Comment on Judge allows phone findings in murder-for-hire trial

LUBBOCK — Cellphone records show Dr. Thomas Dixon and Neal David Shepard were in contact the day Shepard killed Dr. Joseph Sonnier, a detective testified Friday in Dixon’s capital murder trial. The fifth day of the trial began with Judge Jim Bob Darnell ruling he would allow into evidence information pulled from Dixon’s and Shepard’s phones, including a transcript of text messages. Dixon’s defense attorneys argued the information from the phones would mislead jurors because it was not compared against a phone bill and could not show possibly deleted messages. read more