Ex-Lebanon man gets 12-life for attempted murder

Nathan Fisher is led from a courtroom at Strafford County Superior Court after he pleaded guilty and was sentenced on an attempted murder charge. (Harrison Thorp photo)

DOVER, N.H. - A former Lebanon man was sentenced to 12 years to life in New Hampshire State Prison on Friday after pleading guilty to attempted murder in a vicious throat slashing of his girlfriend inside their Rochester apartment in 2012.

Nathan A. Fisher, 41, heavily intoxicated and enraged over text messages sent him by the victim, woke her up and began beating her in the early morning hours of Dec. 28, court testimony at his sentencing hearing on Friday revealed.

Assistant County Attorney Amy Feliciano, in arguing for a 15 year to life sentence, told the court that Fisher grabbed a kitchen knife, wrestled the victim to the ground and began stabbing her, causing several cuts on her hands as she tried to defend herself.

The victim then tried to escape from their 16A Wakefield St. apartment, but was pulled back inside by Fisher who then grabbed her, put the knife to her throat and used the blade in a “sawing motion” to inflict a life-threatening wound.

The prosecution showed an apartment hallway surveillance videotape that showed the victim trying to leave, then being forced back in and moments later rushing through the hallway and downstairs with her hand over her bloodied throat.

She then ran about 100 yards through the snow and cold to the Rochester Police Department to get help and was rushed to Frisbie Memorial Hospital. An attending hospital staffer said if the cut had been any deeper she would likely have died.

Fisher had a .451 blood alcohol content the night of the attack, about five times the legal limit, said his public defender, Heather Ward, who added it was nothing during this time period for him to consume a half-gallon of vodka every day. She said most people would be dead with this BAC level, but her client had been drinking so much for so long, he’d become immune, but clearly was not thinking rationally during the attack.

Fisher, shackled and wearing tan jail fatigues, sat motionless throughout much of the hearing, but read a statement expressing his sincere remorse at what he had done.

Feliciano, meanwhile, read a statement from the victim that said she still feels the trauma of that day, in which she was awoken from a sound sleep having taken sleeping medication and was beaten and cut and ultimately had her throat slit. She said she continues to have nightmares of the attack, is afraid of the dark and required 22 stitches to her neck after the attack.

An aunt of Fisher’s and his brother both read statements to the court that the defendant had been physically and emotionally abused by his father, stepdad and mother’s occasional boyfriends throughout his childhood. The aunt said his parents were both alcoholics and that his mother was subjected to nightly beatings as well as Nathan Fisher if he interfered.

Fisher’s younger brother, Ryan, said that he’d seen his brother beaten to a “quivering” pulp by his stepdad when they moved to Las Vegas. He said Nathan Fisher always protected his kid brother and bore the brunt of the abuse.

Both brothers wept openly during Ryan Fisher’s recounting of their tumultuous and troubling childhood, prompting the bailiff to hand out tissues to both men.

Nathan Fisher, his brother said, was a good guy who would give you the shirt off his back, but suffered from a lifetime of self-medication with alcohol due to the trauma suffered in childhood.

Nathan Fisher also suffered from PTSD, depression, anxiety and auditory hallucinations, said Ward.

Feliciano, meanwhile, stressed that Nathan Fisher had had a violent past, filled with five criminal assault convictions in Maine and New Hampshire, including one simple assault in Hampton in a July 2008 incident in which his hometown is listed as Lebanon, Maine. One of the assaults was on a police officer, she said.

Ward asked for a 7½-15 year sentence, saying her client had had no discipline issues in his year in jail already served. She said he was described as a quiet person in jail, kept to himself and read a lot. She said for the first time in his life he is clean and sober and learning how to live without alcohol.

She stressed that with treatment and his nonuse of alcohol he would continue to better prepare himself while in prison and that a 7½-15 year sentence was punitive enough.

The judge, however, said that the vicious, unprovoked attack could very easily have turned out to be a murder case and opted for the 12 year to life sentence.

Feliciano, who had wanted the 15-year to life sentence, said after the hearing she was pleased with the judge’s decision.

The victim, who was in the courtroom, declined comment.

The sentence means Nathan Fisher will spend at least 12 years in state prison as New Hampshire has no good-time provision for sentence reduction. After the12 years he will be eligible for parole but will have lifetime supervision from probationary and parole staff. He also received two felony convictions for criminal threatening and misdemeanors which will be suspended for 10 years on good behavior.