Police interview of murder suspect watched by jurors

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PORTLAND – The man accused of beating to death his Rockport girlfriend in a Portland hotel room told police in a taped interview that he found the victim alive but on the floor after he returned from walking their dog.

“She tried to tell me what happened. Some guy she picked up” was responsible for the attack, David Haraden, 48, told police in the Jan. 4 interview.

Haraden is accused of beating to death Maxine Witham, 35, in the Eastland Park Hotel on or about Jan. 2. The couple lived in Rockport but was returning to the area from a trip to Massachusetts.

Jurors sat Thursday through nearly six hours of the videotaped interview on the third day of Haraden’s trial in Cumberland County Superior Court.

The tape covered part of an eight-hour, 45-minute interrogation by Portland police on Jan. 4, after he called his physician in Lincolnville to report he was in a hotel room with Witham’s body and it was beginning to smell. The physician contacted police.

Beginning with his phone call to the doctor and continuing through the lengthy interview with police, Haraden maintained that Witham had picked up a younger, college-aged man and had sex with him, and that that man had beaten her.

Haraden’s attorney, Howard O’Brien, has argued that Haraden’s insistence about another attacker throughout the grueling interview supports its veracity. Any variation in the story is the result of his fatigue and grief, O’Brien told jurors in his opening statement earlier this week.

Haraden told police the assault occurred while he was out of the room for a couple of hours, walking the dog that the couple traveled with.

He admitted to police in the interview that he left after Witham said he was too old for her and that she wanted a younger man.

Sunday, Jan. 2, was Haraden’s birthday.

“Max told me I wasn’t young enough for her. She liked to have sex a lot,” he told Portland police Detective Maryann Bailey.

Police detectives suggested during the interview that Haraden got angry when Witham suggested he was too old for her, which motivated the attack.

“She told me I was too old. She’s 35,” he said. “I was never angry – just disappointed.”

Testimony and photos shown earlier this week revealed that Witham suffered a beating to her face, head, neck, arms and abdomen. The state’s medical examiner told the jury Witham died from multiple trauma.

Police questioned Haraden in the hotel for an hour or so after they found Witham’s body, then took him to the police station. He was later arrested on a probation violation.

Haraden rambled throughout the interview, offering details about the couple’s life in Rockport, their business plans, the couples counseling they were undergoing, her drinking problems, and what he said were problems with her family.

Without prompting from Bailey, Haraden was heard expounding at length about what he alleged were Witham’s psychological problems.

When the detective focused questioning on the unknown assailant, Haraden said he came face to face with him upon entering the room, and “He threw me against the wall. I hit him twice.”

Later, as Bailey fast-forwarded through the tape, Haraden was heard saying he first saw and struck the college-age assailant on the street outside the hotel. Asked about the contradiction, he told the detective the original version was what Witham wanted him to say.

Haraden also mentioned a stalker and “drug runner” with whom Witham had problems in Knox County.

“There was no violence between Max and I,” Haraden told Bailey.

A Rockport emergency room physician testified on Wednesday that Witham was admitted to the hospital in 2003 with injuries consistent with a severe beating, and she told the doctor her boyfriend had been beating her over a four-day period.

In the tape, Haraden described caring for Witham’s injuries from the hotel attack.

“I rubbed her feet. I carried her to the bathroom to brush her teeth,” he said, and “pampered her.”

Bailey and other detectives asked Haraden repeatedly about why he would not contact police or emergency responders about Witham’s injuries, especially since he described her bleeding from the mouth, nose and ear. The detectives also suggested that since Haraden had been a police officer for a year he should have known what to do.

He said Witham did not want her father to learn of the attack. And he said he gave her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation at one point.

After she was dead – Haraden gave various answers as to when he realized she died – he said he wanted to stay with the body to “say goodbye.”

Haraden also said he watched a pay-per-view movie, “Ladder 49,” in the hotel room Monday night after it was clear Witham was dead.

Testimony on Thursday also included DNA evidence presented by state crime lab analyst Erin Miraeliuolw. All the blood samples she tested from the room, clothing, Witham’s fingernails and genitals were linked to Witham, Haraden or both, or were inconclusive.