unfortunately, i'm going to have to toss it back to universal. >> mahalo, michael. looking forward to the next hawaiian vacation. that's going to do it for us. for the latest entertainment headlines anytime, head to extratv.com. >> see you monday. >> aloha. >> the new extra is on trend. >> on point. >> on top. >> entertainment. >> done differently. >> the new ultra connected "extra." the hardest part for me is that he had no idea this was happening to him. he had no idea that he was in any danger. i hate that feeling. i hate knowing that.

>> a golden couple. a stash of silver. a streak of jealousy. >> this is vengeance. this is pride. >> this was murder. >> i got a phone call. they said your father was found killed in his home. >> a wealthy, respected doctor. >> why? why is this man dead? >> these lovers had a stalker. >> he's staring at the door like he was looking for someone or watching someone. >> watching her. >> he creeped me out so i left. >> did one man's obsession lead to another man's death? >> jealousy, rage. that's what we have here. >> someone pulled the trigger. but was someone else pulling the strings? >> i believe they think they're playing a game. >> but this was no game. >> this can't be. we don't live this kind of life. >> i'm lester holt. and this is "dateline."

here's andrea canning. >> reporter: memories of a family man. >> she's a dancing girl. >> reporter: a doctor, a lover, a good man. >> he was the ultimate support system for everybody in his life. >> reporter: finally savoring life's rewards, until he found himself in the crosshairs of someone's obsession. >> there's tons of gossip and innuendo, especially in a small town in texas. >> reporter: it happened in lubbock, a town where texas-sized dreams can come true.

other dangers that strike out of nowhere. on july 11th, 2012, a brutal hot spell had loosened its grip on lubbock, but a warm afternoon sun is still can coulding away. at the spacious home of dr. joe sonnier, becky shurbet and nathan gilmore were just getting to work when someone pulled up at the house. >> there was that girl from dr. sonnier's lab, and she was concerned that dr. sonnier had not shown up. >> reporter: dr. joe sonnier was chief pathologist at covenant hospital. >> we rang the doorbell and couldn't get anyone to answer. i certainly don't know his work schedule, but i know him as a person. he would not be late. >> reporter: a lot of people knew dr. sonnier, liked him, too. his sister missy bartlett grew up admiring her big brother. >> he didn't go halfway with anything. anything that he pursued, he did

it well. >> reporter: philip preswood was a family friend whom joe sonnier treated like a son. >> went through med school, dirt poor, roach-filled apartment, had no money until later in life when he was a successful doctor. he was totally self-made and had that drive. >> reporter: that drive led to a successful career and a marriage that brought him a beautiful family. everything was on track. then in 2001, he suffered a huge setback. his wife left him for another man. his oldest son, dallas. >> so he found himself in his late 40s a single man with his three sons off to college and starting their adult lives. >> reporter: and that's when dad decided to make a change. >> before he had been kind of a button down superconservative doctor that had been married to his high school girlfriend of years and then he's at a phase in his life where he has to basically start over. >> reporter: he dated women who

appreciated him. he bought a house, decorated it the way he liked it. even started dressing more fashionaly. >> he was a handsome man and tall and he looked great in everything. >> reporter: a bachelor in his late 40s who had, you know, let's face it, a decent amount of money. >> reporter: he sounds like a catch. >> right. >> reporter: as he reached his 50s, joe sonnier seemed to be making up for lost time. how did he deal with all the attention he was getting from the ladies? >> he was very humble. >> reporter: and he picked up a hobby that turned into a passion, ballroom dancing. it was social, challenging and he was good at it. his dance card was pretty full. >> yes. >> he remade his image after the divorce. >> he loved to do every style of

dance. >> reporter: debra hollowell owns d'venue dance studio in lubbock. >> he was good enough to where everybody else wanted to dance with him. >> reporter: he became a regular at d'venue. and then one day in 2011, richelle shetina walked in the door. >> she is outgoing, loving, friendly, extremely bubbly. and everybody that i know that came into contact with her really did like her. >> reporter: richelle was 49 years old and a divorced mother of four. they'd only been going out a few months when joe put her to the ultimate test. the "meet my kids" date. how did you first hear about richelle? >> my dad told us that he'd been dating a new woman, and he wanted to bring her over to a barbecue we were at. and that's where we met her, in the backyard of the barbecue. i thought she was sophisticated, i thought she was kind, i thought she was lovely. and our first impression of her was very good. >> reporter: they dated for close to a year.

until that day when he didn't show up for work. the landscapers and dr. sonnier's co-worker gave up knocking on the door and decided to look for the doctor out back. >> and i opened the gate and the one whole section of windows had been just laid over in the house. >> reporter: they peered inside. >> and there was a gatorade bottle, which was kind of a strange thing, and you could tell something terrible had happened. >> so the young lady behind us immediately went in, and i went after her. >> reporter: that's when nathan found a shell casing on the floor and becky called 911. >> 911, what's your emergency? >> somebody has broken a window in the back and the doctor did not show up for work today. there's a bullet that was laying on the ground. >> okay, was it an actual bullet

or had it already been fired? >> i don't know. i didn't pick it up. somebody else went in and walked in. i'm not here, i'm not going in. >> reporter: nathan and the woman from the lab continued searching through the home. >> and she starts looking in the rooms. and it seemed like it took forever to go through that home. >> reporter: they searched further and eventually made their way to the garage. and that's where they found dr. joe sonnier sprawled out. >> and i can remember his face was laying. and she automatically started crying and she said his name, dr. sonnier. >> reporter: nathan returned to his co-worker, becky, and his face told her everything. she was still on the phone with 911. >> is he here? you can tell there's something. it's not good. oh, no, oh, my god. >> ma'am? ma'am, what's going on? >> i don't know. >> reporter: but this much was

clear, a man they admired, a doctor, that good man, was lying dead in a pool of blood. coming up -- what had happened to the doctor? richelle, the doctor's girlfriend, thinks she may know. >> she said, i hope this hurts him as much as he has hurt us. one laugh, and hello sensitive bladder. ring a bell? then you have to try always discreet. i didn't think protection this thin could work. but the super absorbent core turns liquid to gel. for incredible protection... snap! so it's out of sight... ...and out of mind. always discreet. for bladder leaks. i've discovered incredible bladder leak underwear that hugs every curve. can't tell i'm wearing it, can you? always discreet underwear. for bladder leaks. and life's beautiful moments.ns get between you switch to flonase allergy relief.

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was handsome, well-liked and successful. but his showcase home in lubbock, texas, was now a crime scene. his body, riddled with bullets and stab wounds, found on his pristine garage floor. detective zach johnson. what do you think when you find out we've got the chief pathologist murdered in his own home? >> why? that's my first question. why is this man dead? >> reporter: how did you all get the terrible news of what had happened? >> they said, your father was found killed in his home. can you please let your family know? and would you please come to lubbock. we need to sit down with you and the family members and talk. >> reporter: the news was devastating enough, but even more tragic, it was the second murder in this family. >> the worst part was my mother was killed two years almost to the day before my dad was murdered. >> reporter: their mother had been killed by her second husband.

>> looking back on it, the phone calls from the two police departments for each of their deaths was so similar that i felt like it could have been the same phone call repeated twice. >> reporter: when detective johnson showed up, the garage door was closed, but graphic evidence of joe sonnier's killing was apparent to anyone who got close enough. >> the blood had actually traveled from underneath this body all the way underneath the garage door. >> reporter: what happened? the first guess was an easy one. it could have been a botched burglary. >> you know, your first instinct is, man, somebody broke into this house in this affluent neighborhood probably to take some things of great value and they were surprised by the homeowner. >> reporter: but nothing was missing. the crime seemed to center on joe sonnier. how many times had dr. sonnier been shot? >> he had been shot five times. >> reporter: and how many times had he been stabbed? >> 11. >> reporter: the detective moved

through the house, trying to imagine what happened. >> i just walked up and visualized the point of entry. and from where i was at, i could see that the window was pushed in. there was no broken glass, which is very curious to me. >> reporter: investigators also noticed something about that gatorade bottle found on the floor. >> a projectile had traveled through that gatorade bottle. i just made the determination that it was possibly a silencer because we did have bullet casings in that immediate area. >> reporter: given the nature of the crime, the people close to joe were in for some scrutiny, including his girlfriend, richelle shetina, who rushed to the house when she heard the news. what's her demeanor? how's she acting? >> she is distraught. no makeup. you know, clothed like she had been doing housework, like she had just got in her car and flew out to where we were. >> reporter: detective johnson asked richelle to come to the police station. >> how would you describe your

relationship with dr. sonnier? >> he's the love of my life. i can't imagine who would want to do this to him. he's the kindest man. >> reporter: richelle wasn't the only person who evidently thought dr. sonnier was a keeper. she told police the doctor left a number of broken hearts in his past, including a relationship he ended just before he met richelle. >> and they had an on again, off again relationship for about seven years. she wasn't happy about it. >> reporter: so this woman, in richelle's eyes, was maybe looking for revenge? >> sure. yeah, revenge. maybe she felt she had been shorted out by

dr. sonnier. >> reporter: and richelle said there was another woman who couldn't get over her break up with the doctor. so upset she continually left messages, sometimes full of vulgarities, on joe's phone. >> she has called and called and called, to the point where he's had to hang it up or turn off the ringer. and then joseph would get these horrible text messages, you know, calling him a [ bleep ]. and you know, you're such a [ bleep ] and whatever. and the next day it was like, hi, do you miss me? >> do you know when the last time he received any communication from her? >> it wasn't that long ago. >> reporter: so another if i can't have him, no one can type of motive? >> correct. >> reporter: richelle also told police about a strange letter she received in the mail. in it a woman named tina claimed she had a sexual relationship with the doctor, and he had broken his promises to her. richelle decribed the letter. >> she met joseph on the internet. and that they had sex for money

basically. and she and her daughter lived in this place and joseph hasn't been paying. and she's going to lose her place. she said, i hope this hurts him as much as he has hurt us. >> reporter: richelle said that she and joe thought the letter was a prank. still, it was another possible lead for police. >> you've got all these lights going off in your head. and so you're just trying to balance out how these people are involved. >> reporter: richelle was also concerned about a strange incident a few months before the doctor's murder. she thought a burly stranger was watching her from her gym parking lot. >> there was this big, creepy looking guy sitting there, and he was staring at the door like he was looking for someone, or watching someone. >> reporter: not long after that, something else happened one night at joe's house. >> and so while they're standing in the kitchen talking, they see a flash, which they believe to be a flash on a camera. >> reporter: investigators checked out those weird

incidents and the ex-girlfriends. but they also had to look at richelle herself. >> at this point richelle is not a suspect. she's more of an involved person. however, i don't have that luxury of not looking at her as a possible suspect. >> reporter: detective johnson learned the family felt that richelle was pushing joe sonnier hard for a marriage proposal. >> i just don't believe that she let her foot off the throttle very often. >> she was putting the clamps on him to get married. >> reporter: so he wasn't digging that? >> well, no. it was stressing him out. >> reporter: richelle says she and joe talked about having a long-term committed relationship but never discussed marriage. still, it raised a red flag for police. until they got a tip that the killer might be someone the doctor had never even met. coming up -- a growing list of

suspects. is one linked to rishl. >> i'll be honest with you. i loved, loved, loved that woman.

richelle shetina seemed lost, exhausted, as she talked to police about the man she loved and about who might have killed him. she told them about women in joe's past. she said some of them were angry. but joe wasn't the only one with past relationships. richelle had a few too. and one in particular came to mind. >> dr. mike dixon. his name is dr. thomas michael dixon. he's a plastic surgeon in amarillo. >> reporter: he was richelle's old boyfriend. a well-to-do and well-known plastic surgeon with a beautfiul home, a thriving practice and at one time his own local talk show. >> i get the patients that come in and say, i want to look like j. lo or beyonce. >> reporter: mike was married with three kids when he first met richelle at a spa he owned.

he started seeing her on the side, and when his wife found out, she divorced him. mike and richelle dated for about a year and a half. but she says it wasn't always easy. >> it was volatile. it was up and down. and he would -- i believe that he was seeing other women. and he denied it. >> reporter: but the final straw was a birthday gift that fell flat. >> he had signed me up for tea of the month and he had it mailed to me. and i was just like, really? you know. you couldn't even hand me something? you had to mail it to me? >> reporter: by all accounts, she broke dr. dixon's heart when she dumped him. and she says that he begged her to come back even after she started dating dr. sonnier. with this in mind, police went to dr. dixon's home in amarillo, two hours from lubbock, the night after the murder. what was his face like when he opened the door?

>> he was a little surprised to see us. >> reporter: he invited them in. they recorded the meeting. >> sort of shocked that i am brought up in this. >> believe me, you're on a list of like 8 million people. this is a huge whodunit for sure. >> well, i didn't. >> reporter: he was calm. even chatty. he had never met sonnier. their only connection was richelle. and if he carried a torch for her, he admitted it was over. >> i'll be honest with you, i loved, loved, loved that woman. i really did. i really had fallen head over heels and back. in fact, made a lot of life changes for her. but it just wouldn't happen. it just wasn't something that worked. >> reporter: in fact, he had already moved on to a younger girlfriend, who was with him the night he was questioned. most of all, he had a solid alibi. >> yeah, we didn't think he was involved. we had checked him out as far as the information that we had solid. surgeries. this is where i was. so on and so forth. >> reporter: they put the information about dr. dixon in

their back pocket and continued their search for the killer. it was just a few days later that police got the break they needed. they got a call from a man with a crazy story, that would launch a murder mystery into the headlines. >> he's been relating these stories to me about this thing that he did. >> reporter: the caller's name was paul reynolds. he was veteran studying to be a nurse and still in his scrubs when he talked to police. reynolds lived in amarillo, about two hours away, with an old friend from high school, a guy with problems. >> he can be very bombastic, outgoing, pompous, arrogant, obnoxious kind of thing. >> reporter: according to reynolds, this guy was blowhard who hung out in amarillo bars, could barely hold a job and talked a big game. but reynolds was concerned that his friend's latest story might be more than just talk. his friend was telling him that he killed a doctor in lubbock. >> he just got up, he had this

gun and he shot the guy. then he said something about pushing in a window. >> did he say that the window broke, did it shatter? he was worried? >> he said it didn't break. >> reporter: that got detective johnson's attention. this detail matched what happened at joe sonnier's. >> nobody knew that. we hadn't released that information. >> reporter: this is huge. >> that's huge. that's huge. he'd also used a gatorade bottle as a silencing device on the gun. well, once again, we hadn't released that information either. >> reporter: the guy's name was dave shepard. and that rang a bell. police remembered that when they interviewed dr. mike dixon, he said he knew a guy named dave shepard. in fact, dave had come by dixon's house the night of the murder. detectives learned the two were best buddies and business partners. >> i don't know why they're friends. i don't know how they met, but they are just good friends. >> did he go into any other details about his contact with mike?

why did he do this? >> right, right, right. >> reporter: paul reynolds said dave might have said something about a triangle, possibly a love triangle. >> but 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 going to pay him to do it. >> okay. >> yeah. >> reporter: police now put aside any suspicions about richelle or joe sonnier's ex-girlfriends and focused on this unlikely pair. the doctor and his supersized wingman, big dave shepard. coming up -- a doctor in denial. >> i have no idea what the hell is going on here. >> but thanks to dave, police do. >> in the bag is a gun, a knife and a belt. to keep hair strong against hot styling tools,

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after dr. joe sonnier's brutal murder, his family was inundated with sympathy from people all over lubbock. >> waiters at restaurants were coming up to us knowing who we were and expressing their deep condolences and then telling us a story about when my dad used to eat there and how nice he was to them and they remembered that. >> reporter: by now police had their big break. a tipster told them a man named dave shepard had admitted to the killing and implicated his friend, dr. mike dixon, richelle's ex. it was enough to arrest both men and charge them with murder. mike dixon seemed surprised. >> i have no idea what the hell is going on here. >> reporter: but andrew dixon, mike's son, was dumbfounded. >> my dad? no way.

absolutely not. you know? he was somebody that valued the human life. >> reporter: but neither mike nor dave was talking. that changed three months later. dave cut a deal with the d.a. the death penalty was off the table if he told his story in full and if the d.a. believed him. >> i'd like for you to tell me how it is that you ended up meeting up with dr. dixon, michael dixon. >> we were at a smoke shop maybe four years ago, and we just connected and hooked up. >> reporter: it was an unlikely friendship. dave shepard, the likable loser, always chasing the next big thing. and dr. mike dixon, prominent plastic surgeon. hard working, wealthy. they were the odd couple. >> he's quick-witted. i'm kind of a sassy smart ass. and we just kind of hit it off. >> reporter: in 2010, both men were getting divorced. and mike was involved with richelle shetina. >> she is around 49, 50 years

old, smoking hot. i thought she was just lovely. i thought she was just a sweetheart. >> reporter: mike was crazy about her, according to dave, but it didn't last. and dave told detectives when richelle took up with another man, another doctor named joe sonnier, mike didn't like it one bit. the two buddies tossed around some bizarre schemes to try to break up richelle and joe. >> david tells dr. dixon, if you really want to get to sonnier, you know what you need to do? you need to order him some gay porn magazine and you got to send it to his office. >> reporter: that's -- >> that would destroy him. >> reporter: that's immature. >> it's immature. >> no, they don't do that. >> reporter: another scheme dave concocted to embarrass dr. sonnier involved hiring a woman he knew from a gentleman's

club named sheena teague. >> he said that his friend, dr. dixon, had been dating a woman, and that she was now dating a doctor in lubbock, and he wanted me to call the ex-girlfriend and lie to her and say that i was having sex with her boyfriend as well for money. >> reporter: sheena said no. but according to dave, mike wasn't giving up. he sent dave to lubbock repeatedly to spy on richelle and joe. so they're in full-on stalking? >> yes. stalking. committed. we're going to do this. and so david pretty much commits that, i'm going to go ahead and do this for you. >> reporter: but then, dave said, mike's evil intentions towards joe sonnier escalated all the way to murder. >> tell me how he told you or how you all discussed killing dr. sonnier. >> initially, he wanted somebody to break in his house to make it

look like, you know, just a home invasion or robbery. there had been some in lubbock. >> this is go time. we're not turning back. and dave's like, oh, my god. he wants this man dead. >> reporter: dave told the detectives it became clear that he would be the killer, acting for mike. mike would supply the weapon, dave said. >> it was a little beat-up .25 automatic. i could barely put my finger in it. i mean, it was tiny. >> reporter: on july 10, 2012, dave said he got to lubbock around 4:00 in the afternoon. he snuck into dr. sonnier's backyard and waited for the doctor to come home. >> i have a bandanna on, glasses, shorts, and i have my bag. in the bag is a gun, a knife and a belt. >> reporter: 3 1/2 hours went by. nothing. and then, dave said, a rapping on the window.

joe sonnier was inside his house, looking right at him. >> i wave at dr. sonnier and get up. i walked to the window. and he has 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 bag. i point the weapon discharged it several times. after three or four discharges, he's backing away. he trips on his feet and falls to the ground. gun discharges a couple more times. he's running across to the -- to i believe the garage. >> so he runs down that hallway? is he out of sight from you? >> yes, sir. >> 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 don't know what's happening. so i push in the window and crawl in. >> so you're in and you have an empty gun?

>> yes, sir. >> when you go in there, what happens? >> i pretty much run around the corner as fast 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. >> reporter: but that wasn't enough for dave. >> i pulled a knife out of my bag, and i stabbed him in the vital organs two or three or four times. >> reporter: a full confession. matt powell, lubbock county d.a., watched it live from another room. you must have been hanging on every word david shepard was saying. >> well, yeah. i mean, we were certainly curious as to everything that had taken place. there's no doubt in my mind he was telling the truth.

at least most of it. >> reporter: dave also said mike paid him in three silver bars. and detectives learned dave did cash in those bars. as for the murder weapon, he led them to a lake in amarillo where he'd tossed it. he remembered everything to a tee? >> he did. he did. and he says, i just remember coming over here, and i had that gun and i just underhand tossed it. right in -- >> reporter: these two trees? >> correct. right down in this area here. >> reporter: a year later, in august 2013, dave shepard pleaded no contest to two counts of capital murder in exchange for a life sentence without parole. but mike dixon was going to trial. his attorneys would argue their client had nothing to do with the plot. >> from day one he made it very clear he did not pay. he did not plan. and he did not participate in the killing of joseph sonnier. never wanted it to happen.

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lubbock, texas, was transfixed by the spectacle of a love triangle gone bad. for the woman at the center of it all, richelle shetina, it was an unimaginable situation to be in. her former lover accused of murdering the love of her life. d.a. matt powell. >> our theory was it was an obsession with richelle shetina. this is vengeance, this is pride, this is jealousy. he spent months and months and months trying to destroy a relationship that she was in. and so i don't know if it was just a vengeance deal for him or if some part in the back of his mind says, you know, i may get her back. >> reporter: but dr. dixon's attorneys said he was an innocent man who had poor taste in friends. what is mike dixon guilty of? >> where do we start? >> capital stupidity of the highest degree. and trusting david shepard. >> reporter: in court,

prosecutors argued that mike dixon was the mastermind. this crazy plan. >> yeah, you know, it's just amazing. it's still amazing to me today that two guys that, at least on the appearance, had a lot to lose would just throw it away in something so callous and so simple as this. >> reporter: the state's star witness was dave shepard, the trigger man who had already confessed and been convicted. when you met with him before the trial, everything was on track. >> yeah. >> reporter: still on the same page. you had a deal. >> yeah, he was already done. he'd already pled guilty. >> reporter: dave shepard had one job to do for the prosecution. get up on the stand and repeat what he'd told detectives, that he'd murdered joe sonnier in exchange for three silver bars from dr. mike dixon. you're in the courtroom. he's on the stand. all is well. >> well, it wasn't all well very quickly. >> reporter: that's because dave shepard pulled a fast one. when he got on the stand he told the court he had lied about

dixon's role in the murder. his confession was a complete fabrication. dave said he acted alone, and that dr. dixon had nothing to do with the murder. >> am i shocked that he acted the way he did? am i shocked that he acted like a con man? no. to do the things he did, no. i didn't see that coming. >> reporter: you really had to think on your feet. >> yeah, it was something. in 20-something years of doing this job, i have never been part of something quite like that before. >> reporter: there weren't any cameras in court capturing the drama, but there was one in jail weeks later when dave confided in his daughter rachel. >> it was a terrible accident, my carelessness and stupidity, okay? nobody's responsible for that except me. you need to understand that. it was not intended. i wasn't paid to do that. >> why would you make the statement that mike paid you to do it if he didn't pay you to do it? >> because my attorneys, what they told me, you know, when i

did that statement to the police. and my attorneys told me i needed to sell it. >> reporter: dave shepard's about-face was pure gold for defense attorneys, dan hurley and frank sellers. were you then surprised when he did that? >> that's what he consistently told me, no, mike did not pay. he didn't want anybody harmed. that was all me. mike didn't have anything to do with that. so i was prepared for what he had to say. now we didn't disclose it to the prosecution. and i think they learned when he testified for the first time that he was going to recant his first story. >> reporter: for the sonnier family watching the proceedings from their side of a deeply divided courtroom, dave shepard's 180 was a big blow. >> the -- we'll call it the circus created by david shepard's fraudulent testimony threw everything into a tailspin. and it made me extremely nervous. i still thought we were going to win, but i worried about what

was going on in the minds of those jurors after seeing dave shepard come in and spin that awful tale. >> reporter: joe sonnier's son, dallas, was right to worry. because, as it turned out, the jury was hung. a mistrial was declared. the family was distraught. >> matt powell walked in and, without missing a beat, he looked us straight in the face and he said to us, guy, i'm so sorry this happened. but we're going to turn around and do it again and we're going to get him the second time. >> reporter: but mike dixon's son wasn't giving up hope either. because if anyone was certain that mike had nothing to do with the murder of joe sonnier, it was andrew dixon. >> one of the hardest things was just to, you know, watch his name just get, you know, drug through the mud. and, you know, you're just thinking we're eventually going to get to say something, let everybody know who my dad is and that he can't be capable for what he's accused for.

>> reporter: but would mike dixon prevail the second time around? maybe. maybe not. coming up -- the tale of the texts. >> there is no way that you would think that these are texts about a murder. >> the evidence was very strong that he was an active, willing participant in this. >> a new trial, a new jury. and the verdict?

on october 26th, 2015, it was deja vu at the lubbock county courthouse. after his first trial ended in a hung jury, dr. mike dixon was back on trial charged with the murder of dr. joe sonnier. for the sonnier family, it was time to put on a game face. >> i decided before the second trial that we should be confident as a family and support the d.a. and really push this thing forward. >> reporter: pushing it forward was exactly what prosecutor matt powell had in mind. that meant the prosecution would not put dave shepard on the stand this time, although the jury would hear about his confession. it's a largely circumstantial case. did you feel like it might be a tough sell that this prominent doctor who seemed to have everything would want to kill a

total stranger? >> i didn't think it was going to be a tough sell at all. i think the evidence was very strong that he was an active, willing participant in this. >> reporter: prosecutors had discovered hundreds of text messages between dave and mike. both men deleted their texts after the murder, but forensic experts were able to retrieve about half of them. there were a series of urgent texts between shepard and dixon in the middle of june. got to happen tomorrow. i know. just need him to show. that's why you got to stick closer to know his whereabouts. not trying to second-guess, but we're getting down to the wire here. >> why is there a wire? why is there a time limit? why is it important for him to show? why is it important if he shows up, it's over? >> reporter: what they were doing, prosecutor powell argued, was planning a murder. but there was no evidence of murder in the text messages? >> yeah. but are you going to put evidence in a text message, go kill the guy?

obviously, you're not going to do that. instead of saying killing somebody, you'd say put it on them. you know, can't wait for him to get home. you know, all i need's an opportunity. get it done. >> reporter: the prosecution pointed to 38 texts and four calls between dave and mike on the day of the murder. and when dave called mike that night, the call hit a cell tower near dr. sonnier's house. the day after there were 21 texts including the one mike fired off to dave once detectives left his house. just had a visit from lubbock pd. ash said you came by for cigars. they will see our texts and conversations. stay calm. lay low. >> yeah. i mean, it's hard to misconstrue that one. police were just there and then all of a sudden you're texting the murderer to lay low. >> reporter: when it came to the defense, attorneys dan hurley and frank sellers said none of this evidence pointed to murder for hire. a lot was made of the text messages between david shepard and mike dixon. they don't look great at -- >> they look horrible. >> reporter: at face value. something clearly was being planned. but you don't believe that it shows that murder was being

planned? >> there is no way that you would think that this -- these are texts about a murder. no way. >> reporter: and that's what mike dixon said when he took the stand in his own defense. that volley of texts? they were all about trying to get photos to make joe sonnier look bad in richelle's eyes. >> he acknowledged that he was trying his hardest to get proof of joseph sonnier being with other women and not being committed to richelle shetina. he acknowledges being impatient. he acknowledges pushing david shepard to do that. but he absolutely does not and did not ever want david shepard to harm joseph sonnier physically. >> reporter: but if mike wasn't guilty of murder, why did he delete all his text messages, even going so far as to submerge his phone in a pool? i think this is a problem people

watching will have is i wouldn't do that. if i had nothing to hide, i wouldn't start destroying all this evidence and jumping into the pool with my phone. >> they could say they wouldn't do it until they were in that same situation. >> he's being wrapped up in a murder that he had nothing to do with in the sense that he never wanted dr. sonnier dead. >> reporter: andrew dixon, mike's son. >> he was naive almost in his sense of people. you know? he was studying all the time, and working hard, and i think those things left him naive to the -- the way people are sometimes in the real world. >> reporter: but would jurors buy that? on november 18th, after deliberating for a scant two hours, they returned with a verdict. >> they kept saying, guilty, guilty, guilty. you know, yes, i found him guilty. it was like a bad dream. >> reporter: guilty of two counts of capital murder. richelle shetina was not in court for the verdict, but she sent us a statement saying in part she couldn't express the depth of her despair and grief.

she said she saw no red flags. and she also expressed anger with mike dixon and dave shepard and herself for having been involved with a man she now considers a sociopath. dr. dixon is appealing his conviction. for the sonnier family, justice had been accomplished. >> there was closure. because for the last three years, the idea of mike dixon not being in prison for life is so horrifying, you just can't wrap your mind around it. and so you can grieve joe's loss, but there's still that concept floating out there until it's finalized, and it was. >> reporter: now, joe sonnier's family is focused on his legacy. as a doctor. a loving father. and a passionate dancer. do you feel like joe is dancing up there in heaven? >> he may be. he may be. ♪ >> that's all for now. i'm lester holt. thanks for joining us.

charlottesville. president trump makes his both sides are to blame argument. >> but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides. >> equating the white nationalists with the protesters. >> excuse me, what about the alt-left that came charging at the, as you say, the alt-right, do they have any semblance of guilt? >> did the president lose his moral authority this week by failing to condemn white supremacists, the klan and neo-nazis? i'll ask former republican congressman j.c. watts and the former u.s. ambassador to the united nations and one-time mayor of atlanta, andrew young. plus those white supremacists in charlottesville. >> jews will not replace us! jews will not replace us. >> we'll take an inside look at