Landscape Works Only Feet Away from the Home of A Suspicious Homicide

Still no new information from Lubbock police on what they are calling a suspicious homicide. Landscape workers who say they were feet away from Sonnier's home say they were across the alley way from Sonnier's house when police arrived on scene. They say they didn't know what was going on but they knew it wasn't good.

"I didn't believe it, you know how rumors go around."

            But it wasn't a rumor.

            Keith Zamora was working yesterday when he saw police arrive on the scene.

            He later found out police were investigating a suspicious homicide just feet away from where he was working.

"There's no way, you know? And when I asked my boss he said 'Ya, that's what the word is,'" said Zamora.

            Lubbock police said they responded to Dr. Joseph Sonnier's home on the 4600 block of 21st street  after a landscape worker noticed a window broken in the back of the doctors home.

            That's when they found Sonnier shot to death.

"When I drove by earlier that's what me and my brother said first, that it looks like somebody got murdered or killed."

            Something Sauna's closest friends say they still can't believe happened.

            "She told me and I didn't believe it at first, I couldn't believe it at first," said close friend Joshua Flores, "I was like 'No, is that our Joe? Is that our guy?'"

            When friends of Sonnier's heard of his death they say they were concerned and wondering, 'Who could have done this, and why?.'

"Us knowing him and knowing how great of a person he is, you just don't, don't think of why anyone would do that," said Flores.

"I think everybody is still in shock," said Dr. Robert Salem.

            Salem, a friend and colleague of Sonniers, saoid he hopes police have answers soon.

"Whoever did this I hope is found and brought to justice as soon as possible, because they have taken the life of a very dear person," said Salem.

            He said today his heart goes out to Sonnier's sons who just two years ago, experienced the same tragedy as their mother Becky Gallegos was murdered by her then husband in 2010.

"The two sons, now in particular, have lost their mother and their father of who this tragic event."

"We've lost a great doctor and I've lost a great friend," said Salem.