MODESTO -- A judge on Friday scheduled a trial to start Sept. 23 for a man charged with murder in the 2009 shooting death of a woman near west Modesto's Robertson Road Park.
Joseph Dixon, 37, is accused of shooting to death 28-year-old Shannon Case.
The Ceres woman's body was found in a parked car about 1:30 a.m. on April 4, 2009, near Pelton Avenue and Hammond Street.
Testimony in the preliminary hearing indicated Case was the unintended victim of a revenge plot and that Dixon had intended to shoot a man who was a passenger in the car. Dixon's trial is estimated to last about three weeks.
Initially, Dixon, Desiree Mills and Madeline Lopez, Dixon's girlfriend, all were charged with murder in Case's death.
Mills has since pleaded no contest to being an accessory in the murder, and she is scheduled to return to court May 3 to schedule her sentencing hearing. Mills' murder charge was dropped.
Authorities decided to prosecute the defendants separately after Dixon attacked one of his co-defendants in court in July 2010. Dixon grabbed Mills' hair, pulled her to the floor and tried to grab her throat, according to Stanislaus County sheriff's officials.
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