FARMINGTON — David Nelson III and his girlfriend awoke to someone gently knocking on their front door Tuesday around 5 a.m., just before two men attempted to break into their trailer on Lamkin Lane.

When Nelson, 23, yelled that he was calling the police, one of the men started pounding on the door and the other walked away. Nelson looked out his bedroom window and saw the other man return with a rifle.

The two men tried to pry open the locked front door, which has no windows, before they smashed a window on the side of the trailer.

As the men tried to jump through the trailer’s window, Nelson and his girlfriend, Holly Norton, 18, continued to scream that the police were on their way. After a couple terrifying seconds, the men ran off and sped away in a car that was parked nearby.

That’s how Nelson and Norton recalled the harrowing experience later in the day.

Worried neighbors asked the couple for constant updates as they stood outside the redemption center at Ron’s Market, where Nelson was working Tuesday afternoon across the street from his home at 106 Lamkin Lane.

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“I just don’t know what to think, and I’m trying to figure out why somebody would do this,” Nelson said.

Farmington Police Detective Marc Bowering said police believe one of the men cut himself during the break-in attempt and the blood they found at the scene has been sent to the Maine State Police Crime Lab in Augusta to be analyzed and crosschecked against the criminal DNA database.

Police on Tuesday also interviewed a man who Bowering would not identify. The man volunteered to give a DNA sample, which was sent to the crime lab to be tested for a match with the blood found at the crime scene, Bowering said.

The man who submitted the DNA sample will not be identified unless charges are filed in connection with the attempted break-in, Bowering said, adding he was not taken into custody and is considered a person of interest pending results of the DNA tests.

There have been two home invasions in Farmington over the last 12 months, prompting several public forums in the community where law enforcement officials have addressed residents’ growing fears about their safety.

Grace Burton, 81, was fatally stabbed inside her Farmington apartment last summer, and a Massachusetts man faces a murder charge in connection with the slaying.

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On October 31, an elderly couple was robbed at gunpoint inside their Farmington home. Three local men face multiple charges in connection with that crime.

Bowering asked for anyone with information about the break-in attempt to call the town police department at 778-6311.

 

David Robinson — 861-9287

drobinson@centralmaine.com


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