LISNews: Librarian News

ROCKLAND, Maine — Although she said she never cried that day, a prison librarian who was tied to her desk for seven hours, threatened, cut and hit by an inmate on June 30, 2008, said Tuesday during court testimony that she was just happy to have survived.

“I’m grateful to be alive, and I appreciate every breath. I was back into the facility in 48 hours,” Jacqueline Weddle said during the second day of the trial against inmate Michael Chasse.

“I thought that I would at some point die,” she told jurors in Knox County Superior Court.

Chasse is charged with several counts of assault, kidnapping and terrorizing for allegedly holding Weddle and fellow inmate Ryan Currier hostage in an office at the Maine State Prison library.

Weddle was the first witness called Tuesday in the trial that is expected to last more than a week.