Doctor Who Hired a Hit Man to Kill Another Doctor Will Get a New Trial
Doctor Thomas Dixon
It was five years ago - in 2013 in Amarillo Texas - that Doctor Thomas Dixon, was arrested, found guilty and eventually sent off to state prison, after the prosecution was able to convince a jury that Dixon had paid a man to kill his counterpart in a romantic triangle.
Well, it now appears that Daffy Duck Dixon has won the questionable advantage of going back for a new murder trial.
In the summer of 2012 in the city of Lubbock, the body of Doctor Joseph Sonnier was found in his home. He had been both stabbed and shot to death. A man named David Shepard later confessed to police that he had been paid by Doctor Thomas Dixon to kill Doctor Joseph Sonnier.
Doctor Joseph Sonnier
The doctor has been serving the first few years of his double-life sentences, for his role in the murder. But now an Amarillo Seventh Court of Appeals judge has ordered a new trial for the imprisoned physician, saying that Dixon’s appeal of his murder conviction in the death of Doctor Joseph Sonnier, has at least two matters that merit reexamination.
As written in the appeal, law enforcement "illegally used Doctor Dixon's cell phone location information" with no required warrant for the information. The cell phone tower location seriously damaged Dixon’s credibility at trial, after he testified he was nowhere near the scene.
A second issue involved the judge, who apparently disallowed some members of the public from watching the trial, several different times for various reasons. The defense attorneys are arguing that federal law guarantees public trials.
Investigators learned that the two doctors knew each other through Dixon’s former girlfriend, a woman named Richelle Shetina. Not long after Shetina broke up with the one doctor, the new doctor boyfriend ended up dead.
Richelle Shetina
After the trial, the jury was convinced that law enforcement had made their case: that Dixon had indeed paid Shepard to kill Sonnier. Detectives revealed Dixon paid the actual killer with three large ingots of pure silver bullion.
Here's another view of this particular "Doctor Kills Another Doctor" case: