SHERMAN, Maine — A former girlfriend of an Aroostook County man accused of fatally shooting two people and injuring four others during a two-day rampage last week said that he abused her countless times during their 3½-year relationship.

Ashley Hayes Long of Sherman said Thursday afternoon that she first met Anthony Lord of Crystal and Houlton when she was 16.

Lord, who is now 35, was 26 at the time, she said.

“My parents did not know that I was dating him,” she said while sitting outside the Sherman home she shares with her wife, Heather Long. “I was his girlfriend for 3½ years, and he could be very abusive. He could just snap. The violence did not start until about six months into the relationship, and every time I tried to leave, he would reel me back in by saying how sorry he was and that he would never do it again. I was a naive young girl and I believed him.”

Lord, who has a long criminal history, has been charged with kidnapping and two counts of murder in connection with a spree of mayhem that began when he allegedly lit a barn on fire on the night of July 16 at the home of Kim Irish, 55, in Benedicta. He then made his way to nearby Silver Ridge Township and attacked Kary Mayo, who was tied to a chair and beaten, according to police.

After reportedly stealing guns and a truck from Mayo’s home, police said Lord returned to the Irish home in Benedicta where he shot at and wounded Kim Irish, fatally shot 22-year-old Kyle Hewitt of Caribou, shot and wounded passerby Carlton Eddy of Benedicta, and kidnapped Kim Irish’s 21-year-old daughter, Brittany Irish.

Before he released Brittany Irish and surrendered to police in Houlton the afternoon of July 17, Lord also shot and killed Kevin Tozier, 58, of Lee and wounded Clayton McCarthy, 54, of Mattawamkeag, according to police.

Lord, who admitted to the killings, according to court documents, remains held without bail at the Aroostook County Jail in Houlton. Maine State Police say additional charges are pending.

Lord’s former girlfriend Ashley Hayes Long is now a volunteer firefighter with the Sherman Fire Department, while Heather Long is a firefighter and emergency medical technician. Both women were called to the July 16 barn fire in Benedicta.

Heather Long said she saw Kim Irish at the fire scene, and Irish was convinced that Lord somehow was involved with the incident.

“She was asking for the [state] fire marshal because she was sure it was arson,” Heather Long said.

Brittany Irish held a news conference in Benedicta on Wednesday to tell the media that Lord had abducted and raped her earlier this month and that the later crime spree began only after Lord learned that she had reported the alleged assault to police.

Heather Long said Thursday that she also knows Lord well, adding that he had sought to “create as much havoc as possible” in the couple’s lives ever since his relationship with Ashley Hayes Long ended.

“He is evil,” Heather Long said. “He is the kind of person you can’t turn your back on even for a moment. He will help anyone, but it is only to get a chance to see what you have so he can maybe steal it later.”

Ashley Hayes Long said she kept a record of the abuse she suffered at the hands of Lord and she shared it the Bangor Daily News on Thursday. It included notations such as: “jabbed a bowl into my lip and gave me a fat lip,” “choked me,” “threw me against the door at our home in Sherman and broke the window out” and “threw me to the floor at our home in Bradford.”

She said she was the sole wage earner in the house since Lord never could hold down a job, and any money that she did earn, he controlled. When she finally broke up with him and left him for good, she said, he kept her car for a time and peeled the inspection sticker off, only giving the vehicle back after she went to the police.

Heather Long said she believes Lord “knew what he was doing” last week.

“He knew the moment that he lit that fire that Brittany was going to come there,” she said.

Ashley Hayes Long agrees, and remains troubled by something that Lord told her when he was abusing her.

“He always told me he could plead insanity.”