PARIS – Dr. Mary Nash testified in Oxford County Superior Court on Monday that David J. Mair broke her nose and shattered two of her fingers during an attack in her Fryeburg home on Sept. 15, 2004.
“I’m sure it was him,” Nash said, staring at Mair, who sat at the defense table with his hands folded on the opening day of his attempted murder trial. “I’m sure it was him.”
Wearing a black and tan pantsuit and her silver gray hear neatly coifed, the family practitioner for some 40 years testified she arrived home the morning of Sept. 15 after an early workout at a local health club. She entered her Main Street home through a side door and saw that the back door was open and there was glass on the floor.
Nash said she initially wondered if a deer had pushed its way into the house. She said she then saw a backpack lying on a chair with wrenches next to it and picked up a telephone to call police.
Nash said she then heard “screaming and yelling” and saw a man quickly descending the stairs from the second floor. “He was like a bat,” she said. “He was (wearing) all black and he was just screaming and shouting.”
Mair, 31, most recently of Portland, is being held at Oxford County Jail, charged with attempted murder, elevated aggravated assault, burglary and aggravated assault. The charges carry a combined maximum prison sentence of 70 years.
Mair was arrested last May after investigators learned DNA evidence on a rubber band wrapped around a towel that was recovered from the crime scene matched his DNA.
Nash said in court Monday that Mair hit her several times with an object she believed to be a flashlight and screamed obscenities at her. He then pulled out a dagger and threatened to kill her, she testified.
“He told me several times he was going to kill me,” she said. Mair then backed her into a bathroom and hit her on the head with a wrench, she said.
Nash managed to escape to a neighbor’s house to call police. She suffered a broken nose, two broken fingers, bodily bruises and lacerations on her head and ear that required stitches.
In his opening statement, Assistant District Attorney Joseph O’Connor told the jury of six men and six women that the DNA evidence, as well as evidence collected at Mair’s Portland apartment during a police search in March 2005, would show Mair is guilty.
The crime was investigated by the Fryeburg Police Department and Maine State Police.
Mair’s attorney, John Jenness, said the DNA evidence is “open to question and dispute.”
During other testimony, Fryeburg Police Chief Wayne Brooking said that on Sept. 17, 2004, he saw a man who resembled the suspect’s composite sketch walking beside Route 302. Brooking, who was a sergeant at the time, said he pulled over and requested identification from the man, who was carrying a backpack.
Brooking said the man produced a Social Security card with the name Jarrod Banker. Fryeburg Police Sgt. Michael McAllister, who was a primary investigator of the Nash assault, arrived shortly, and the officers requested a search of the man’s backpack.
The backpack contained fishing and camping items, and a computer check of the Social Security card produced nothing suspicious, Brooking said. McAllister took a picture of the man with the man’s permission, and he was told he was free to leave, Brooking said.
McAllister testified that investigators learned in March 2005 that DNA evidence recovered from Nash’s home matched Mair’s DNA. A search warrant was obtained for Mair’s apartment. A Social Security card bearing the name Jarrod Banker was recovered from the apartment, McAllister said.
At the time of the search, Mair had been arrested by the Portland Police Department in an unrelated incident and was in jail.
O’Connor showed McAllister the picture he took of the man questioned by him and Brooking on Sept. 17, 2004. McAllister testified that the photo was of Mair.
Under cross-examination by Jenness, McAllister said no tools, wrenches or dark clothing were found in the man’s backpack during the consensual search. McAllister also testified the man had a mustache.
The day of the attack, Nash described her assailant as cleanshaven with five o’clock shadow. She said he wore dark clothing and a ski hat.
The trial resumes today.
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