fire district's troubles.

"He's hoping the focus is on finding his wife," Robinson said.

Paige Birgfeld, who graduated from Littleton's Heritage High School, said in her online posts that her divorce from Dixon left her with "huge" bills.

Her father confirmed that she has struggled to hang on to the house and take care of her children by taking whatever jobs she could find, including working as a mystery shopper.

"She will hustle to make a dollar to make ends meet," he said.

Correspondent Ellen Miller contributed to this report. poppenj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5176

Subscribe to the Rocky Mountain News