Lucas Gingras, 28, of Milton is accused of attempting to murder his girlfriend during what police say was a drug-induced incident pleaded not guilty to charges in Vermont Superior Court in Burlington on Wednesday.
Ladonna Merriman tumbled down a more than 60-foot ledge near the cabin where she had been staying with her boyfriend on Georgia Mountain in Milton last week. Merriman and her boyfriend Lucas Gingras had been running from what they thought was a bear.
Landing on her neck and back, Merriman, 44, of Milton later told police that, "I was ready to die."
Though it is unclear exactly how Merriman fell off the ledge — both she and Gingras said she jumped at first, but Merriman later told a family member that Gingras kicked her off the ledge — Merriman told police she was sure Gingras was trying to kill her, according to an affidavit.
Merriman has refused to repeat or expand upon the kicking allegation, but she has continued to tell her family and police that Gingras tried to kill her, Cpl. Paul Locke said in the affidavit. She sustained a broken back, multiple broken ribs, a punctured lung and other scrapes.
Gingras, 28, of Milton appeared in Vermont Superior Court in Burlington Wednesday, still wearing a neck brace from injuries he sustained during the incident. He pleaded not guilty to attempted first-degree murder, first-degree aggravated domestic assault, reckless endangerment and first-degree arson. If convicted, Gingras could face a prison sentence of 35 years to life.
Judge Brian Grearson ordered Gingras held without bail pending a bail review hearing.
Several members of Merriman's family attended the court hearing, but they declined to comment on Merriman's condition.
Merriman told police that a few days before the incident she had told Gingras, her boyfriend of almost three years, that she was leaving him. According to Locke's affidavit, Merriman said the two had gotten into an argument about their relationship while at the cabin, and that she felt like the bear hoax had been set up to kill her "because he thought, 'If I can't have her nobody will.'"
Gingras initially told police that the two had been attacked by a bear on June 18, but police found no evidence of a bear being at the cabin located off of Clay Ridge Road in Milton. Gingras later changed his story, telling police that he had been taking Molly, a potent form of the drug Ecstasy. Without Merriman's knowledge, he slipped some of the drug into her wine cooler, Locke wrote in the affidavit.
Gingras said he believes the Molly drug caused him to hallucinate that a bear was in the vicinity of the cabin, Locke said.
Blood and urine samples taken at Fletcher Allen Health Care after the two were admitted show that Gingras and Merriman also had marijuana and opiates in their blood, but a test was not done for Molly, according to court papers.
Gingras told police he heard scratching at the cabin door on the morning of June 18, and he felt it was a bear trying to get in.
"He explained he used an axe to bust open the fire place and started the cabin on fire to create a distraction for the bear as they ran for the woods," Locke wrote in the affidavit. "As he ran they came upon the cliffs where he slid down a cliff and Ladonna jumped off the cliff landing on her neck and back."
The cabin, valued between $3,000 and $5,000, burned to the ground.
Footprints at the scene showed that Gingras may not have slid down the cliff with Merriman, but possibly walked around the cliff and down a logging road to reach the place Merriman had fallen, Locke said. Locke wrote in the affidavit that he proposed the possibility of Gingras' pushing or bumping Merriman off the cliff, whether intentional or accidental.
"Lucas then stated he didn't remember it happening that way, but '... it could have happened ... I was coming around and thought she was further over, I was in a distraught state of mind,'" Locke wrote in the affidavit.
Locke said the portion of the ledge from which Merriman fell appeared to be the highest point.
Merriman said Gingras dragged her from where she fell to a small stream to wash off, and then to a broken down car where Gingras put her into the driver's seat. There, they met Gingras' cousin Steven Underwood, 29, of Milton, who gave Gingras his gun. Gingras fired the gun within the vehicle into the backseat as if the bear was in the trunk, Merriman told Locke.
Underwood told police there is a history of domestic violence between Gingras and Merriman, and Milton police said they responded to the couple's resident for a domestic dispute in July 2013.
Gingras is a convicted felon for armed robbery with a weapon in Florida in 2008 and is banned from having firearms, according to court papers. Chittenden County court records show that Gingras pleaded no contest to fighting or disorderly conduct in 2006, and a charge of aggravated assault with a weapon that same year was dismissed in 2008.