A jury trial started Tuesday for a Milford man accused of attempted murder after allegedly hitting his girlfriend in the head with a hammer multiple times.
Djvan Carter, 47, is charged with aggravated attempted murder, elevated aggravated assault, kidnapping and aggravated assault in Penobscot County Superior Court for his alleged actions on May 26, 2023.
A jury will hear witnesses testify and see evidence during the four-day trial. At issue is not what actions Carter did that day, but if his actions rise to the level of the charges he faces.
Carter hit the woman multiple times in the head with a hammer, both at the apartment they shared and then in a car where police could see them, Penobscot County Deputy District Attorney Chelsea Lynds said during her opening statement.
Two Maine State Police troopers found Carter and the woman in a car in Alton, and told them to leave the car. Neither left the vehicle and Carter accelerated his vehicle at police. Cpl. Blaine Silk fired seven shots into the car, shooting Carter in the chest.
The Maine attorney general’s office found Silk was justified in his actions in December 2023.
Carter confessed to hitting the woman with a hammer, but he did not intend to take her life and did not try to kill her, defense attorney Zachary Frey said during his opening statement. Carter asked to talk to detectives and confessed to his actions shortly after he was shot, Frey said.
Carter and the woman both smoked methamphetamine the morning of the attack, Frey said.
The day of the attack the woman was left “fighting for her life,” as Carter threatened to kill her, Lynds said. He attempted to strangle the woman and then chased her across her lawn as she tried to escape. Once he caught her, he dragged her into a vehicle and “beat her in the skull with that hammer over and over again, even as the police arrived to save her life,” Lynds said.
What Carter intended to do and if he planned to kill the woman is something the jury must decide after hearing all the evidence, Frey and Lynds both said.
“I am not standing before you now at the beginning of this trial and asking you to absolve Mr. Carter of his sins,” Frey said. “That is not your role. We’re here to find facts, but I am here to tell you that the truth about what happened that day still matters.”
The trial is scheduled to run through Friday.
