The Murder of Dr. Louis Davidson: A Wife's Murder-for-Hire Plot

Gruesome Murder of Dr. Louis Davidson

• 🚨 In January 1994, Dr. Louis Davidson, a well-known emergency room doctor in Tampa Bay, was brutally murdered in his home.
• 🩸 His body was found face down in a bathtub of bloody water, blindfolded, gagged, and bound with an electrical cord.
• 🔍 Autopsy revealed three broken ribs, facial bruises, multiple head lacerations from a blunt object, and the cause of death was drowning.
• ⚠️ The scene did not suggest a typical robbery, as over $19,000 in cash was left behind in a ransacked apartment.

Contentious Divorce and Motives Uncovered

• 💔 Lewis and his estranged wife, Denise Davidson, were undergoing a contentious divorce and a custody battle over their daughter.
• 💰 Investigators discovered Denise was the beneficiary of a $400,000 life insurance policy on Lewis.
• 📞 Denise's phone records showed she made 21 payments totaling $15,000 via Western Union to Robert Roy Gordon and Carol Kasem.
• 📱 Denise also purchased a mobile phone that was used to call a pager 50 times on the morning of the murder, linking her to the crime.

The Hitmen and Accomplices

• 👟 A size nine Voit shoe print at the crime scene matched sneakers found with Robert Gordon at a Days Inn, along with a blood-stained gray sweatshirt.
• 🚗 Susan Shore was identified as the driver who transported Gordon and Mel McDonald to Lewis's apartment, claiming she was an unknowing accomplice.
• 🤝 Shore cooperated with investigators, testifying that she drove the men for $100 and later saw Leo Cisneros (Denise's boyfriend) and Denise at the motel with the hitmen.
• 🧬 Forensic evidence, including Lewis's blood and carpet fibers on the sweatshirt, and McDonald's hairs, linked the items to the crime scene.

Trials, Convictions, and Fugitive Status

• ⚖️ Robert Gordon and Mel McDonald were found guilty of first-degree murder in June 1995 and recommended for the death penalty.
• 🚨 Denise Davidson was arrested at Tampa International Airport while attempting to board a one-way flight to Jamaica and was later found guilty of first-degree murder, receiving a life sentence.
• 🚪 Susan Shore pleaded no contest to accessory after the fact and received probation, which ended upon her departure from the United States to England.
• 🏃‍♂️ Leo Cisneros fled the country and remains a fugitive with an active warrant for first-degree murder, his whereabouts still unknown.