LEWISTON – A man accused of beating his girlfriend and then dragging her into the woods along Lisbon Road late Tuesday remained jailed Wednesday night on a more serious charge.

Originally accused of domestic assault, 27-year-old Henry E. Mayer of 35 Orange St. was being held on a new charge of aggravated assault.

Police said it was the severity of the beating that prompted them to file the more serious charge. Police said the 26-year-old Auburn woman was examined but did not require hospital treatment.

For two hours, police searched the woods next to the Travel Inn after receiving reports that a screaming, bleeding woman had been carried into the trees there.

Neither Mayer nor his girlfriend were occupants at the motel. Police said the pair stopped there for unknown reasons when they began to scuffle and argue.

Beginning about 9:20 p.m., police and fire crews searched the woods while speaking with witnesses to the attack. The drama came to a halt about 11:45 p.m. when Mayer and the woman he is accused of battering got out of a cab on Crowley Road.

Mayer remained at the Androscoggin County Jail in Auburn on Wednesday night.