By Kerri Pepoy,Staff Writer

PARIS – The jury in the trial of David J. Mair convicted him Thursday of aggravated assault and burglary for the 2004 attack on a Fryeburg doctor at her home, but acquitted him of attempted murder and elevated aggravated assault.

The 31-year-old former Fryeburg man faces a maximum prison sentence of 10 years for each of the convictions. He is being held at the Oxford County Jail for sentencing March 14.

Assistant District Attorney Joseph O’Connor told reporters Thursday that he will request consecutive maximum sentences.

Mair, who testified this week that he had nothing to do with the Sept. 15, 2004, attack on Dr. Mary Nash that left her severely injured, had little visible reaction to the verdict. He spoke softly to his court-appointed attorney, John Jenness, immediately after the jury announced its unanimous decision.

Nash, who is in her early 60s and has been a family practitioner for some 40 years, said she felt “a sense of relief.”

“I think I can start healing now,” she said in a phone interview from her office in Cornish. “This has taken more out of me emotionally than I realized.”

Nash also has an office in Fryeburg, where she lives. Two of her fingers still do not work correctly as a result of the attack 16 months ago.

“I’m just delighted that the jury believed the state,” she said. “What he did to me, I would not want anyone else in the world to go through.”

Mair’s girlfriend, Brenda Simpson, bowed her head and wiped away tears after the verdict announcement, and then sat sobbing outside the courtroom with friends.

After Mair was returned to jail, which is next to the courthouse on Western Avenue, Simpson was found unconscious in a van in the courthouse parking lot, Oxford County Sheriff’s Lt. Jim Miclon said. A friend of Simpson’s in the van with her said Simpson “had taken a large quantity of pills” and had consumed alcohol, the lieutenant said. There was an empty pill bottle in the van, he said.

PACE ambulance transported her to Stephens Memorial Hospital in Norway, but there was no information on her Thursday night, a nursing supervisor said.

O’Connor said he had mixed feelings about the split verdict. “Obviously I’m glad of the guilty verdicts, but I kind of regret the not-guilty verdicts,” he said.

However, O’Connor said he was glad that Mair will remain incarcerated. “David Mair is a dangerous person,” he said, adding that Mair has been incarcerated since age 14 for all but three years.

Jenness declined to comment as he left the courthouse.

Nash was attacked by Mair in her home on Main Street after she returned from a morning workout. Mair had broken into her house through a rear door and was on the second floor when Nash returned home, surprising him.

O’Connor said Thursday that Mair did not know Nash. “He was pursuing his trade and didn’t expect her to come home,” he said.

Mair repeatedly struck Nash with his hands, a wrench, and an object Nash said she believed was a flashlight as he shouted obscenities at her. He also pulled out a dagger and threatened to kill her, she testified.

When Mair momentarily turned away, she managed to escape to a neighbor’s house and called police.

The attack left multiple blood stains in Nash’s home and left her with a broken nose, two shattered fingers, bodily bruises, and lacerations to her head and ear that required stitches. She was unable to return to work for three months.

Nash said Thursday that on the day of the attack, she feared she was going to lose her hand because finger bones had pierced through her skin. She is still unable to close that fist all the way, she said.

Mair’s DNA was found on a rubber band recovered from the crime scene. The rubber band was partially wrapped around a white towel that Mair left behind when he fled the scene.

Mair was stopped by Fryeburg police officers two days after the attack as he was walking on Route 302. Police questioned him because he resembled the suspect’s composite sketch, but he was allowed to go because a phony Social Security card he presented as identification did not produce anything suspicious.

Police said that card turned up in Mair’s Portland residence in March 2005 during a search they conducted after they learned of the DNA test results.

O’Connor suggested in court this week that Mair dumped evidence of the crime in the Saco River, including weapons and the dark clothing he wore the day of the attack.

Nash was the first witness to testify in the trial and identified Mair as her attacker in court on Monday. Mair testified Tuesday that he had nothing to do with the crime and was only in Fryeburg to camp and walk around town after a breakup with Simpson.

The case was investigated by Maine State Police and the Fryeburg Police Department. On Thursday, Nash thanked both police agencies as well as her medical practice staff, her friends and her family.

“My family and my staff and my friends,” she said, “that has kept me going. The state police and the Fryeburg police have been wonderful.”