Police on Friday continued to look for an Alfred man who allegedly led officers on a high-speed chase into New Hampshire on Wednesday night, after his wife was found unconscious on a lawn in Eliot.

John Durfee, 66, is wanted on a felony charge of eluding police. The warrant for his arrest was issued Friday afternoon by York police Sgt. Thomas Baran, who urged Durfee to turn himself in.

Durfee was in the news recently as a key figure in the murder trial of Jason Twardus in York County. Twardus’ defense team cast Durfee as the leading alternate suspect in the 2007 killing of nursing student Kelly Gorham. On Oct. 1, the jury convicted Twardus, Gorham’s ex-fiance.

Around 6 p.m. Wednesday, 60-year-old Nancy Durfee was found face down on the lawn in front of 311 Goodwin Road in Eliot. She was not injured, and after she regained consciousness Durfee told police that the last thing she remembered was traveling back to Maine from Boston with her husband. She did not remember how she got out of the car, said Eliot Police Chief Ted Short.

Witnesses told police they saw a Chevrolet Equinox driving away from Goodwin Road. Police in York located the car and chased it several miles into Dover, N.H., where the chase was called off because of traffic congestion and concerns for public safety.

Short said his department is seeking more information about what happened to Nancy Durfee. He said he wants his officers to re-interview her, and they are also seeking an interview with John Durfee.

“We have not been able to determine yet whether or not there was any illegal activity in our town,” Short said.

In the summer of 2007, John and Nancy Durfee were Kelly Gorham’s landlords at their property in Alfred. They both testified during the three-week murder trial of Twardus that opened Sept. 13 in York County Superior Court.

John Durfee and another man, Calvin DeGreenia, testified they had dinner and drinks with Gorham on the night before she disappeared. On the stand, Durfee admitted a decades-long addiction to PCP, a hallucinogenic drug known as angel dust. He had no clear memory of August 2007 when he testified, but he vehemently denied any involvement in the crime.

Several witnesses testified that Durfee harassed women and touched them inappropriately. A former tenant — the woman who rented from Durfee immediately before Gorham — testified that he threatened to take her into the woods, rape her and leave her for dead. Durfee denied that and Nancy Durfee backed up her husband, saying the tenant was evicted because she failed to pay rent.

After the trial, the jury foreman said jurors considered Durfee and DeGreenia to be legitimate alternate suspects. But they ultimately decided that the evidence pointed solely to Twardus, and that there was no way the other two men could have framed Twardus.

 

Staff Writer Trevor Maxwell can be contacted at 791-6451 or at: tmaxwell@pressherald.com