Woman in a Coma From Shot in Head Is Out of Custody

The woman who spent a weekend in jail with a bullet lodged in her skull was released from custody Friday while she lay in a coma on a hospital bed.

Nancy Gilmore was arrested last week by Anaheim police on suspicion of shooting Richard Lewis, 30, in the motel room they shared. But after a bullet was discovered in Gilmore’s head and she underwent surgery Monday, Anaheim police opted not to pursue charges for now. The investigation is ongoing, police said.

But Orange County sheriff’s officials had continued to hold Gilmore in custody on two outstanding traffic warrants. By Friday morning, she was released on her own recognizance, said Walter Zech, an attorney for Gilmore’s mother.

A nursing supervisor said she was in serious but stable condition Friday evening.

“She opened her eyes for me today. I guess she really wanted to keep them open, but she’s in and out,” said her mother, Betty Scott. “She’s getting the best of care. They lifted all the security. She’s not in custody anymore.”

Gilmore was arrested June 30 after a confrontation with Lewis. Motel residents said they heard a woman scream, then gunshots. When they saw Gilmore leave the room, she had blood on her face. Lewis was dead of a gunshot wound to the chest.

Police said Gilmore refused treatment for her wound that night and said it was just a cut. Police took her to jail, and when her condition worsened, she was taken to a hospital, where doctors discovered the bullet more than 36 hours after her arrest.

Zech said Friday that he was looking into why police did not identify the gunshot wound to Gilmore’s head, and whether they made sufficient efforts to find out how she had been bloodied.

“Why did it take so long to get treatment? My gut reaction is someone should have been investigating the condition of this person from the very beginning,” Zech said.

“You have a homicide. It has components of abuse involved. Are the police not interested, from an evidentiary standpoint, in what wounds the surviving party has?” he said. “I would suspect they would look to find out, especially since she was bleeding, what caused this wound?”

A close friend of Gilmore’s said she had rented a car that day and intended to leave Lewis. Gilmore is said to have told her friend that she feared Lewis had been following her.

Co-workers of Lewis, a customer service representative for Private Health Care Systems in Irvine, told a different story Friday of a caring, smiling man who fell hard for Gilmore.

Patrick Leonard, Lewis’ close friend and confidante, said Lewis was frustrated with Gilmore for keeping in contact with an ex-boyfriend who called regularly from federal prison in Kansas, where he was serving time.

Lewis had become increasingly unhappy in the months the couple lived together, Leonard said. But he told friends he loved her more than he had ever loved any other girlfriend.

“He said he never allowed himself to fall this far for somebody,” Leonard said. “It was a roller coaster. He used to tease me and say, ‘And you want a relationship?’ ”

The day of the shooting, Lewis left work in the morning, upset over a fight he and Gilmore had in the parking lot as she dropped him off for work, Leonard said.

That night, Leonard spent two hours on the phone with Lewis from the motel room where he would be dead shortly afterward. Lewis just chatted, trying to tie up the line so Gilmore could not be contacted by the ex-boyfriend, Leonard said.

But there was no indication the night would turn violent, the friend said.

“There was no screaming,” he said. “I didn’t hear anything.”

Other friends characterized the relationship as troubled.

“I saw a man who cared about a woman who was always a step ahead of him, who he could never get to seriously commit to him,” said Sharon Ahearn, who helped Lewis get the customer service job he held for the past year. “We saw him in a downward spiral ever since he met her.”

Ahearn and others described Lewis as caring and respectful of others. He organized the company’s softball league and was almost always smiling and joking.

But Lewis lost his sister, mother and grandfather to disease in the past year and appeared depressed, friends said. When he and Gilmore moved in together, his life got more complicated. The couple was evicted from their Anaheim apartment and had been living in motels, friends said.

“He used to wear a tie to work every day. He always looked good and walked with confidence,” said co-worker Kerry Siefken. “After he met her, he was just a little bit more moody, not moody in the sense that he was nasty, but he wasn’t his outgoing, normal joking self. He didn’t dress as nice anymore.”