Merle Dixon

Merle Dixon is a secondary character featured in the AMC television series The Walking Dead. He was played by actor Michael Rooker and introduced in the second episode of season one, "Guts".

Biography
Merle Dixon is a former soldier in the US armed forces and a Southerner from Atlanta, Georgia. When a zombie outbreak overwhelmed the city, Merle was separated from his brother Darryl and took refuge on the roof of a department store. He encountered several other survivors including a black man named T-Dog. A violent racist, Merle had an altercation with T-Dog and beat him to a bloody pulp. The others managed to pry the two off of one another and former Sheriff's deputy Rick Grimes hand-cuffed Merle to a pipe running across the roof of the building.