On Friday, Nov. 13, Attorney Bradley Thomas (Brad) Newsom, 42, was found dead on the front porch of his residence around 9:45 a.m. by a friend, Cody Litteken, reported the Bosque County Sheriff’s Department.

MERIDIAN — On Friday, Nov. 13, Attorney Bradley Thomas (Brad) Newsom, 42, was found dead on the front porch of his residence around 9:45 a.m. by a friend, Cody Litteken, reported the Bosque County Sheriff’s Department.

Justice of the Peace Jamie Zander pronounced Newsom dead at the scene. An autopsy was ordered.

The sheriff’s department reported that it appeared to be a suicide, but a full investigation is under way.

Few details are available at this time, but it was said that Newsom was at his office in the morning, and had returned home to meet shortly thereafter with Litteken. According to authorities, Litteken went out to the Newsom residence and found Newsom, who, according to law enforcement officials, had apparently been shot in the head on the porch of his home.

It was Newsom’s birthday, and those who knew him have expressed that his death by gunshot is hard to believe. Newsom was well known, both as an attorney in Bosque and Hill Counties and as a former city attorney at Crawford.

“He was always a bundle of energy,” said one long-time friend who added that it is hard to believe Newsom would commit suicide.

When he moved to Bosque County in the mid-1990s, Newsom immediately became involved in the North Bosque EMS, where he had been serving as president of the board of directors. He aided the emergency service with legal matters, as well as being active in other ways.

He once told Judge David Christian that if he had not gone into law, he would have become a trauma care or emergency room doctor.

Newsom was a graduate of Baylor Law School, and received his license to practice law in Texas in November 1994.

He specialized in criminal law, and was serving in Bosque County even before he moved to Meridian in 1996.

He also currently owned a bonding company in Hill County.

Speaking of the possibility of a suicide, Judge Christian commented, “What a tragedy it was.”