"Nathaniel Fujita found guilty in Wayland murder" by Evan Allen and Lisa Kocian | Globe Correspondent and Globe Staff, March 08, 2013
WOBURN — Moments after Nathaniel Fujita was convicted of murdering Malcolm Astley’s only child, the bereft father stepped out of the protective circle of his family and friends and walked toward the killer’s parents, who stood silently on the opposite side of the courtroom.
As he opened his arms, they leaned in and wept.
The embrace lasted for less than a minute. Then, Astley turned and walked out, leaving the Fujitas to face their own grief.
The verdict came Thursday after three weeks of testimony in Middlesex Superior Court about the night of July 3, 2011, when Fujita lured his former high school girlfriend, Lauren Astley, to his Wayland home and then beat, strangled, and slashed the 18-year-old to death in his garage.
Judge Peter Lauriat sentenced Fujita, 20, to life in prison without parole after a jury of eight men and four women found him guilty of first-degree murder with premeditation and extreme atrocity.
The verdict was a rejection of the defense’s argument that Fujita was psychotic at the time of the killing and therefore not criminally responsible....
Malcolm Astley, whose compassion in the wake of his daughter’s murder has stunned many, called on Fujita to apologize “deeply and repeatedly” for his crime, and to atone for it by working to end violence against women....
Astley told The Globe last year that he kept in touch with Fujita’s mother after the slaying, until lawyers advised them both to stop communicating....
Astley’s slaying rocked Wayland, a small suburb of about 13,000, and every day of the trial, the courtroom was packed with people....
Forensic psychiatrist Dr. Wade Myers testified for the defense that in the weeks leading up to the killing, Fujita had slipped into a severe depression and was self-medicating with marijuana. Years of head injuries from football had left Fujita with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, which made him vulnerable to a break with reality, Myers said.
I do that last bit every day I read a Globe, but as for the rest of it, I'm offended that they tried to pin this on using pot.
Related: Psychiatrist says Wayland’s Fujita had explosive impulse during killing
Of course, it now seems pretty obvious that FOOTBALL should be BANNED! Not only are the head injuries a problem, but football seems to contain a correlation with violence against women.
After all, more women are beaten on Super Bowl Sunday than any other day. I see a Globe reporter helped get the word out after they were told, too!
But hey, what's another agenda-pushing lie in a paper full of them every day?
But testimony from Fujita’s own family contradicted his defense. His cousin, Caroline Saba, testified that the day before the killing, the two went to the beach together, and Fujita played catch, smoked marijuana, ate ice cream, and went shopping.
Fujita the f***ing liar!
The day after the killing, while police searched his home, Fujita went to Saba’s house in Framingham and chatted with her about their childhood while sitting on her bed. She asked him if police would find anything at his house.
“He said, ‘They’re not gonna find a weapon there, if that’s what you mean,’ ” Saba testified.
Related: Fujita said police won’t find a weapon, cousin says
Police officers described the Fujitas’ blood-spattered garage and the bloody clothing they found hidden in a crawl space in his bedroom; the medical examiner described the many slashes on Astley’s throat made so close together that he did not count them all....
He butchered her.
See: Fujita murder trial tours Wayland crime scenes
Blood stains found at Nathaniel Fujita’s home
And the question must be asked: was he ON ANY STEROIDS?
“We’re disappointed with the verdict,” Fujita’s lawyer, William Sullivan, said at a press conference after the sentencing. “We knew that this was a possibility. We were hopeful that the jury would have been able to grasp and understand the depths of mental illness.”
I know everyone is entitled to a defense, but what a scum lawyer talking down to the jury like that.
Sullivan said his client was overwhelmed, and that it was not clear whether he would apologize, as Malcolm Astley asked....
Because the delusional s*** thought he could waste taxpayer's money and get away with it?
Appeal is automatic in first-degree murder convictions, and Sullivan said he believes he has grounds, though he did not specify them....
And now taxpayers must foot the bill for that. He couldn't have just accepted responsibility and pleaded it out like so many do in our justice system?
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Related: Wrongful Death in Wayland
Nathaniel Fujita’s mother visited victim, witnesses testify
"Wayland teen’s erratic behavior described at murder trial" by Evan Allen | Globe Correspondent, February 14, 2013
WOBURN — Nathaniel Fujita was humiliated when his high school sweetheart broke up with him in the spring of their senior year. He pleaded with her to come back, and when that did not work, he began harassing her, ranting and raving and nearly knocking over a tent in a fit of rage at her graduation party, prosecutors say.
Thanks for spoiling the party, you self-absorbed s***.
On July 3, 2011, Fujita allegedly invited 18-year-old Lauren Astley to his parents’ Wayland home, told her to park her car out of sight, and then strangled her with a bungee cord, slashed her throat, and hit her, prosecutor Lisa McGovern told jurors Wednesday at Fujita’s murder trial in Middlesex Superior Court.
He dumped her body in a wooded marsh and drove home shirtless, windows down and music blaring, to begin cleaning up and establishing an alibi, McGovern said in her opening argument.
“Nathaniel Fujita, a man Lauren Astley had known and cared for, a man she had gone out with in high school for three years, coldly, cruelly killed her because she wounded his ego,” McGovern said. “This defendant attacked Lauren to get her back, to hurt her and to nullify her, in a purposeful and deliberate way, calculated not only to inflict pain, but to end her life and cover up what he was doing.”
But defense lawyer William Sullivan argued that Fujita was in the midst of a brief psychotic episode when he killed Astley.
“In most murder cases, the question is who: Who did it? Who done it?” said Sullivan. “That’s not this case. This case, there’s going to be two questions: why and how. Why, why did this horrific thing happen?”
In the weeks leading up to the killing, said Sullivan, Fujita had stopped going out or talking to anyone.
Turns out that is a lie.
He could barely drag himself out of bed and spent most days alone, smoking marijuana or going to the gym.
Oh, I feel so sorry for him.
A June 15 visit to a psychiatrist indicated that Fujita was suffering a major depressive episode, Sullivan said. Fujita refused treatment.
Methinks the shrink was just trying to drum up some bu$ine$$.
On the night of the killing, Sullivan said, Fujita felt he was acting outside of his body.
“He was dissociated,” the lawyer said. “He wasn’t really able to control what he was doing, didn’t even really know what he was doing.”
Yeah.
Sullivan said schizophrenia runs in the Fujita family, and that Fujita has siblings who suffer from psychiatric problems.
Tired of the lame-ass excuses and finger-pointing already.
Fujita, now 20, showed no emotion during opening statements. Dressed in a black suit and light blue dress shirt, he sat up straight and watched the proceedings without apparent expression.
His parents sat in the front row behind him; Astley’s parents sat on the other side of the aisle. All were silent.
Fujita is charged with first-degree murder, as well as two counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and a single count of assault and battery. If convicted, he faces life in prison without parole.
He's lucky to get that.
Astley and Fujita had dated since their freshman year at Wayland High School. They were a popular couple and seemed destined for great lives. She was looking ahead to attending Elon University in the fall and had already taken part in orientation and picked roommates, said McGovern. Fujita was going to play football at Trinity College.
But as they grew up, their relationship began to unravel. Astley broke up with Fujita on April 1, 2011, her birthday.
He thought it was an April Fool's joke, right?
About three weeks later, he wrote her a long e-mail, asking her to reconcile. McGovern quoted the e-mail in court: “Lauren, I know you’re scared to turn back, and with good reason. But please give it another shot, or we’ll both regret it.”
Cryptic.
And she did, at first. But she quickly realized it was a mistake, said McGovern, and the two broke up for good in May.
Always is.
Fujita was grieving while Astley moved on, McGovern said. At a June 4 graduation party in Wayland, he began harassing Astley, the prosecutor said. Astley’s mother told Fujita that he had to accept that it was over, but Fujita could not stop. He kept harassing Astley, and when he was told again to stay away, he threw his body into a tent pole, almost knocking the structure down.
Still, Astley was concerned for him, said McGovern, especially after his mother came to see her, crying, at her job in the Natick Mall. Astley reached out via text; Fujita barely responded.
On the day Astley died, said McGovern, she had brunch with her father and then went to work at the Natick Mall. Fujita texted her around 12:30 p.m. to find out her hours, and again after 6 p.m. to ask her to call him when she got off work. When she called, he told her to come to his house and not to park her car in her regular spot, but instead down the road.
That shows premeditation right there.
At 7:05 p.m., she texted him, “Here,” said McGovern, the last text message she would send.
The killing, said McGovern, was premeditated and extremely cruel. Astley died slowly. “Her death came in minutes, not in seconds,” she said.
A bird-watcher out looking for blue heron discovered Astley’s body on the morning of July 4, partially submerged next to a rotten tree in a marsh off Water Row.
McGovern said that during the search for Astley, Fujita lied to police about Astley’s whereabouts. He called a cousin to hang out, she said; he hid his bloody clothes. He joined a Facebook group dedicated to finding Astley, McGovern said, and he also Googled the question “Does water erase fingerprints?”
“Lauren Astley’s death was immeasurably tragic,” said McGovern, holding up a picture of Astley smiling for the jury. “But the evidence will show that her death was not a tragedy; it was a crime.”
The trial is expected to take about three weeks.
Astley’s mother and father walked out of court Wednesday looking shaken, surrounded by family and friends.
Both are on the list of potential witnesses.
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"Ex-teacher testifies in Wayland murder trial; Fujita familiar with site where body left, she says" by Lisa Kocian | Globe Staff, February 20, 2013
Nathaniel Fujita had visited an isolated area in Wayland, where his former girlfriend’s body was later found, as part of a project for his environmental science class, according to testimony from his former teacher.
Where they lie to kids about the weather.
In March 2011, Fujita was one of many volunteers who worked on a fence to protect wildlife around Water Row, where Lauren Astley’s body was discovered July 4, 2011, a day after her death.
The new details of the months leading up to Astley’s death came from testimony Tuesday from Emily Norton, who taught both Fujita and Astley in the class at Wayland High School....
Norton described Fujita as an unemotional honors student, who struggled in her class toward the end of the year.
“Nate was very quiet,” said Norton, who has since retired. “He rarely, if ever, volunteered to contribute to discussions. He showed very little emotion. I rarely saw him smile, never saw him frown, laugh. I didn’t see any emotion.”
Those are the ones you have to watch out for.
She said she recalled him smiling twice, once when she moved him to a different seat because she wanted him to pay better attention in class.
“One time was when I moved him to the front of the room, and I saw him smile at Lauren,” Norton testified.
Not knowing the two had been a couple, Norton moved Fujita to the seat next to Astley’s some time in April. (The two had broken up in April and then briefly got back together in May, before splitting again, according to the prosecution’s opening statement.)
The other smile was in May, Norton said, when Fujita came to class with a beach towel around his neck, carrying a beach ball, and wearing sunglasses, as part of a game seniors were playing at the end of the school year.
Norton also said Fujita, an honors student, had started with an A-minus but eventually his grade average for the class fell to an F, and she met with Fujita and his mother, who was worried her son might lose a football scholarship to Trinity College. Fujita then raised his grade to a D....
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Related: Slain teen’s friend testifies
"Uncle says Fujita was upbeat on day of killing" by Evan Allen | Globe Correspondent, February 21, 2013
WOBURN — An hour before, prosecutors say, he killed his former high-school sweetheart, Nathaniel Fujita chatted happily with his uncle about football at a family barbecue in Framingham, according to court testimony Thursday.
But he was so, so depressed and had taken to being alone.
“I said, ‘Gee, you look good; you’re putting on some weight,’” Philip Saba testified in Middlesex Superior Court, where his nephew is facing first-degree murder and other charges.
“‘Listen, Nathaniel,’ I says, ‘I want you to let me know what your schedule is like, because I want to go to some of your games, if you’re playing any games nearby,’ ” Saba recalled. “And he goes, ‘Sure, Uncle Phil, I’ll let you know.’ ”
Fujita left the party about 6 p.m. on July 3, 2011, his uncle said. Just after 7 p.m., according to prosecutors, Fujita beat, strangled, and slashed Lauren Astley to death in his parents’ Wayland garage, then dumped her body in a marsh.
Both were 18 at the time, and had dated in high school, until Astley broke up with Fujita in the spring of their senior year.
Fujita’s lawyer, William Sullivan, asserted in his opening statement that Fujita had fallen into a deep depression after the breakup and was suffering a brief psychotic episode when he killed Astley. Prosecutors say Fujita was simply angry that she broke up with him.
Sure is looking that way.
Saba, who has not yet been cross-examined by Sullivan, is the first of Fujita’s relatives to testify at his trial. Saba said he had met Astley before and called her a “beautiful girl, charming, nice.”
As his uncle identified him from the witness stand, Fujita lowered his head and began crying, wiping his eyes and nose with a tissue.
Save the act, kid.
Saba described his nephew as a shy young man who became more social in his senior year of high school. Fujita had become “very depressed” in spring 2011, said Saba, but the last few times the two saw each other in June and July, Saba testified, he did not notice anything unusual about the way his nephew was acting.
Fujita was at his uncle’s home in the early morning hours of July 5, 2011, when he was arrested and charged with murder. Wayland police Detective Sergeant Jamie Berger testified Thursday that Fujita was asleep in an upstairs bedroom when officers showed up around 2 a.m. When they turned on the lights, Fujita woke up.
“I said: ‘Nathaniel, my name is Jamie Berger. I’m a detective with the Wayland Police Department. You’re under arrest,’ ” said Berger. “I asked him to put his hands behind his back.”
Fujita did not say anything, said Berger, but was compliant and appeared to understand what the officer was saying.
Berger testified that he had gone to the Fujitas’s home in Wayland on July 4, several hours after Astley’s body had been found, but Nathaniel was not there. His father, Tomohisa, was at home, but declined to help police look for his son, Berger testified. Tomohisa Fujita did go back to the station to talk to officers, the detective said, but was picked up after about an hour by Philip Saba and his wife.
Berger served as one of the lead detectives on the Astley case, and was present during several searches, including of the Fujita home in Wayland, the Water Row marsh where Astley’s body was found, and the storm drains near where Astley’s car was found at the town beach.
On July 8, in a search of the Water Row area, police discovered a locket near where Astley’s body had been found, Berger testified. In early August, as police searched the storm drains, they found Astley’s keys, he said, with her Elon University lanyard still attached....
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"Fujita lost temper at party, friend testifies" by Evan Allen | Globe Correspondent, February 25, 2013
WOBURN — Nathaniel Fujita showed up drunk at his former girlfriend Lauren Astley’s joint graduation party on June 4, 2011, and followed her around begging to talk. When Astley refused, Fujita angrily shoved a tent pole so hard that the tent nearly collapsed, Astley’s best friend testified Monday.
That always wins women over.
Less than a month later, Astley was dead.
Fujita, now 20, is on trial in Middlesex Superior Court on first-degree murder and other charges in Astley’s slaying on July 3, 2011, not long after both graduated from Wayland High School. Prosecutors say he was furious and humiliated when Astley broke up with him; Fujita’s defense lawyer says he was suffering a brief psychotic episode.
Astley’s best friend Hannah Blahut, 19, testified that between 150 and 200 people came to the backyard party that she, Astley, and another friend hosted at Blahut’s Wayland home. They had rented a large tent, with a hardwood floor, lights, balloons, and music, she said.
Fujita arrived at the party drunk with a group of male friends and at one point began following Astley, saying: “Can we just talk? Can you just listen to me?”
Blahut said, “I saw Lauren pick up her hands and push them at her sides, as if she was saying, ‘Just stay away from me.’ ”
Fujita looked angry, Blahut said.
“His eyes squinted up, and . . . so did his face,” she said. “Then he walked up to one of the poles holding up the tent, grabbed his fist, and shoved it in. The entire tent started to shake as if it was going to fall down, and about 100 people at the party grabbed the tent and tried to hold it up.”
Blahut told Fujita to take a walk and settle down, she said, but he spoke harshly to her and stayed under the tent. About 20 minutes later, Blahut said, after Fujita had a couple more conversations with her and others, his mother arrived to take him home.
That never really works. Just gives the guy time to stew some more.
Before Blahut testified about that night, Judge Peter Lauriat told the jury that Fujita’s behavior at the party could only be used to illuminate the relationship between Fujita and Astley before her death and could not be considered proof of bad character or evidence of a crime. Defense lawyer William Sullivan objected several times to Blahut’s description of events.
It was Blahut’s second day of testimony.
Before the trial began, Sullivan attempted to block testimony about the June 4 party, calling it prejudicial, according to court documents.
The judge did, at Sullivan’s request, bar testimony about a 2009 incident when Fujita allegedly became enraged over a kiss Astley shared with another boy at a birthday party, while Astley and Fujita were on a break from their relationship.
This guy is exhibiting the EXACT SAME JEALOUSY COMMON in batterers.
According to court documents, Fujita allegedly tried to punch the boy, was kicked out of the party, and continued to yell, saying he wanted to kill the boy, slit his throat, and smash his head on a rock.
And this WAS NOT ALLOWED? Seems like a PATTERN of BEHAVIOR to me!
Fujita is accused of luring Astley to his Wayland home on July 3, 2011, telling her to park her car out of sight and then beating, strangling, and slashing her to death before dumping her body in a marsh.
Astley and Fujita hung out with the same tight group of friends; Blahut was one of two of those friends to testify Monday. Both said that there was nothing unusual about Fujita’s behavior in the months and weeks leading up to Astley’s slaying.
But he was depressed, alone, smoking dope, etc, etc.
Conor Murphy, 19, was close with Fujita, and they, along with three other young men, referred to themselves as “the buddies.” But in Fujita’s senior year, said Murphy, the group became “fed up” with Fujita. It was a personality issue, Murphy said.
“He was our friend, but he was definitely more of a fifth wheel,” said Murphy.
I guess you would want to disown him at this point.
The group began using a social media app that excluded Fujita from their conversations, said Murphy, and sometimes hung out without him. When prosecutor Lisa McGovern asked why they began excluding Fujita, Sullivan objected.
Sullivan has argued that Fujita sank into a deep depression in the spring and summer of his senior year and that he stopped seeing friends at all.
Looking more and more like that was lie!!!!!!!!!!
At one point in mid- to late June, Murphy testified, “the Buddies” did ask Fujita to go fishing. Fujita was the same as he always was, Murphy said.
“It seemed like a normal night,” he said. It was the last time Murphy saw Fujita before Astley’s death.
Several times during Fujita’s trial, Sullivan has brought up the fact that Fujita suffered a head injury playing football. On Monday, McGovern asked Murphy if Fujita ever complained about headaches or head trauma. Murphy said no, but on cross-examination said he was aware of a head injury Fujita suffered when he spit up blood and was hospitalized.
Sullivan declined to comment on whether the head injury would play any role in his client’s defense.
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Related: Friend describes frantic search for Wayland teen
"Mother of Wayland victim describes a disturbing scene" by Evan Allen | Globe Correspondent, February 28, 2013
WOBURN — Twice Mary Dunne’s daughter, Lauren Astley, came to her crying at the graduation party: her former boyfriend, Nathaniel Fujita, would not leave her alone.
At first, Dunne tried a warning.
“I told Nathaniel that he needed to settle down,’’ Dunne said Thursday in Middlesex Superior Court. “He and Lauren were no longer dating. That this was her graduation party, and she deserved to enjoy herself. I told him if there were any more complaints, I would be asking him to leave the party.”
But her daughter returned, crying again, Dunne said, so she called Fujita’s mother to come pick him up. She told Fujita she wanted him to leave, and it was the last time they spoke.
Fujita, now 20, is accused of beating, strangling, and slashing Astley to death on July 3, 2011, a month after the two graduated from Wayland High School. Prosecutors say he was angry that she broke up with him; his lawyer says Fujita was suffering a brief psychotic episode.
Dunne was the final witness for the prosecution, which rested its case Thursday morning. Defense lawyer William Sullivan called as his first witness Fujita’s aunt, Joyce Saba, who testified that mental illness runs in Fujita’s family.
Throughout Dunne’s testimony, Fujita sat doubled over, his head down on the desk in front of him.
Dunne described her daughter as a singer from the time she was a little girl, first in a church choir at the age of 4 and later in an all-female a capella group.
Astley was on the varsity tennis team, played the French horn, was active in church, and took three trips to New Orleans to help rebuild after Hurricane Katrina. She had a tight group of friends, whom she saw often.
“She lived with her father in Wayland and me in Weston and spent a great deal of time at the homes of her friends,” Dunne said. “Lauren had a lot of adoptive families.”
Dunne did not know that her daughter had briefly gotten back together with Fujita before breaking up for good during their senior year, she testified.
“She wouldn’t have wanted me to know that,” Dunne said.
As Dunne spoke, Astley’s senior portrait smiled at her from the screen in the courtroom. Dunne’s voice was raw and her whole body shook as she identified her daughter: “This is my only child, Lauren Astley.”
The last time Dunne saw Astley alive, she said, was the day before her death.
“I saw her at the mall on July 2,” she said, her voice tight. “We had a small meal together, and then I walked her back to her job.”
When Astley died, Dunne said, she was just 5 feet tall and weighed less than 100 pounds.
Dunne looked at Fujita only once, to identify him for the record. When she stepped down, lawyers from both sides spoke quietly with the judge at sidebar, and Fujita sobbed loudly in an otherwise silent courtroom.
Self-pity sucks, s***ter!!!!!!!
Fujita’s aunt testified that her nephew suffered depression in the spring and summer 2011 and that it worsened in the weeks leading up to the killing. She said she told family members to try to buck him up by inviting him out.
Sure did a good job of hiding it.
“Nathaniel was withdrawn and seemed depressed,” Saba said. “There was an extreme change in his behavior” between the summers of 2010 and 2011.
Flying in the face of previous testimony.
Until 2011, she testified, she would have described Fujita as “sweet, honest, athletic, quiet.” But during the spring of his senior year, he stopped going out with friends and being social.
Or they stopped wanting to see him.
Two of Fujita’s great uncles, Saba said, suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. One uncle, who Saba said had been a police officer, believed that the CIA was listening to him through the television.
I sometimes wonder if there is a camera in there given the level of spying in this country right now. I mean, they have even made television shows about it.
Fujita’s younger sister was hospitalized for eight days in a child psychiatric unit in 2010, Saba testified.
On cross-examination by prosecutor Lisa McGovern, Saba said that although Fujita did not do much during the day in the weeks leading up to the killing, he went to the gym regularly and held a landscaping job.
Did his employer know he was stoned all the time?
Sullivan also cross-examined the state’s chief medical examiner, who conducted the autopsy on Astley’s body. On Wednesday, Henry Nields testified that Lauren was killed by a combination of strangulation and incised wounds to her neck. Her death probably took minutes, Nields said Wednesday, and it is likely she was not immediately incapacitated.
Oh, God, she was aware of what was happening. I can't imagine the horror.
On cross-examination, Nields said he found no defensive wounds on Astley’s hands. He testified that there was no way to determine medically whether Astley regained consciousness after being strangled.
Fujita faces charges of first-degree murder, two counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, and one count of assault and battery.
Judge Peter Lauriat told the jury Thursday that evidence in the case is likely to close Friday or Monday.
Already closed in my mind.
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"Deliberations start in Wayland slaying; Verdict turns on man’s mental state" by Evan Allen | Globe Correspondent, March 05, 2013
WOBURN — Nobody says he did not kill her: The question before jurors is whether Nathaniel Fujita was sane when he beat, strangled, and slashed to death his former high school sweetheart, 18-year-old Lauren Astley, on July 3, 2011.
After nearly three weeks of testimony, the jury began deliberations in Middlesex Superior Court late Tuesday afternoon, following closing arguments delivered to a packed courtroom.
Fujita’s lawyer says his client was depressed and psychotic when he killed Astley; prosecutors say he was enraged.
“I understand that this is a difficult case for all of you, because of the senselessness of this, the enormity of the tragedy. And because of that, every fiber of you, of your being, probably says somebody must be convicted for this. For what happened to Lauren Astley. Somebody must pay,” defense attorney William Sullivan, who argued first, told the jury.
Yeah, like the guy who did it that is not in dispute.
“Well, ladies and gentlemen, you swore an oath . . . that you would not let those feelings get in the way.”
The only correct verdict, Sullivan said, is to find Fujita, now 20, not criminally responsible because of mental illness.
Prosecutor Lisa McGovern said Fujita’s actions that night were those of a man acting deliberately, with premeditation and extreme cruelty.
“He was as sane in the early evening hours of Sunday, July 3, 2011, when he killed Lauren Astley, as he was at just about the same time of the evening the night before killing Lauren Astley, on Saturday, July 2, when he was eating ice cream in Mashpee,” said McGovern.
The ice cream didn't cheer him up?
At one point, McGovern dropped to her knees, the bungee cord allegedly used to strangle Astley wrapped around her own throat, and asked the jury to consider the scratches on Astley’s knees and the cuts on her neck.
“Consider Dr. [Henry] Nields’s testimony,” she told the jury, referring to the medical examiner who pointed out each of Astley’s individual wounds. As she spoke, she touched her own neck. “His words: ‘And here, and here, and here, and here, and here.’ . . . Was she struggling to survive?”
Before jurors began deliberating, Judge Peter Lauriat told them they could consider several verdicts. Fujita is charged with first-degree murder, which carries a sentence of life in prison without parole.
However, if jurors do not believe he acted with premeditation or with extreme atrocity or cruelty, they could find him guilty of second-degree murder, which carries a sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole after 15 years.
Jurors could also find Fujita not guilty because of a lack of criminal responsibility. In that event, said Lauriat, the court could order him hospitalized at a mental health facility for 40 days for observation. The district attorney or other authorities could petition to have him committed to a mental health facility.
If the court concludes that Fujita is mentally ill, he could be committed for six months; every subsequent 12 months, said Lauriat, the commitment order would be reviewed.
Or, the judge said, Fujita could simply be found not guilty....
Fujita appeared calm as he watched closing arguments; McGovern turned and pointed at him often as she described the crime and his culpability; he appeared to meet her gaze.
The courtroom was so full of spectators that another courtroom had to be opened to accommodate the overflow.
Sullivan told jurors to remember testimony about Fujita’s depression in the weeks leading up to the killing. He was diagnosed with symptoms of a major depressive episode on June 15; he had withdrawn from his family and friends; he was having trouble sleeping; and he was smoking marijuana every day, his lawyer said.
And he was prone to explosive outbursts, said Sullivan, because of years of football injuries that left him with chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
That does do it. Football needs to be banned.
Fujita was not stalking Astley, he said. in fact, Fujita was not even returning her text messages. On the day of the killing, he showed no signs of rage.
I guess the spin never stops.
“The Commonwealth says this is a well-planned-out case,” said Sullivan. “That is absurd. That is absurd.”
Then why did he ask her to park down the street?
But McGovern said Fujita’s crime showed foresight and cover-up.
Fujita changed and hid his clothes, got rid of his weapons, dumped Astley’s car at the town beach and her body in a marsh more than 5 miles away, said McGovern. Police never found the knife he used.
So where is it, kid?
Hours after the slaying, she said, he searched on his computer, seeking to know whether water erases fingerprints, and he joined a Facebook page dedicated to finding Astley.
Before and after the crime, she said, his family said he was acting normally.
Even as he was high, depressed, and lonely.
“There is no psychosis fairy who magically sprinkles a dose of psychosis on this defendant,” she said.
“It’s not a mystery,’’ said McGovern. “And the evidence now before you powerfully demonstrates the only person responsible for this crime is seated right here.”
She pointed at Fujita and said, “The time for blaming football, the time for blaming marijuana, the time for blaming the victim is over.”
Just like that beautiful little girl's life.
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"No verdict yet in Wayland murder trial" by Evan Allen | Globe Correspondent, March 07, 2013
A jury will continue deliberating murder charges against Nathaniel Fujita of Wayland, after the panel of eight men and four women was unable to reach a verdict Wednesday in Middlesex Superior Court. Fujita, 20, is accused of beating, strangling, and slashing to death his former high school sweetheart Lauren Astley on July 3, 2011, and then dumping her body in a marsh. Fujita’s defense attorney has argued that his client was psychotic at the time of the killing. Prosecutors are seeking a first-degree murder conviction, which carries a life sentence without parole, but the jury is also allowed to consider a second-degree charge, which carries a life sentence with the possibility of parole after 15 years. If Fujita is found not guilty because of a lack of criminal responsibility, he could be evaluated or committed at a mental health hospital. Fujita’s trial lasted about three weeks; Wednesday was the first full day of deliberations."
You have one now.
NEXT DAY UPDATE:
"Slain teen’s parents talk about dating violence" by Lisa Kocian | Globe Staff, March 09, 2013
Looking back there were signs, but they were deceptively subtle. Her friends didn’t like him, he rarely came to her house, he couldn’t seem to let her go.
One day after seeing Nathaniel Fujita convicted of murdering his former girlfriend — her only daughter, Lauren Astley — Mary Dunne reflected on the ways parents can prevent tragedies like the one she is enduring.
She wants other parents to benefit from what she has learned so painfully about teen dating violence.
“I think it’s really important to pay attention to the way your child’s friends feel about their boyfriend. They did not like Lauren’s boyfriend, and I wish I had read more into that,” Dunne said in an interview with the Globe on Friday....
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