The Times Leader reported Judge David W. Lupas accepted Natasha Mary Dixon's guilty plea to third-degree murder.

An accepted guilty plea is the conviction on the counts the Times Leader named. Nov. 23 is the sentencing date that page printed, and the page does not put a year next to it. Twenty-three years and six months to 47 years is what the agreement involves. It is not a term the story says the judge has already pronounced.

The Times Leader, in a story by Ed Lewis published November 3, 2026, with no clock on the byline, reported that a Wilkes-Barre woman accused of fatally shooting another woman after a dispute inside a hookah lounge pled guilty on Tuesday. It named her Natasha Mary Dixon, 36, of Edison Street. It reported Wilkes-Barre City police detectives charged her with fatally shooting Ayana Shanell Velardo, 30, in the neck on Aug. 9, 2025. It reported that, according to court records, Dixon and Velardo were inside the Mila Lounge at 199 Hazle St., where the two accidentally bumped into each other in a crowded room. It reported Velardo exited the lounge and crossed the street with other people, and that Dixon also left, approached Velardo, and shot her in the throat. In the neck, in the charging sentence, and in the throat, in the court-records sentence, are both on that page.

The Times Leader reported a witness told detectives, according to court records, that Dixon "smiled" after she fired the shot and fled in a minivan, which was found on Hutson Street. It reported she had been scheduled for a pre-trial conference before Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas Judge David W. Lupas on an open count of criminal homicide and a firearm offense. It reported that instead Assistant District Attorney Allyson L. Kacmarski announced a plea agreement with Dixon and her attorney, John B. Pike. It reported that under the agreement Dixon pled guilty to third-degree murder and to firearms not to be carried without a license. It reported that after reviewing the agreement and her constitutional rights, Lupas accepted the plea agreement and scheduled her to be sentenced on Nov. 23. The page does not print a year next to Nov. 23. It reported the agreement involves a sentence of 23 years, six months to 47 years in state prison, and that it negates her appellate rights except for ineffective assistance of counsel. The accepted plea is what the Times Leader reported Tuesday. The years are what that story says the agreement involves. The story does not say the judge imposed them on Tuesday. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.