A DeSoto woman who was involved in a public spat with a Dallas County judge is now accused of shooting her estranged husband.
Keisha Nixon, 47, is being held in the Dallas County jail on a charge of aggravated assault. Her bail is set at $50,000.
Nixon, a real estate agent, told police she shot her husband, Cleveland Nixon, in self-defense because she was in fear for her life, according to an arrest warrant affidavit obtained Monday by WFAA-TV.
The warrant states Keisha Nixon waited to call 911 for at least 20 minutes after the shooting and Cleveland Nixon wasn't armed.
“Detectives did evaluate her self-defense claim but concluded the evidence does not support that defense based on the facts currently known to investigators," the affidavit says.
Authorities are also looking for Keisha Nixon's 25-year-old son, Oscar Denzel Brown, on a charge of aggravated assault. He is accused of participating in the attack.
Cleveland Nixon remains in serious condition in the intensive care unit of a local hospital.
The recent shooting comes after years of domestic violence complaints in the family.
Prior domestic violence
Last year, Nixon filed a defamation lawsuit against State District Judge Jeanine Howard and her campaign manager alleging that they inflicted emotional distress on her by publicly identifying her as a domestic abuse victim.
The lawsuit alleged that details of her case had been misstated and that they had falsely claimed she posted a threat to the judge during a public event. The lawsuit has since been dismissed.
The dispute with Howard arose out of an incident in which Howard identified Nixon as a domestic violence victim from the stage at a judicial forum.
Howard had handled a domestic abuse case in which Cleveland Nixon had hit one of her other sons. Nixon had been sentenced to deferred adjudication probation for five years in 2012, according to court records.
In 2014, his probation was revoked and he was sentenced to five years in prison after Keisha Nixon accused him of hitting and choking her. That domestic violence charge was dismissed after she filed an affidavit of non-prosecution.
Keisha Nixon has previously said she believed that the judge should have taken her husband’s mental health into account rather than sending him to prison.
But what those court records reveal is that the Nixons had a long and volatile relationship. She had told police in that in that 2014 incident that he had been “increasingly aggressive with her” and that in the last few years he had been “more violent in their relationship.”
Latest shooting
A fresh round of violence erupted Wednesday when police were called to her home in the 900 block of Place Louie in DeSoto.
When detectives interviewed Keisha Nixon, she told them that her husband had repeatedly beaten her over a long period of time, according to the arrest warrant.
She said she told her husband not to come to the home via text but that he did so anyway. She said they got into an argument and that the argument spilled over into the master bedroom in the upstairs bedroom of the house, the warrant said.
She told police that during the argument Cleveland Nixon kept telling her to “shoot him” and that “he was going to die today.” She said he came toward her and she shot him and that she continued to shoot him until he jumped over the bedroom balcony.
But Cleveland Nixon told police a different story the day after the shooting.
He told police that he and his wife were arguing in their master bedroom and that she shot him with a gun he had never seen before. He said she shot him in the stomach and he fell to the floor, the warrant said.
“The victim then stated he heard his wife state to him, ‘You’re going to die right here,’ and removed his wallet and cell phone from him,” the warrant said.
He told investigators his stepson then came into the room with a black tool bag and began hitting him in the back and the back of the head. He told police he laid on the floor for a long time before he got enough strength to try to flee.
The victim told police he knew he had to get out of the house to avoid being killed so he ran toward the balcony and that as he did so, he heard his stepson yell, the warrant said.
“Mama, don’t let him get away,” Cleveland Nixon said he heard his stepson yell.
Cleveland Nixon told investigators he heard more shots being fired as he jumped about 30 feet to the patio below.
Witnesses who were playing on a nearby golf course said they saw a third-floor balcony door fling open and a man run out followed by someone shooting at him.
The man then jumped from the balcony and the person with the gun fired at least two more shots from the balcony at the man as he tried to run away, the warrant says.
The witnesses also saw another man, later identified as Oscar Denzel Brown, come out onto the balcony after the shots were fired.
Police recovered a handgun at the scene.
