Three months after threatening to kill an eight-year-old girl during a White Street burglary, 26-year-old Nathan Whittier has been indicted, facing 10 years in prison for the crime.
A secret Essex County grand jury proceeding last week indicted the Warren Street man on a single felony count of unarmed burglary and assault, District Attorney Jonathan W. Blodgett’s spokeswoman Carrie Kimball told WHAV. He’ll be arraigned in Salem Superior Court in June, making the possible penalties for his crime much more severe than if his case continued at the district level.
The punishment for unarmed burglary and assault “shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for life or for any term of not less than 10 years,” Kimball said.
As WHAV first reported in February, Haverhill Police sought the public’s assistance to identify the masked man later determined to be Whittier after he entered the home through an unlocked first floor window just after 5 a.m. on Feb. 3.
Court documents obtained exclusively by WHAV revealed Whittier left the little girl quite shaken. The girl told responding Officer Jordan Bergevine that Whittier asked, “’Do you want to die?’ while (he) put his hands around her mouth and nose. She stated he was wearing a baseball hat, a ski mask and a ‘flower’ bandana.”
In addition to the burglary indictment, Whittier was also indicted last week on 25 counts of breaking and entering in the nighttime for a rash of car break-ins in Haverhill’s Mount Washington neighborhood.
Court documents from last spring say Whittier engaged in an activity police call “car fishing” when he allegedly swiped items including jewelry, a firearm and ammunition, loose change, and even a birthday card from cars during a two-day spree in March.