Hair-pulling flap ends in man’s arrest Bangor couple’s argument spurs 911 call

During their 17 years of marriage a Bangor couple had their share of arguments that once or twice a year would boil over into a physical fight like it did Monday.

It was a hang-up 911 call that brought police to the couple’s Montgomery Street home about 6:30 p.m. when Detective Paul Edwards said he knocked on a door and then a window, but initially no one would answer. Eventually, one of the three children who live there let him in.

Edwards said that in trying to find out what happened both husband and wife began to argue loudly, but that he eventually learned that the wife had pulled her husband’s hair after he refused to leave. The 47-year-old woman said that he began to intimidate her and that he shoved into her, pushing her back. She yelled for him to leave and pulled his hair when he refused.

According to the police report, the husband escorted his wife into another room, away from the children where he proceeded to show her what it felt like to have hair pulled. She said he grabbed her hair hard and whipped her around and that she fell to the floor. The woman said her neck and elbow hurt, Edwards reported.

Outside the home, Edwards arrested the husband, identified as 42-year-old Kirk A. Maasch, charging him with domestic assault. Before leaving, Edwards said he spoke to the two oldest children, ages 10 and 8, to answer their questions about what had happened and to allay any fears they had about the situation.

An Alton man wanted on two warrants from Kennebec County was arrested early Saturday after overdosing on an unknown drug in Old Town.

Florence Vars called for help just after 1:30 a.m. Saturday when a man and a woman came to her 29 Cedar St. home, with the woman claiming that the man had overdosed on a bottle of pills, Old Town police Officer Tom Adams said. The man identified himself as David and told police he hadn’t taken any pills. His girlfriend, Terry Bryer, 25, of Hudson, however, told police that his name was Brian McNeil, 20, and that he had downed around 10 pills from an unmarked brown bottle during an argument after they had left a local bar. She believed the pills were Xanax, but he claimed that he had taken one codeine pill.

Police noticed that McNeil had white powder next to his mouth, as if he had chewed some pills, and called for an ambulance, Adams said. McNeil went to Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor willingly, but after arriving, hospital officials reported that McNeil became violent and uncooperative and officials were forced to strap him to his bed. During this time, police also learned that McNeil was wanted on warrants for failure to pay fines for driving without a license, and failure to give correct name and address to a police officer.

At 5 a.m., hospital officials reported that McNeil had taken a turn for the worse and was taken to the intensive care unit, where he was attached to a respirator to help him breathe. Later that day, however, he was released and taken to Penobscot County Jail in Bangor.

– Compiled by NEWS reporters Doug Kesseli and Derek Breton