Arguments begin in attempted murder trial of ex-boyfriend

Bill Gang

Thursday, April 8, 1999 | 11:11 a.m.

Gidget Davis tried to do everything right to protect herself when she broke up with her longtime boyfriend in February 1998, Deputy District Attorney Abbi Silver told a District Court jury.

She had obtained a temporary protective order to keep her ex-boyfriend away and moved to a place she thought was unknown to him and safe.

Still in March 1998, Davis was tracked to the home and was shot twice in the head, Silver told a jury as the trial of Lewis Thues -- on attempted murder of Davis, conspiracy and burglary -- began Wednesday. Somehow she survived.

The first bullet ripped into an ear, Silver said. When Davis believed the gunman had left with a companion, she scrambled for a telephone to call 911. But the men were still there and Davis was dragged back into her bedroom.

Davis told authorities the angry gunman barked, "Bitch, did you think I was playing with you?" and then put a pillow over her head and fired a second shot with a .38-caliber pistol.

Silver said the second shot glanced off the back of Davis' head, but the woman was smart enough this time to feign death until she heard the squeal of the assailants' car fleeing the area near Pecos Road and Owens Avenue.

Then Davis called 911 and screamed in terror for help.

During the call, Davis told the operator that the gunman was her ex-boyfriend, Thues. Davis did not know the second man, and he has never been apprehended.

What saved Davis, Silver suggested, was that the woman had stuffed two pillows into one pillow case and the dense material apparently slowed and deflected the bullet.

Silver told the jury Davis recalled that after she served the temporary protective order on Thues as she was moving out, he mouthed, "I'm going to get you, bitch."

That was followed by threatening telephone calls and indignant claims that she had "disrespected him in front of his friends and family," Silver told the jury in District Judge Michael Douglas' courtroom. Davis twice changed her telephone number and eventually moved with her two children to a home that she believed was safe. But on March 2, 1998, after her children had left for school, her kitchen window was smashed and Thues was standing there pointing a pistol at her, Silver said.

The second man, also carrying a pistol, kicked in the front door and ordered her not to move. She fled to a bedroom and tried to hide in a closet, where Thues pursued her and fired the first bullet into her ear.

Opening arguments continued today.