photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Aaron Michael Davidson appears at a hearing on Dec. 11, 2024, in Douglas County District Court.

A Texas man pleaded guilty on Thursday to violently attacking two women and killing a cat as part of a deal in which the Douglas County District Attorney’s Office dismissed rape and sodomy charges.

The defendant, Aaron Michael Davidson, 23, was originally charged with one count of rape, one count of aggravated criminal sodomy, one count of aggravated battery, two counts of aggravated domestic battery, one count of cruelty to animals and four counts of criminal threat, all felonies. He was also charged with four misdemeanor counts of domestic battery and one misdemeanor count of criminal restraint, according to charging documents.

On Thursday, he was convicted of one count of aggravated battery, one count of aggravated domestic battery for choking a woman, and one count of criminal threat, all felonies. He was also convicted of one misdemeanor count of cruelty to animals.

Judge Amy Hanley accepted Davidson’s guilty plea and said that despite the state and his attorney both recommending probation for his convictions, sentencing would rest with her; she said that she could give him up to 12 months in the county jail for killing the cat and up to 54 months in prison for his felony convictions, for a total of 5.5 years in custody. She warned that if the court finds that his criminal history is greater than anticipated, his sentence could be more. If Davidson had been convicted of his original charges he could have been sentenced to a minimum of 12 years in prison.

When Hanley asked if Davidson was ready to enter his plea, Davidson eagerly said, “Absolutely, your Honor.”

Senior Assistant District Attorney Ricardo Leal said that the specific charges that Davidson pleaded to were related to two women. Leal said he strangled the first woman while threatening her life and struck the other woman in the head so hard that he ruptured her eardrum. The cat Davidson killed, found stuffed into the ceiling tile of one woman’s residence, was named “Cesil,” Leal said.

Davidson was represented by Jessica Glendening, his third attorney after he failed to pay his first two attorneys and the court appointed a public defender for him.

Aaron Michael Davidson appears at a hearing on Feb. 27, 2025, in Douglas County District Court.

After Davidson pleaded guilty, Glendening asked the court to lift Davidson’s GPS monitoring requirement. She said that since Davidson was living in Texas while on bond he had to pay for the service himself through a bond company, which was very expensive.

Leal opposed the modification and said that the GPS monitoring had so far worked in keeping Davidson away from the victims. However, Hanley noted that the state was amenable to Davidson receiving probation.

Hanley said she would confer with Douglas County court services to determine whether they believed Davidson could be effectively monitored across state lines without GPS monitoring. Hanley later denied Davidson’s request and ordered him to maintain the service until sentencing.

Hanley scheduled Davidson to be sentenced on May 9. He is currently free on a $75,000 surety bond.

As the Journal-World reported, Davidson was accused of torturing two women he was in a romantic relationship with over several months, according to an affidavit in support of his arrest. He forced one woman into a “throuple” with the second woman, which the first woman agreed to out of fear, the affidavit alleged.

The first woman reported multiple incidents of rape and abuse, in which he reportedly attacked her and threatened her life with a rifle and choked her until she was unconscious. The second woman also reported multiple violent incidents involving Davidson.

During one of the second woman’s accounts to the police, she told of a time that one of her cats had gone missing. When she asked Davidson about the cat he told her to check the ceiling tiles of her residence. In the ceiling, she found her cat’s body and its neck appeared to be broken, according to the affidavit.

The first woman had told police that one time when Davidson was choking her he threatened to break her neck, and Davidson said that he had practiced after choking the second woman’s cat to death, according to the affidavit.

photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Aaron Michael Davidson appears at a hearing on Feb. 27, 2025, in Douglas County District Court.