LEBANON — Police on Friday apprehended a 29-year-old Bristol, N.H., man who has been identified as the assailant in a stabbing that took place Thursday morning at Colburn Park, as the suspect’s mother went public saying that her son has struggled with his mental health for many years.
Bristol police, following a more than 24-hour search, located Dahlton Fairbank in his hometown of Bristol shortly after noon on Thursday.
He was identified as the unknown male captured on nearby outdoor video camera recordings wearing a gray hoodie fleeing the scene around 9 a.m. Thursday, Lebanon police said in a Friday morning news release.
Officials have not released the victim’s name but Lebanon Police Chief Phil Roberts said the man is “in his 60s” and is an individual known to police.
Roberts described the man’s stab wound as “very serious and life threatening.”
Following his arrest in Bristol, Fairbank was transported to Grafton County House of Corrections in North Haverhill, from where he is expected to be arraigned via video, Roberts said on Friday afternoon.
Fairbank faces multiple felony offenses connected with the stabbing, including first-degree assault, second-degree assault, felon in possession of a dangerous weapon and reckless conduct with a deadly weapon, according to Lebanon police.
After fleeing the scene, Fairbank was later picked up off Interstate 89 southbound and transported by someone whom they did not identify to his Bristol residence, police said.
After obtaining a search warrant, police searched Fairbank’s residence. But he had already fled by foot, according to the Friday morning news release.
Police did not say where in Bristol they had located Fairbank later in the day.
A search for a male assailant began more than 24 hours earlier when police responded to a report — including a 911 call from the victim himself — of a stabbing in the park shortly before 9 a.m. on Thursday.
Police had located a male victim behind the new firehouse under construction on the south side of Colburn Park who had been stabbed in the neck. The Lebanon Fire Department provided medical aid and transported the victim to Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center.
On Thursday, police vehicles and officers were stationed outside the Headrest residence building adjacent to the firehouse where police tape cordoned off a sheltered sitting area, under which appeared to be blood-stained towels. Headrest is a longtime nonprofit that assists people affected by substance use disorders.
Roberts told the Valley News that neither narcotics nor a prior a relationship between the assailant and victim “appears to be a factor” in the incident and “we’re still trying to work out the details as far as a motive.”
On Friday, after police released information about the suspect’s identity, his mother, Amy Fairbank, responded to lynch mob-like reactions against her son on Facebook. She pleaded with people to “ease up please.”
“My son Dahlton has been struggling with mental issues for several years … But this week he expressed he was struggling more and we saw it outwardly and before we could get him the help he needed there was an incident,” Amy Fairbank posted publicly on her Facebook page.
“And we can appreciate that there is another family out there suffering from our son’s mental health, too,” she wrote.
Amy Fairbank, in an interview with the Valley News on Friday afternoon, said that she had dropped her son off to his job at a convenience store “close to where the incident happened” on Thursday morning.
After dropping her son off at his job she then went to her job.
Later “he called me and he said, ‘I’m not feeling well, mom.’ ” Amy Fairbank said she then received another call and was told her son had left work.
When she called Dahlton to ask how he was, Fairbank said her son replied “I’m really sad. I’m not feeling okay. I’m just not okay’ ” and told her he was “walking to work it out. I’ll figure this out.”
Because she was unable to leave work and pick him up, Amy Fairbank asked her mother to pick up her son, who was walking along I-89. She said her mother then drove her son back to his place in Bristol.
Her son did not mention anything about the alleged incident at Colburn Park, Amy Fairbank said.
Later at work on Thursday, Amy Fairbank said that when police released photos of the suspect fleeing, a friend had contacted her with a link to the photos and asked her if that was her son.
“I said, ‘Yes. Why? What’s this from?’ And then she told me,” Amy Fairbank related.
The circumstances that led to Dahlton Fairbank and the stabbing victim allegedly encountering each other are not known.
Amy Fairbank said she is having a hard time dealing with what the accusations against her son, recriminating herself for not being more aware of the signals.
Shortly before police announced that they had located Dahlton Fairbank, his mother said they were fearing for his safety and didn’t know if he “was dead or alive.”
“We love him and want him back safe,” she said.
“I left him not knowing really where his head was at. I was hurried because I was going back to work … He has these episodes …he has been dealing with them for so many years, they’re every day for us. I didn’t know it was the last one we would have before this happened.”
