ALFRED — Gary Traynham triggered Maine’s first Amber Alert in November 2009, when he fled to New Hampshire with his 2-year-old daughter after a violent encounter with his ex-girlfriend in Sanford.

The next day, he was found on a dirt road in Milton, N.H., by a hunter who persuaded him to turn himself in to authorities.

Traynham went on trial Tuesday in York County Superior Court, but none of the charges he faces relate to taking his daughter. In fact, his relationship with his daughter is a key component of his defense.

“This is a case about Gary’s love for Hailey,” said his attorney, Amy Fairfield.

The fight between the estranged couple was over visitation and custody of the girl, Fairfield said.

The picture painted by Assistant District Attorney Thad West was not of a caring father, but of a violent man with little regard for his daughter or her mother.

“We intend to prove the defendant raped Lisa Gould, the mother of his child, in front of his child,” West told jurors in his opening statement.

Traynham, 39, of Kennebunk, is charged with gross sexual assault, aggravated assault with extreme indifference to human life, burglary and criminal restraint. He has been held in jail since his arrest.

West said Traynham planned his attack on Gould on Nov. 9, 2009, two weeks after they had broken up. He got a neighbor to let him into her apartment and then set out a bottle of Grey Goose vodka, cranberry juice and a silver carving knife on the bedside table.

When Gould came home from the store, he yanked her into the apartment and attacked her, West said.

Traynham choked her until she passed out, and when she regained consciousness, she was being raped, he said.

Gould was able to calm him down, suggesting they could reconcile and proposing a walk to a nearby park, West said.

When they left, she saw the maintenance man for the apartment complex and mouthed the words, “Help me.” He intervened, giving her a chance to run to the landlord’s apartment, and he called 911, West said.

That’s when Traynham took off with 2-year-old Hailey.

Gould was taken to a hospital, where a nurse did an examination seeking evidence of a rape. Gould was found to have injuries but none of Traynham’s DNA, only that of her boyfriend at the time.

Fairfield called the jurors’ attention to that, suggesting that the forensic evidence doesn’t support Gould’s account of a rape.

Gould had been controlling access to Hailey and was moving to get sole responsibility for her, Fairfield said. Traynham wanted to sort out custody arrangements that would allow him to spend time with the girl.

Fairfield conceded that Traynham was seen driving a truck around the apartment complex repeatedly that morning, and that he and Gould had a confrontation.

“A better man should have walked away,” she said.

She showed a large picture of Traynham, with a wound on his head, saying that he and Gould had fought and Traynham had been injured.

“Things are not always as they seem,” she said.

She said Gould embellished the story because she likes attention.

“At some point … Sanford police activated the Amber Alert. Gary had every lawful right to take that child,” Fairfield said.

The Amber Alert program is a partnership of law enforcement, broadcasters, transportation agencies and the wireless communications industry to activate an urgent bulletin in the event of a child abduction. Although the national program had been active for seven years at that point, it had never been triggered in Maine.

State officials who issued the alert released descriptions of Traynham, Hailey and the pickup truck that Traynham was driving. The alert went out via television, radio, Internet sites and message boards on the Maine Turnpike.

Throughout Tuesday’s proceedings before Justice G. Arthur Brennan, Traynham sat impassively in a blue suit, occasionally leaning over to ask Fairfield questions.

Assistant District Attorney Brad Chalk introduced evidence including the vodka bottle with blood on its neck, strands of duct tape taken from the apartment floor, the knife, Traynham’s bloodstained shirt and Gould’s torn underwear.

West noted in his presentation that Traynham’s DNA was under Gould’s fingernails, and that she had defensive wounds from trying to fight off her attacker.

Gould is expected to testify later this week. The trial is scheduled to stretch into next week.

 

Staff Writer David Hench can be contacted at 791-6327 or at: dhench@pressherald.com

 

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