(NECN: Ally Donnelly) - It was another emotional day of testimony in the murder trial of Nathaniel Fujita. He's the Massachusetts man accused of killing his ex-girlfriend back in 2011.
“In your opinion she was strangled and slashed?”
“Yes,” answered Dr. Nieders.
Lauren Astley's mother sat in quiet anguish, her face contorted as the state's medical examiner testified that her daughter likely survived several minutes, bleeding out after Nate Fujita allegedly strangled and eventually slashed the 18-year-old to death in his Wayland garage in the summer of 2011.
“Do you have an opinion as to the amount of pain associated with these injuries?”
Nate Fujita's defense attorney objected, so Dr. Nieders didn't answer, but he didn't have to. The question hung in the Middlesex Country courtroom, the emotion palpable. Twenty-year-old Fujita, on trial for Astley's murder, slouched over his hands and cried.
It was a day of painful, detailed testimony of crime scene analysts and scientists in this third week of trial, but 20-year-old Ariel Chates evoked no-less-difficult images for Astley's parents. Chates was Astley's best friend and recalled a teenage girl on the cusp of her life the summer before college.
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“It was happy, she was her normal, perky self.”
Chates detailed the last time she saw her friend. It was July 3. The girls had even arranged to meet on their lunch breaks in the mall where they both worked. And over frozen yogurt, they planned their night: a party and then sleepover. Chates later got a text from Astley at home. She replied, but Astley didn't answer. Chates called. Nothing. She called all their friends and then, in desperation, her ex-boyfriend Nate Fujita.
“I said, ‘Hi Nate. I know this is a bit of a long shot, but I was wondering if you had heard or seen Lauren’ and he said, 'no, this is the last place she would ever be.' And he said, ‘I was actually in the middle of watching a movie and you interrupted me and so I have to go.’”
“What was his tone of voice in that conversation you just related?”
“Normal. Rude, but normal.”
Chates went on to describe friends finding Astley's car at the town beach and the teen's father rushing to the scene.
“Malcom ran into the water with a flashlight.”
“And what was he looking for?”
“Lauren.”
Fujita has admitted to killing Astley and dumping her body in a marshy area in Wayland. His defense attorney insists he was depressed over their break up and suffered a psychotic break.
