LONGVIEW, Texas — The trial for the man accused in the 2019 shooting death of a Panola County Sheriff's Office deputy began Wednesday morning in Longview.
Gregory Newson is charged with capital murder of a peace officer in connection with the death of 28-year-old Deputy Chris Dickerson during a Dec. 31, 2019 traffic stop. He was arrested in Shreveport after he had fled there following the shooting.
The trial was moved to Gregg County after Presiding Judge Christi Kennedy, senior judge for Tyler’s 114th District Court, found that an impartial and fair trial could not be held in Panola County.
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Newson pleaded not guilty to the charge after the state read the indictment.
In their opening statements, the state said Dickerson had his dream job as a Panola County Sheriff's Office deputy. Every night, his wife would tell him to come home and he would say, "always," but on Dec. 31, 2019 he didn't.
On Dec. 31, 2019, he was a routine patrol in the small community of Gary in Panola County at 2 a.m. Gary had become a corridor for drug selling, and Dickerson was patrolling the area carefully, the state said.
Dickerson pulled a vehicle over for a traffic stop, but he didn't know that driver had pounds of marijuana and money that he didn't want to part with and he wasn't going to let a deputy stop him. When Dickerson got out of his vehicle, he was "executed" by the man in the car, the state said.
The prosecution then pointed at Newson in the courtroom as the person who "executed" Dickerson.
"He didn't have a chance. He was executed," the lawyer said.
Newson didn't count on that Dickerson was a diligent deputy who called in for backup, body cam footage and community members who happened to be nearby when the shooting happened. A neighbor in the area rushed over to find Dickerson's body with multiple gunshot wounds.
An off-duty officer stepped up in the middle of the night upon hearing that person who killed a deputy was on the run toward the Texas-Louisiana state line. Just over an hour after Dickerson was shot and killed, Newson was arrested and found with the gun, drugs and all the evidence, the prosecutor said.
"We won't be able to bring Chris Dickerson back, but we will be able to render justice," the state said.
In a brief statement, the defense told the jury that the burden of proof is the state's responsibility.
Former Panola County Sheriff Kevin Lake testified he knew Dickerson through his entire career as a peace officer. In Dickerson's job interview, Lake recalled that Dickerson said he wanted Lake's job, and Lake took that Dickerson knowing the goal he wanted to accomplish.
Lake said that in more recent times, Gary has a higher volume of traffic of cars and that also has included people coming through with drugs.
In the early morning hours of Dec. 31, 2019, Lake said the dispatch notified him of an officer in distress and the only call at the time was Dickerson making a traffic stop. After hearing what happened, Lake headed to the scene to find Dickerson's partner, EMS and first responders there.
Dickerson's partner was in shock and Dickerson was getting placed in the ambulance when Lake arrived. Lake told the partner to keep the scene secure and the sheriff's office was going to catch the person who did this. It appeared that Dickerson was already dead when Lake got to the scene.
The state presented the Panola County Sheriff's Office communication log from Dec. 31, 2019. The dispatcher was able to determine the vehicle that Dickerson had pulled over was registered in Louisiana, she logged that an officer was down and the vehicle involved then headed toward Carthage.
Lake said the PCSO notified Bossier Parish and Shreveport law enforcement about the vehicle heading toward that area. Law enforcement deployed spike strips at the state line and stopped the car. Then, Newson was arrested.
Around 5 a.m., Lake testified that he and other officers came together to notify Dickerson's family of what happened. They arrived at Dickerson's mother's home, where Dickerson and his wife were living, and they explained that Dickerson was killed in a traffic stop to his mother and wife.
"That was 1,758 days ago, you don't forget something like that," Lake said with tears in his eyes.
His mother asked if the sheriff's office had gotten the guy, and he told her that they had arrested him.
Danny Yelverton, who lived near where the fatal traffic stop happened, testified that he and his wife were asleep, but their teenage son woke them up saying a drive-by shooting happened. Yelverton said he immediately got up from the bed. He told the state there had never been a drive-by shooting at his house.
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