By Kerri Pepoy,Staff Writer

PARIS – Jury deliberations are set to resume today in the trial of David J. Mair after jurors were unable to reach a verdict Wednesday. He is accused of attacking a Fryeburg doctor in her home 16 months ago.

A note from the jury, which was read aloud late Wednesday afternoon by Oxford County Superior Court Judge Robert Crowley, said jurors were “stuck” but did not elaborate. The jury asked to resume deliberations today.

During deliberations Wednesday, the jury of six men and six women asked Crowley to re-read to them the legal definitions of “elevated aggravated assault” and “aggravated assault,” two of the charges that Mair faces. He also is charged with attempted murder and burglary. The charges carry a maximum prison sentence of 70 years.

Mair, 31, most recently of Portland, is accused of burglarizing Dr. Mary Nash’s home on Sept. 15, 2004, and attacking her when she returned home from a morning workout, surprising him. Nash, who is in her 60s, lives on Main Street in Fryeburg and has been a family practitioner for some 40 years.

Nash identified Mair as her attacker in court on Monday. She testified that Mair threatened to kill her while repeatedly hitting her with his hands, an object she believed to be a flashlight, and a wrench. He also threatened her with a dagger, she said.

Nash suffered a broken nose, two shattered fingers that she said still do not work correctly, bodily bruises and lacerations to her head and ear.

Mair, who served time in state prison for an unrelated crime and was released in May 2004, on Tuesday acknowledged he was in Fryeburg the week of the attack but said he did not commit the crime. He testified he was only in Fryeburg to camp on the Saco River and walk around the town he grew up in.

In closing arguments Wednesday morning, Assistant District Attorney Joseph O’Connor urged the jury to consider DNA evidence in the case. A rubber band that was partially wrapped around a white towel was recovered from the crime scene and tested positive for Mair’s DNA, according to a Maine State Police forensic analyst who testified this week.

Mair was arrested last May after police learned of the DNA results.

“DNA is not exotic science,” O’Connor said. “It is generally accepted evidence.”

O’Connor also called Mair a “smart criminal” because he stayed in Fryeburg for a few days after the attack. “A dumb criminal would have tried to high-tail it out of town,” he said. “Of course the cops are going to be watching the roads what smarter thing to do than to lay low for a few days and get rid of all that evidence.”

Mair was stopped by Fryeburg police officers on Sept. 17, 2004, while he was walking on Route 302. Police said they 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 and police did not find any suspicious items on him.

O’Connor suggested that Mair dumped evidence, including the clothing he wore the day of the attack and the wrench and dagger, in the Saco River. “He’s not an amateur,” he said, noting that Mair had served time in prison prior to the attack.

Mair’s court-appointed attorney John Jenness suggested the rubber band at one time belonged to Mair but was handled by someone else who then attacked Nash. “The only thing the rubber band proves is that David Mair’s DNA was on it. It doesn’t mean that Mr. Mair put it there on Sept. 15. People might have handled it without putting any DNA on it,” he said.

Jenness also noted that a photo taken of Mair by Fryeburg police officers on Sept. 17, 2004, shows him with a mustache. Nash initially described her attacker as cleanshaven with five o’clock shadow.

“Even Richard Nixon could not grow a mustache in two days,” he said.