LEWISTON – A 61-year-old man who police say led them on a chase and then held a gun to his head Tuesday is scheduled to be in court this morning for a bail hearing.
More than four decades after escaping from the old Androscoggin County Jail and being captured, Edward Fitzherbert was in the newer Auburn lockup Wednesday night.
Fitzherbert, of Hardscrabble Road in Poland, was being held without bail Wednesday night after he was evaluated the day before by mental health personnel at St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center.
It was outside that hospital Tuesday morning that police and a tactical team surrounded Fitzherbert’s van after following it there from Auburn.
Police said Fitzherbert, who was supposed to be in court Tuesday to face charges of child molestation, held a 9-mm handgun to his head for more than an hour.
The standoff forced a lockdown at the hospital during which staff and patients were not allowed to enter or exit the building.
Fitzherbert gave himself up to police after speaking with them throughout the ordeal on a cellular phone. Now back in jail, he will still have to face numerous accusations that he sexually assaulted a 13-year-old girl over a period of months in 2004 and 2005.
Fitzherbert has a long criminal history in the Lewiston area dating back to the 1960s, when he was arrested numerous times for burglaries, thefts, assaults and once, with escaping from the county jail.
In late October 1964, Fitzherbert was one of five men who broke out of the county jail after grabbing civilian clothes and forcing back a steel, barred door. At the time, Fitzherbert was being held on $1,000 bail after an arrest for breaking and entering, and larceny.
He and the others were eventually captured. Fitzherbert was sent to prison for two to five years for the escape, burglary and larceny charges.
He was also convicted of drug trafficking in Kansas in the 1990s and served time in federal prison.
He is to be back in court on the latest charges at 8:30 today, where prosecutors and Fitzherbert’s lawyer are to discuss the possibility of bail.
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