Doctor shot and stabbed with screwdriver in murder-for-hire plot orchestrated by girlfriend's ex

In this episode of Crime Watch Daily Updates: A love triangle involving a jealous ex and a hitman who accidentally snapped a photo of himself lying in wait to kill the successful Dr. Joseph Sonnier.

On July 11, 2012, Dr. Sonnier’s gardeners found him dead in the garage of his sprawling Lubbock, Texas home with a Gatorade bottle used as a silencer next to his body. The beloved pathologist had been stabbed and shot several times.

At the time, Dr. Sonnier had been dating a woman named Richelle, but he had supposedly also been dating other women on the side.

Richelle told investigators her ex-boyfriend, Dr. Thomas Michael Dixon, was unhappy that she broke up with him and wanted to win her back. Then, police caught a huge break when a man called and reported that his friend, David Shepard, admitted to killing Dr. Sonnier. The friend said that Dr. Dixon had paid Shepard in silver bars to carry out the hit.

Shepard pleaded guilty to capital murder and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

In 2015, Dr. Dixon went to trial, but the jury could not reach a verdict, so the judge declared it a mistrial. Prosecutors took him back to court, and he was convicted of two counts of capital murder and sentenced to life without parole. One count of murder related to the murder-for-hire plot, while the other related to murder during burglary.

He appealed, and the appellate court overturned the murder-for-hire decision. He will continue to serve life in prison because of the other capital murder conviction.

Let’s look back at the case of a doctor’s murder whose life ended because of one man’s bitterness over his ex.