Chapter 1: What led to the murder of Dr. Joseph Sonnier?
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When somebody you love is murdered, it is the very, very worst thing. And the only thing worse than that is when the person who did it gets away with it. This is a huge whodunit. Who came into Dr. Joseph Sonnier's house, shot him, and knifed him? How would you describe your relationship with Dr. Sonnier? He's the love of my life. We were dealing with something that was a hit.
We started racking our brains. Well, it's got to be some type of girlfriend situation.
A stalker.
This big, creepy-looking guy sitting there, and he was staring at the door like he was looking for someone or watching someone.
A confession, a payoff, and a courthouse twist that nobody saw coming. Everybody is stunned. Stunned. It was devastating. I mean, I had a moment of just... Silence. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think. You can't make this stuff up. And that's one of the fascinating things about this.
This whole thing is nothing but darkness and evil.
This is the oldest story in the book.
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Chapter 2: Who were the key players in the love triangle?
This is vengeance. This is pride. This is revenge.
Today in Lubbock, cooler temps that will dip into the upper 70s and lower 80s.
A beautiful summer day in Lubbock, Texas.
911, what's the emergency?
The landscapers start their usual routine at a doctor's house, but they're starting to think something's off. Somebody has broken a window in the back, and the doctor did not show up for work today. Oh, no. Oh, God. Ma'am? Ma'am, what's going on? Dr. Joseph Sanye's body is in the garage. His murder is truly brutal. Shot and stabbed 11 times. There was a bullet that was laying on the ground.
I need somebody to hurry. Yes, ma'am. This neighborhood had to be freaked out by this killing. They were. They were very scared because this doesn't happen, especially to somebody that's so esteemed. Detective Zach Johnson's first thought in a wealthy neighborhood is naturally it's a robbery gone bad. But... There was artwork in the home. There were very expensive pieces of furniture.
There was iPads, all kinds of things just kind of laying around, you know. Nothing was taken. It was an in-and-out job. Pretty clearly, it happened in the dining room, the window, the bullet casings. And that crime scene was very succinct. It wasn't spread out. You had the overturned chair, you had the glass on the floor, and you had the casings. So you knew that he was shot right here.
And something else, a Gatorade bottle near the expended shell casings. It's an amateur silencer, so this is not a robbery at all. We were dealing with something that was a hit of sorts, that somebody had come to this house and to kill this person specifically. To me, it was just mind-boggling. Why is this man dead? He's a well-respected citizen in this community. Why is he dead?
Dr. Sanye, a wealthy pathologist with grown sons. And of course, they're absolutely devastated. And it's even worse because two years before, their mother had been murdered and now their dad is killed. I knew how to plan a funeral. I knew how to scrub blood off the floor. I knew everything we had to do because I'd already done it once before.
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Chapter 3: What were the circumstances surrounding Dr. Sonnier's murder?
They meet at one of those ballroom dance classes. Dallas and his brothers don't live in Lubbock anymore, but every fall they come back for a family tradition. One of those giant tailgate feasts at a Texas Tech football game. And one year, the doctor brings a date. She's blonde. She's tall. She's gorgeous.
It's the first date, and he's bringing you around his family, which is, that's nerve-wracking for some people.
I mean, it was the first date. It really wasn't a big deal to me. I certainly wasn't nervous about it.
She knew how to handle herself in a social situation around his sons. We're tough critics, you know, and we gave her a thumbs up. Rochelle and Dr. Saunier traveled to California to visit Dr. Saunier's grandchildren, and that seemed to make her very happy.
Where's your head?
I had a great time. She came over to the house and played with my kids. It couldn't have gone better. It seemed like a good match. They got along really well. He seemed to be having fun. Dr. Saunier, he may have been a little cautious about, you know, jumping to marriage right away. His family thinks Rochelle wants a proposal.
I'm not saying that it would have been out of the question at all. I adored him. I loved him.
So just so I have this clearly, you never asked Joseph. You never pressured Joseph to marry you.
No. Not one time did we have a discussion about marriage.
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Chapter 4: How did the police initially investigate the murder?
That's the bridge famous for love locks.
We bought a lock, and Joseph wrote his name on it, and I wrote my name on it, and you throw the key into the Seine River, and that locks in the moment forever.
For Rochelle and Joseph, forever is only a matter of weeks. She gets a call that the man she says is the love of her life is dead in his garage.
There are police cars everywhere. There's crime scene tape all around Joseph's house, emergency vehicles there, reporters there. It was just absolute chaos.
Of course, when there's a murder, especially when there's no robbery, the first people police check out are lovers, family, friends. So Detective Zach Johnson is going to bring in Rochelle. Meeting with Rochelle that very first time, I don't know a lot about her. Did you ever have a time where you suspected that Rochelle could in some way have been involved in Dr. Sonia's death?
90% of the time, it's going to be the people that are closest to our victims that commit the crime against them. This is Rochelle. The police are looking for a motive. Maybe Rochelle is angry that Sonia hadn't proposed. They ask where she was at the time of the crime, if she can imagine anyone who might have meant the doctor harm.
There's just, you know, some girls that he dated, and Joseph would get these horrible text messages, you know, calling him a . You know, you're such a and whatever.
Then she mentions a name, someone who seems pretty unlikely as a murder suspect. Another doctor, but one that lives in another town, who never even met Sonia, one of Rochelle's ex-boyfriends. And she thinks she has a stalker. Thanks to HomeServe for sponsoring this episode. Owning a home is amazing until it's not.
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Chapter 5: What motives were explored in the investigation?
It was, you know, if it can be enjoyable to have somebody put needles in your face, you know, I guess that's about as enjoyable as it could be.
Rochelle and Dr. Dixon are together for about a year and a half. Dixon's wife ends up divorcing him because of it. Then Rochelle starts seeing Joseph Sonnier.
Did he know about your current relationship? He knew that I was dating Joseph.
He called him by name in a series of text messages, trying to get me to go out with him and to meet him for coffee.
So he wanted you to see him on the side, basically. He wanted me to come back to him. I told him no. I'm still trying to figure out what's going on. And I knew, well, we're going to get a little bit more insight into this thing. We talked to Dr. Dixon. It's a two-hour drive to Amarillo, and he just goes straight over to Dixon's house.
A straightforward face-to-face conversation, which Johnson records.
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 told him it was Rochelle's boyfriend, and his first thing was, oh, I don't know anything about him. I don't know anything about him. I haven't talked to her in months and months. And I was like, okay, well, that's a little odd because in our interview with Rochelle, she told us that he knew about the relationship.
You know, I'll be honest with you, I love, love, love that woman.
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Chapter 6: What role did David Shepard play in the murder?
Shepard runs after him. They're in the garage, and that's when he stabs him 11 times. He's laying on the floor, not moving, not breathing, nothing. I check his pulse in his neck. He's dead. There's so much blood, it seeps under the garage door to the outside. So, done deal. Detectives have their man. He's a murderer. He's a liar. He's a thief. He's an embezzler. He's lots of things.
As far as his role in this, I think he was a pawn for Mike Dixon. They even have his DNA on the Gatorade bottle, which means he actually drank the Gatorade before he used the bottle as a silencer. He's confessed. He's going down. District Attorney Matt Powell offers Shepard a deal. If he'll rat out his good friend Dixon, then he'll only get a life sentence instead of a death sentence.
And he's got to know. Texas carries out those death sentences. But here's the problem. A confession is great, but what other actual proof, what actual evidence do they have? Because every prosecutor knows when you are in a courtroom, anything can happen. In downtown Lubbock, Texas, one of the biggest murder trials this town has ever seen kicks off.
Nobody knows they're about to start a legal saga that will last almost a decade.
One doctor is dead and two people are under arrest. Dr. Sonye was found shot and stabbed to death in his living room.
This prominent plastic surgeon. Dr. Michael Dixon. Accused of hiring a hitman. Friend and business partner David Shepard.
Dave Shepard is pled guilty to murder. Is there anything to say, Dr. Dixon? And says Mike Dixon hired him to kill Dr. Joseph Sanye. Dallas Sanye is hell-bent on bringing his father's killers to justice. It makes me so angry. A low-life scum and a piece of s*** doctor. Let's go f***ing get these guys. There's another son in the courtroom, the son of an accused murderer.
And he says, my dad hired a murderer? No way. He did dad things, you know, kind of American dream kind of stuff. Go camp and hike and play baseball and football and all those things. Golf, he loved golf. He was a good dad. He still is a good dad. They're trying to prove him guilty, and he's fighting for his life. I mean, it's just terrifying and so sickening. The gallery was packed.
Everybody was there to see how this trial was going to go. And there to put Andrew Dixon's father away is Texas District Attorney Matt Powell. I think Mike Dixon had an obsession with Rochelle Shatina. I don't think there's any doubt about that based on the evidence. Ultimately, that cost Dr. Saunier his life. I think David Shepard was the perfect patsy for this situation.
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Chapter 7: How did the trial unfold for Dr. Michael Dixon?
Don't ask what I did for him. And you think that was a prepayment for killing Dr. Sonja? In retrospect, absolutely. Game over. In this trial, Dr. Mike Dixon wants to take the stand in his own defense, and that is always a risky move. It's not just what a criminal defendant says, but how he says it and whether or not the jurors connect with him. The jurors later say that Dixon sealed his own fate.
I thought he was his worst witness. I would admit the longer he was on the stand, the harder he was to believe. He had an ego that was larger than life, and anytime he starts talking about whether something is morally right or wrong, I knew at that point I could not believe what he was testifying to. It takes that second jury only three hours.
And my hand was shaking like this because I knew we got a guilty verdict. I knew it, I knew it, I knew it.
The verdict is in. Unanimous verdict.
Found guilty on two charges of capital murder. What was your first reaction? I had to turn to my wife and I had to say, he said guilty, right? He said guilty. We've been waiting for that moment for over three years.
I cried. I cried. I burst into tears. I was so relieved.
Two counts of capital murder. Dr. Mike Dixon goes to prison. Life without parole. When you look at the photos of him, smug smile. When you look at his mugshot from his arrest, smug smile. And he has had that smile for both trials, and it was so great to be able to know that we finally wiped that smile off his face. But case closed? Not even close.
You know how when there's a guilty verdict, the defendant's lawyer always comes out to the cameras and says that they're going to appeal? Sometimes that appeal actually works.
The Circuit Court of Appeals in Amarillo reversed Dixon's conviction. He's now out of prison, living in the Amarillo area.
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