Man gets 35-year sentence for killing homeless man

PORTLAND — A Portland man convicted of killing a homeless man in Portland last year was sentenced Monday to 35 years in prison.

Daniel-David Nixon, 19, was convicted in January of the beating death of Freeman A. Bernard, a Micmac Indian and 45-year-old transient from Canada.

Bernard was found unconscious in an alleyway off India Street in downtown Portland on April 1, 1989. He died the following day at a Portland hospital.

Evidence presented at Nixon’s trial showed Bernard had died from severe brain damage caused by multiple blows to the head. Nixon had beaten Bernard with brass knuckles and slashed him with a broken pop bottle, according to testimony.

Testimony also showed that Nixon had taken friends back to the scene of the beating and bragged about how he had hurt Bernard.

“He was going out rolling drunks for money for drugs and alcohol,” Assistant Attorney General Pamela Ames told Cumberland County Superior Court Judge G. Arthur Brennan.

Ames asked that Nixon be sentenced to 40 years in prison, adding, “Never once has he said he’s sorry he killed Freeman Bernard.”

Defense attorney Franklin Stearns asked Brennan to impose a lighter sentence.

Brennan said the murder was one of “extreme violence.”

“You were looking to be assaultive, perhaps to rob and you selected Mr. Bernard as a vulnerable victim. In the process of doing that, whatever control over hate that you have was lost. That lack of control causes me great concern,” the judge told Nixon.

Brennan said that he had seen the trial and did not disagree with the jury’s decision. He sentenced Nixon to 40 years, with five years suspended, followed by five years on probation.