The Strange Case of Dr. Joseph Sonnier

[Music] hey you and welcome my name is mike and in this whole video looks like texas is back on the menu boys couldn't stay away yeehaw oil and other texas things let's take a trip to lubbock in this one and learn all about dr joseph sonier dr thomas michael dixon david shepard and rochelle shettina buckaroos buckle up you know of course covered quite a lot of cases said and said in texas and then this one and just how bananas it gets uh it fits right in so let's begin all right so uh dr joseph sonjay he was a very wealthy pathologist a catch for the ladies living in lubbock texas a town of about a quarter of a million people so not really a town you got your texas tech you got your buddy holly you got your cotton fields and this was sonia's playground after all dr joe he was a single man man about town you know doing pretty well on the old bank account so he was getting up to all sorts of good as you can imagine he was free as a bird and enjoying it after all why not joseph had been married before he'd gotten married at the age of 19 to the high school sweetheart becky quite a picture and he had two sons one of which by the way would go on to work on the movie bone tomahawk good movie would recommend after 27 years of marriage joseph's wife became his ex-wife after she left him for someone else [Music] now this would end in tragedy becky remarried and was then killed by her new husband who also shot the dog and then himself and so i think a lot of people in dr joseph's situation would be doing the exact same thing having a lot of much-needed fun though this too would end in tragedy [Music] so years would pass joseph sonya was by all accounts a great dad he pushed his kids hard but they were the better for it and now he was getting on in years he moved from dallas to lubbock in 2007 was well respected and a frequent site at the places to be seen in lubbock perfect time to try something new how about a dance class these never end well for some reason but joseph you know at the time loved it you know meeting new women hey back of the net and it was in july 2011 that joseph sonja would meet the beautiful rochelle shettina she was a couple of years older than joseph a former nfl cheerleader for the chiefs she had four kids of her own and herself and joseph hit it off quick enough falling head over heels for each other they would travel to paris together for rochelle's 50th to la to meet the family to wherever and although joseph may not have been you know too keen on getting remarried they were very tight together it turned out though that uh well joseph's relationship with rochelle came with some baggage baggage that was a ticking time bomb that would go off in july 2012. i need somebody at 4603 21st somebody who there's a bullet the door has been broken into it's a house that i work at i do landscaping here and we just walked in the back to see if we could find the doctor and and saw that somebody had broken in in the back they've broken the whole window out yeah i need somebody to hurry one of his coworkers went in the hell can he get it's not good [Music] on the 11th of july 2012 dr joseph sonya was found at his home in lubbock he was found by landscapers that had arrived to do some work at the home he had been shot and stabbed multiple times [Music] at 1 48 this afternoon the 11th police department received a call to 4603 21st reference on a check subject upon arrival officers did locate a deceased person at the residence that person's been identified as joseph sonier a 52 year old male the death is considered suspicious at this time and homicide and the investigation is ongoing now joseph lived in quite a nice neighborhood no violent crime at all to speak of and he was a very you know prominent guy in the community you know a guy you'd want to be seen with nothing was taken from the home nothing stolen other than joseph's life it looked like forced entry a window had been pushed in a chair overturned and also at the scene was an empty gatorade bottle with a hole in the bottom and they found a shell casing so a homemade silencer that probably wouldn't work you know outside of a movie and the investigation began rochelle being the closest loved one was interviewed how would you describe your relationship with dr sonyang yes he's the love of my life i can't imagine who would want to do this to him he is the kindest man now what happened to joseph it seemed like there had been there was you know had been some foreshadowing rochelle would say that she felt like she she was being stalked being watched being followed in the months leading up to what happened big creepy looking guy sitting there and he was staring at the door like he was looking for someone or watching it's dark outside and just and i both saw flash from the outside we laughed and kind of joked about you know maybe somebody was following see you laugh then but then this happens so obviously the police jump on that who could it be well rochelle she had some ideas and they had an on-again off-again relationship for about seven years she wasn't happy she has called and called and called the point where he's had to hang it up or have to turn off the ring then joseph would get this these horrible text messages next day it was like hi do you miss me the detectives had a few orders instead of maybe looking into joseph's life what about rochelle's there could be somebody that you think we need to look at a couple of people okay tell me about one of them dr mike dixon is a plastic surgeon in front hi i'm stephanie and i compete in mpc bikini and figure competitions in fact i recently qualified for nationals in bikini and will be competing in the usa championships in july when it comes to selecting a plastic surgeon i wanted it done right the first time after doing my research i chose dr dixon hello i'm dr mike dixon and i'm certified by the american board of plastic surgery and a fellow of the american college of surgeons if you're considering plastic surgery make sure your surgeon is certified by the american board of plastic surgeons call my office for a consultation today this guy really really dr dixon well he was an ex-boyfriend of rochelle's they had met when he was giving her botox injections in 2008. they became friendly and well one thing led to another and dr dixon started cheating on his wife with rochelle his wife found out divorced him and after a few months and after shell thought he might propose but instead he bought her a tea of the month club subscription what every girl wants well rochelle broke up with him too that was in 2010 it seems like the guy who struts like he walked onto the set of armageddon talk about the wrong stuff well he wanted rochelle back for good so dr dixon well the detectives traveled two hours from lubbock to amarillo to go and go and have a word of them you know see what he knows about the case not a lot he immediately volunteers hi i hate to come bugging you at your house in all hours of the night what's going on well we've had a homicide in lubbock texas today i don't know anything about him i haven't talked to her in months and months sort of shocked that i'm brought up believe me you're on the list of like eight million people this is a huge a huge who've done it for sure well i didn't i'll be honest with you i love love love that woman i really did and i really had fallen head over heels in fact um made a lot of life changes for her okay but just with time it just went sorry you know you guys traveled two hours every way to be here for no reason okay bye now safe home god bless see after dr thomas michael dixon and rochelle broke up he started dating a medical student who was a good bit younger than him she was his alibi as they were having sushi so at this stage the police reached a dead end everyone had an alibi including even ex ex-girlfriends of joseph sonjay's who you know may have had a grudge may have been a little bit jealous everyone was cleared from a homicide that had very clear [Music] intentions a few days later the police got a call from an aspiring nurse named paul reynolds he had some information about the case see he was staying with a guy in amarillo who told paul he had killed somebody in lubbock and then this guy tried to end his own life after doing some research the details this guy told paul matched with the sonya case and so he informed the cops about what he knew my name was paul think we got a crime that happened down here and with this friend of mine he said he went down there that he shot him dave shepard was a big guy a divorced father of tree he was unemployed at the time and had a record for stealing at one point stealing 30 grand from a business he was also best friends with a certain doctor mike dixon he wanted to be my dicks and wanted to be a successful guy but instead was just down and out and from speaking with paul reynolds they learned all about mr dave shepard bombastic outgoing pompous arrogant obnoxious kind of and he shot the guy and then he said something about pushing in a window something happened between these two that made dave think that he needed to avenge mike and apparently dixon was not only going along with it but he was gonna pay him to do it they also learned that dave had just come into quite a bit of cash get lucky in the horses don't think so dave shepard and mike dixon were then both arrested they both refused to talk they were held on 10 million dollars bond i have no idea what's going on here lpd's crime line received a tip identifying key details of the crime scene and naming the persons involved in this homicide they were named as dr thomas michael dixon is a white male with a date of birth of 325 of 64. and mr david neal shepherd is a white male date of birth 215 of 61. an initial investigation as detailed in the now released arrest warrant reveals that we believe the following we believe dr dickson hired mr shepherd to murder dr sonier we believe the origin of the dispute between the two doctors appear to be dr sonia's current girlfriend who is dr dixon's previous girlfriend and after three months a deal with dave was offered they'd take away the death penalty if he spoke he told them the entire story about how himself and dr dixon were going to break up dr sonier and rochelle their plans gradually escalating over time one idea was this i gave you one suggestion to go to an adult bookstore and buy the most obscene nastiest man boy love association book you could and buying a subscription and send it to his office because i said that's a gift that'll keep giving i just love how he thought that was like some kind of foolproof master plan that would ruin his reputation it's like probably just like something a teenager would come up with and that's when the stalking began eventually they had a conversation and the ultimate way to split up sonja and rachelle was well brought up i'd like to say debated but from the way dave tells the story is more like yeah gopher this led to the 10th of july 2012 dave shepard hid in sonja's garden waiting for him to return home from work when he fell asleep yeah he woke up to knocking on the window from the inside sonia was waving at him i wave a doctor and get up and i walked to the window and he's lowered the window about this far from the top down what happens when you walk up to the window i pull the gun out of the back i point the weapon discharge several times after three or four discharges he's backing away he trips on his feet and falls to the ground got discharges a couple more times he's running across to the i believe the garage so he runs down that hallway is he out of sight for me yes sir okay what do you do next i push the window in i don't know if he's going for a gun i don't know if i've ever hit him i i don't know what's happening so i push in the window and crawl in so so you're in and you have an empty gun yes sir when you go in there what happens pretty much run around the corner as much as i can so i can intercept him if he has a weapon and he's going to come after me as i turn around down the hallway right into the garage he's laying on the floor not moving not breathing nothing i check his pulse in his neck he's dead i pulled the knife out of my bag and i stuck him in battle organs two or three four times by the way he actually had learned he was studying uh the bottle over the muzzle trick he learned it from a movie he got it from a steven seagal movie no less sure i'm not surprised he thought it would work why wouldn't it you haven't got the [ __ ] guts i wouldn't dirty my bullets that's a remarkably high score for a steven segal movie he then left and drove back to amarillo he was caught not long after showing down with mike dixon however when the detectives originally showed up at dr dixon's that scared the bejesus out of him and he told dave to get out of dodge but david feeling feeling well uh he tried to off himself it was mike dixon who actually stitched dave up after dave shepard was allegedly paid for doing what he did three bars of silver and a box of expensive cuban cigars by mike dixon because i guess we apparently live in the year 1855 so what happened next the dixon murder trial today wrapped up week two yes of the murder for hire i can't count centered around amarillo plastic surgeon michael dixon yeah david shepard who is currently serving life without parole for the murder of dr joseph sonja was back on the stand today for cross-examination in 2014 the trial began the prosecution's star witness was dave shepard the hitman with mike dixon being the mastermind responsible they had the entire confession on tape dave had gotten a deal was serving a life sentence and they had text messages from dr dixon spurring him on to do the job they had the gun used which dave said was given to him by dixon seemed like a s slam dunk straight forward not a butter yeah you think that but you'd be wrong when dave shepard decided to change his story and say he had acted completely alone in this entire plot and that mike dixon was innocent had nothing to do with it he acted of his own accord mike dixon's defense said that he never wanted dave to get rid of sonie he just wanted dave to take pictures of joseph sonja when he was out with other women and in turn he was going to show them to rochelle in the hopes of winning her back that's what the messages were about nothing more the message he was saying you know hurry up get her done you know finish the job he was just asking for pictures he was getting frustrated dave you know in his retelling of the story said yeah completely alone he stole the gun he said that mike had given him and those silver bars that was a business venture because all modern business ventures take inspiration from red dead redemption dave would also later say that uh that day when he was at joseph sonja's house he was just watching him following him taking pictures you know and he accidentally fell asleep and then when he woke up to ding ding ding ding ding he got he got a he got a fright and his gun accidentally went off he never meant to to hurt joseph at all and then you know it accidentally went off a couple more times while he followed him into the house and he accidentally took out his knife and did more with that as you do you know what i mean the trial ended with a hung jury and the judge declared a mistrial it would be and was retried one year later a year later and thomas michael dixon is back in the courtroom the former amarillo doctor on trial a second time for hiring hitman david shepard to murder his romantic rival in 2012 lubbock pathologist joseph sonier that first trial ended in a mistrial your honor i am not guilty those are thomas dixon's words reaffirming his innocence to judge jim bob darnell during his capital murder retrial this time dave obviously didn't take the stand as that backfired in the prosecutor's face so this time paul reynolds was put on the stand along with dave shepard's daughter she told the court that she believed her father had lied to protect his friend mike on november 18 2015 dr thomas michael dixon was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison thomas michael dixon was standing right here when he got his verdict of guilty that life sentence in jail with no parole is the exact same sentence david shepard got when he was convicted of murdering joseph sonier now the jury deliberated two hours to get this verdict that's longer than the attorneys spent on their closing statements this morning but we're not done yet because in 2018 the court of appeals reversed his conviction the seventh court of appeals says amarillo dr thomas michael dixon gets a new trial his appeal was successful on the grounds that as cell phone records were were retrieved without a warrant and the judge had closed the the courtroom to the public on a number of occasions so that could have meant trial number that number not cena his bond was reduced from 10 million to 2 million and he was out and about until april of 2020 when his bond was revoked after the texas court of criminal appeals overruled the appeal thomas michael dixon will be returning to police custody after being out on bond for more than a year justices with the seventh court of appeals revoked dixon's two million dollar appeal on friday so yeah uh it seems that the conviction stands the appeal was appealed and his conviction was brought back however now his attorneys are filing another appeal with the us supreme court so now mike dixon is back in jail so let me get this straight right convicted after a second trial then he appealed the appeal was successful his conviction was overturned he was out on bond for over a year and then another court reversed the decision and upheld the conviction what a rollercoaster and from that i guess we'll see did he actually have anything to do with this case was dave shepard's story that he told you know a complete [ __ ] dave shepard still says to this day that mike wasn't involved at all it's being appealed now with the supreme court so will there be a third trial for mike dixon to see if he actually had anything to do with this god only knows but the one thing i think we do know is that the life of dr joseph sonier ended tragically and needlessly and this story like i said at the very beginning every case we look at in texas is just off the wall and it's also so strange because it's another thing that keeps coming up is when you have doctors being like being like anti-doctors you know if only there was a word for it thank you so much for watching i really appreciate it i will see you as always real soon in the next video tuesdays and fridays take care of yourselves you

Channel: That Chapter

Views: 1,562,798

Keywords: that chapter, joseph sonnier, thomas michael dixon, dr joseph sonnier lubbock tx, richelle shetina, david shepard

Id: EQwLPCz-xM0

Length: 22min 42sec (1362 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 06 2020