HARTFORD — After evading police for two months following an alleged eye-gouging attack, a 36-year-old woman pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges of maiming and aggravated assault.
Megan Naylor was arraigned in Windham Superior Court, where Judge Heather Gray decided to hold her without bail because maiming can carry a life sentence.
On Aug. 10, Hartford police responded to a report of a fight between two women, which had resulted in an eye injury, near the town hall on Bridge Street, Officer Bryce Moody wrote in an affidavit.
Moody spoke with a 45-year-old woman who accused Naylor of poking her eyeball out of its socket, and his affidavit reported that her eye was visibly hanging out of its socket by her cheek and bleeding.
The alleged victim said that while the two were arguing about a phone, Naylor pulled her hair, punched her and ripped off her necklace.
Then, Moody wrote, Naylor stuck her finger into the woman’s eye socket and bent it around the backside of her eye before pulling it outward, which the woman described as an intentional act, causing her to experience the highest level of pain on a 10-point scale.
While the woman’s current condition is unclear, she was unable to open her left eye on her own while admitted at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, the affidavit stated.
While Moody accompanied the injured woman to the hospital, Lebanon police located Naylor walking on Main Street that evening after crossing state lines. Naylor claimed a male had hit her and she was “displaying signs of mental health issues,” based on information from the responding officer.
Hartford police then responded and interviewed Naylor on the street, Lebanon Police Chief Phil Roberts confirmed in August. They told her that Vermont would issue an arrest warrant.
“Lebanon police did not have the authority to arrest Naylor at that time,” Roberts said, and an appropriate warrant to do so was not in effect for the alleged offense.
The court ordered an extraditable warrant on Aug. 11.
On Oct. 7, New Hampshire State Office Complex Police arrested Naylor in Concord, according to a Wednesday Hartford police news release. The state police public information officer did not respond by deadline to a Friday inquiry regarding the circumstances of her arrest.
Once the arresting state of New Hampshire verified that the receiving state of Vermont was still willing to extradite, Naylor had the right to contest extradition and be heard by a judge in the state where she was arrested or to waive extradition, according to Lt. Will Furnari of the Hartford police community outreach division.
Hartford police then transported Naylor from the Merrimack County Jail back to Vermont, and she returned Oct. 21, Furnari said.
In court, Windsor County prosecutor Emily Zukauskas requested that Naylor be held without bail, but Naylor’s public defender, Adam Hescock, encouraged a release with conditions.
Hescock indicated that Naylor believes she has a place to live locally with family and asked the court to consider releasing her with potentially strict conditions, such as a curfew.
Zukauskas said she believes the state can demonstrate that the weight of the evidence against Naylor is great, particularly considering what Moody observed as the victim’s condition at the scene. Further, maiming is a life offense, Zukauskas said, so the default is to hold Naylor without bail.
“This was extremely serious, maiming and assault. The defendant’s criminal history is also quite substantial,” Zukauskas said.
Naylor has faced more than a dozen previous cases in New Hampshire and Vermont. She was convicted of two simple assault misdemeanors in 2022 and in 2026 in New Hampshire. Another simple assault case in New Hampshire remains active — she was arrested in July — and one simple assault case was dismissed by the state of Vermont, according to court records.
Zukauskas said Naylor has seven prior failures to appear in court. Hescock noted she’s had no convictions in Vermont.
The burden was on the defense to demonstrate an extraordinary circumstance warranting Naylor’s release, which Judge Gray specified had not been done. Gray also applied the condition that Naylor must not knowingly initiate or maintain contact with the victim by any means, in jail or upon release.
Naylor’s charge of maiming — defined as malicious intent to maim or disfigure the victim by pulling out or destroying her eye — comes with a possible life sentence or a minimum of seven years in prison. Her second felony charge — aggravated assault, purposefully causing serious bodily injury — could mean up to 15 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
Neither Zukauskas nor Hescock responded by deadline to Friday phone messages.
An evidence hearing is the next step in Naylor’s case. It had not been scheduled on the court calendar as of Friday.
