NORTH HAVERHILL — A Bristol, N.H., man has been sentenced to 5 to 10 years in prison in connection with stabbing in Colburn Park last July.
Last week, Dahlton Fairbank, 29, pleaded guilty to a charge of first-degree assault and to being a felon in possession of a dangerous weapon as part of a negotiated plea agreement approved by Grafton Superior Court Judge Rudolph Ogden III.
On the first-degree assault charge, Fairbank was sentenced to 5 to 10 years in New Hampshire State Prison, Lebanon Police stated in a news release. He received a suspended sentence of 3.5 to 7 years for the felon in possession of a dangerous weapon charge.
Attempts to reach Fairbank’s defense attorney Renee Sargent and Grafton County Attorney Antonia Barry, prosecutor in the case, were not immediately successful on Tuesday.
The charges included in the plea agreement were reduced from those Fairbank was indicted on in October. He initially faced six felony charges, including two counts of first-degree assault, felon in possession of a dangerous weapon, reckless conduct with a deadly weapon, second-degree assault and second-degree assault with a deadly weapon.
Fairbank stabbed Lebanon resident Jefry Morgan, 66, in the neck on the morning of July 31 in Colburn Park.
Morgan was transported to Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center after sustaining a stab wound described by police as “life threatening,” the Valley News reported in August.
In an interview on Tuesday, Morgan said he is doing his best to move on from the incident.
“I’ll never put it away completely,” Morgan said in a brief phone interview. “But thank God I’m healthy enough at my age and strong enough that I survived.”
On the morning of the stabbing, Fairbank’s employer — the Evans Expressmart at Exit 16 on Interstate 89 in Enfield — contacted his mother, Amy Fairbank, to let her know that her son had left without notice, according to the affidavit.
Fairbank later called his mother and told her he was walking along the interstate and wanted to be picked up. The police affidavit in the case stated that relatives, unaware of the incident in Colburn Park, picked Dahlton Fairbank up near Exit 17 on I-89 and drove him back home to Bristol.
The family members later told police that Dahlton Fairbank was being “paranoid, looking around and (was) ‘bug-eyed’” and had a “skinned knee.”
According to the affidavit, Amy Fairbank told police she learned her son might have been involved in the stabbing when a supervisor from his employer sent her a police news release about the incident. She agreed that the photo of a suspect circulated by police looked like her son and subsequently called Bristol police seeking a welfare check on her son.
Authorities commenced a search around Bristol and located Fairbank more than 24 hours after Morgan was stabbed. Since his arrest, Fairbank had been held at the Grafton County Department of Corrections in North Haverhill.
Following his arrest, Amy Fairbank pleaded in a social media post for people to “ease up please.”
“My son Dahlton has been struggling with mental issues for several years,” she wrote on Aug. 1. “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.”
Court records show he had been convicted in 2017 in Grafton Superior Court on a felony drug charge.
Efforts to reach Amy Fairbank on Tuesday were not immediately successful.
According to the affidavit in support of the charges against Fairbank, Amy Fairbank told police that her son suffers from a “delusional disorder,” which may have been exacerbated by use of the herbal supplement, kratom.
Kratom, according to medical professionals, can trigger psychotic episodes and paranoia, the Valley News reported in August.
Morgan said he continues to struggle with physical and mental trauma from the attack, but he disagreed with the judge’s decision to send his assailant to prison.
“He doesn’t belong in prison,” Morgan said. “He belongs in a place where he can get some help.”