WOBURN — When Lauren Astley stopped returning text messages on the night of July 3, 2011, her best friend Ariel Chates began to worry. A flurry of texts to their group of friends turned up nothing. So at around 8 p.m., Chates called Astley’s ex-boyfriend, Nathaniel Fujita, at his home.
“I said, ‘Hi, Nate, I know that this is a bit of a long shot, but I was wondering if you had heard or seen Lauren?’” Chates, 20, testified Wednesday in Middlesex Superior Court. “And he said, ‘No, this is the last place she’d ever be.’ ”
Comments
Is he denying he killed her? Then why all this superfluous testimony? None of it so far has lessened his culpability, but show him to be a cold-hearted s.o.b. Sentence him already!
There is more than one reason for a trial, constitutional rights apart. Part of this, as painful as it might be for the woman's family and friends now, is to show beyond doubt what happened. Sending them away with doubt that would fester for years would do none of those survivors a service.