Home invasion leaves victims stunned

George and Cathy Davich were sitting on the couch, watching TV, wrapping up their activities on April 5. Their three children were asleep in a bedroom as midnight approached.

George was dozing on Cathy's lap when she nudged him in the head with an elbow.

"What?" he asked, a little peeved as he looked up at Cathy.

She was silent, pointing at a man standing in front of them. The man had a gun in each hand.

The next 30 minutes left them traumatized. Their Henderson apartment was ransacked by three men who match police descriptions of suspects who might be involved in more than a dozen home invasion robberies that have been committed since January.

What was most bizarre was the behavior of the robbers, the couple said.

"I said four or five times, 'Is this real?' " George, 31, said. "And they said, 'This is as real as it gets.'"

The suspects were meticulous about what they took. They carefully disconnected the couple's 42-inch plasma television from the wall. They didn't take devices that didn't have an accompanying remote control or power cord. They agonized over whether Cathy's jewelry was real or fake.

And, well, they were relatively well-mannered.

"They were polite, for robbers," Cathy, 29, said.

Authorities released sketches of two of the suspects last month. Cathy recognized the sketch of the man with bad acne on his face. She said it was so bad that the pockmarks made it look as if half his nose was missing.

Las Vegas police think the suspects, traveling in groups of two or three, could be involved in at least 15 robberies this year, mostly in the northwest valley. No arrests had been made by Tuesday.

The couple's home is at the Promontory Point Apartments, 360 Arroyo Grande Blvd., near Warm Springs Road.

The suspects have stolen everything from televisions to a minivan. They have used the same method of gaining entry into the target homes: through an open or unlocked door or window, police said.

The sliding patio door on the Daviches' first-floor apartment was open about 4 inches when the robbers entered, George said.

One person has been seriously injured in the robberies. A 44-year-old man was shot in the hip while fleeing his home near Durango Drive and Craig Road on March 31.

The Daviches were not injured, aside from the zip-tie marks around their wrists and the rough treatment Cathy received when the robbers took cubic zirconium earrings from her ears.

But they have been badly shaken. Cathy says she is not sleeping. At night she is constantly checking on her children, on whether the doors are locked and whether the newly installed alarm system is working.

"I'm still shaken up," Cathy said. "I'm having really bad anxiety attacks where I can't sleep at night."

What seemed to strike them the most about the encounter is how efficient the robbers were.

"They knew really what to grab and where it was located," Cathy said.

The couple suspect the robbers were waiting on the patio before entering the home because they made no noise when they entered through the sliding door.

All three suspects were armed with a gun in each hand. Two were masked; the suspect with the acne did not have a mask. The three quickly turned out all of the lights in the apartment and removed George's eyeglasses. They told George it was so he couldn't see the suspects, and they returned the glasses to him when they were done.

They spent between 30 and 45 minutes evaluating the couple's possessions and piling them up near the front door. When the couple's 4-year-old son woke up, the robbers had the crying boy find the remotes for different devices. The couple's 8- and 10-year-old children slept through the incident.

During the robbery, the suspects kept reassuring the family that they would not harm them or their children.

"They kept saying, 'We're just taking your stuff. Stuff can be replaced,'" George said.

The three men took about $1,500 from George's wallet, which included the couple's rent money. They also took their television, Xbox 360, $5,000 in camera equipment, prescription medication, a Blu-ray player and a laptop. George estimates the loss at between $8,000 and $10,000.

They kept pressing him for more money. "They kept saying, 'Big man like you, I know you got a gun. And where's the money?'"

The couple were surprised what the men didn't take: dozens of Blu-ray movies, some of which were unopened, a desktop computer and Cathy's jewelry.

It ended when the acne-scarred man told his two cohorts, "Time's up, gotta go." One of them drove a vehicle close to the apartment, George heard a van door open, and the three suspects began loading the couple's belongings into it.

As the suspects left, one of them told the couple, "Sorry, guys, we had to throw all your cell phones in the toilet."

George was able to break the zip ties and ran to a neighbor to call police. Nobody in the complex witnessed the robbery.

The couple want to caution people not to leave their doors open. The mistake has cost them. Although they gave police the serial numbers for their stolen items, they have recovered nothing. What possessions they still have are now in boxes as they prepare to move.

To protect themselves, they also purchased a yellow Labrador retriever puppy that laid sleepily at their feet Monday evening.

"I don't know what good he'll do," George said.

"Probably just lick them to death," Cathy said laughing.

Contact reporter Lawrence Mower at lmower@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0440.