City homicide detectives are searching for a North Side man they say fatally shot a man during a spoiled drug deal while the victim's 6-year-old son watched from the back seat of a car.

The boy was among several witnesses who picked Tarel Lamarr Dixon, 20, from a photo lineup, pegging him as the man who fired gunshots and ran from his father's car June 16, police wrote in a criminal complaint.

Mr. Dixon will be charged with homicide, robbery, reckless endangerment and a firearms violation upon his arrest in the shooting death of Edward Baur, 32, of Reserve.

Police said in the complaint that Mr. Baur went to Highland Park that night to buy narcotics from a man he knew as "Hayes," who would frequently sell him methadone pills.

On other occasions, witnesses said, Mr. Baur would park in the 900 block of Mellon Street, where a dealer with dreadlocks would get inside his car and direct them to a house to retrieve the pills.

Mr. Baur was at Mellon Street and Wellesley Avenue about 11 p.m. June 16 when he was shot at least three times. Officers in the area heard the gunfire and saw Mr. Baur's vehicle speed down Mellon Street. Bleeding, he flagged them and told them he had been shot by a man named "Hayes." Mr. Baur then collapsed in the street.

His young son was pulled unharmed from the back of the car and placed in the custody of his mother.

As homicide detectives watched from behind a two-way mirror, the boy told a child advocacy specialist that he and his father had stopped at a McDonald's to get something to eat before he parked the car on Mellon, the complaint says. The boy said he ate in the back seat while a man approached the passenger side and spoke with his father.

The boy heard gunshots. When he looked up, the man was running from the car. He could see his father had been shot when he got back inside the car.

The next day, police said, the boy picked a photograph of Mr. Dixon from a lineup and said, "This is the man that ran from the car, when the gun shots."

Other witnesses said they knew Mr. Baur to have a drug habit and that he often bought from a man named "Hayes."

Anyone with information on Mr. Dixon's whereabouts is asked to call the city's homicide squad at 412-323-7161.

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