The suspected triggerman in the slaying of a Lubbock pathologist last year pleaded guilty to capital murder Thursday morning, Aug. 29.
Amarillo businessman David Neal Shepard, who was paid in silver bars to kill Joseph Sonnier III 13 months ago, entered the plea before District Judge Jim Bob Darnell.
Investigators believe an Amarillo physician, Thomas Michael Dixon, hired Shepard to kill Sonnier because the Lubbock pathologist was dating Dixon’s former girlfriend.
Sonnier was found both shot and stabbed in his Lubbock residence on July 11, 2012.
