Berwick home break-in has possible suspect

BERWICK – Police have a possible suspect, but have made no arrests in an early morning break-in at a farmhouse in which one resident was shot in the stomach with a BB gun and two others escaped by jumping from a second-floor window.

Police Chief Fred Rubino said the intruders appear to have deliberately picked the house on Route 9, but it was unclear whether the break-in was a botched robbery attempt.

So-called home invasions, where a stranger assaults someone inside a home, are becoming more common in Maine, according to state police.

In Monday’s incident, one resident of the house woke up shortly before 3 a.m. when two people in ski masks approached him in his first-floor bedroom, Rubino said.

The man was shot in the stomach with a BB gun, then bound and gagged, the chief said. Although the wounds weren’t serious, “he thought he was shot with a real gun,” Rubino said.

The man was transported to Wentworth-Douglass Hospital in Dover, N.H., where he was treated and released.

The two masked individuals then went to the second floor, and tried to enter a bedroom where two other roommates were sleeping.

The two, including homeowner Dana Hall, barricaded the door and jumped out a window onto a porch roof as the intruders tried to kick down the door, Rubino said. The roommates separated as they ran into the woods to hide, he said.

A neighbor called police after seeing one of the roommates, who was wearing only underwear and bleeding after his jump.

One of the residents recognized the voice of one of the intruders, according to police.