Lauren Astley death: Mom sobs in court as jury are shown tragic last images of high school student before she was brutally murdered by her 'psychotic' ex-boyfriend

By Rachel Quigley

PUBLISHED: 08:34 EST, 20 February 2013 | UPDATED: 14:17 EST, 20 February 2013

The mother of the teen who was brutally murdered by her ex-boyfriend and dumped in a swamp sobbed in court yesterday as the jury were shown the tragic last images of the high school student alive.

Surveillance cameras captured Lauren Astley, 18, from Wayland, Massachusetts, leaving her job at Natick Mall and going home carefree at 6.51pm on July 3, 2011. Her mother Mary Dunn cried quietly  in the gallery.

Less than an hour later Lauren had been strangled with a bungee chord and her throat had been slashed, leaving a gaping hole, allegedly at the hands of Nathanial Fujita, now 20.

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Trial: Nathaniel Fujita, right, and defense attorney William Sullivan watch July 3, 2011, security camera video footage of Lauren Astley ascending an escalator at the Natick Mall

Mother: Mary Dunn sobbed quietly in the gallery as the CCTV footage was shown to the court yesterday

Police say Lauren Astley, left, was stabbed, strangled and dumped in a marsh by her ex-boyfriend, Nathaniel Fujita, who was outraged that she had broken up with him

The high school football and track star is on trial for the violent murder, with prosecutors accusing him of attacking Lauren in his garage after he was infuriated that she ended their three-year-long relationship.

The CCTV footage from July 3 also shows Fujita riding the same escalator at the same mall around an hour before at 5.36pm.

The manager of a GNC store, which is about 100 yards from the Store 344 boutique where Astley worked, testified yesterday that Fujita bought weight-lifting supplements at 5:39pm.

Cory Heavey said he was able, when asked by cops the next day, to identify Fujita because the teen used a discount card, according to the Boston Herald.

Carefree: CCTV captured Lauren Astley, 18, from Wayland, Massachusetts, leaving her job at Natick Mall and going home at 6.51pm on July 3, 2011

Accused: The CCTV footage from July 3 also shows Fujita riding the same escalator at the same mall around an hour before at 5.36pm

Police say that, after beating and stabbing the girl, Fujita strangled her and slit her throat.

Cops say the suspect then drove his ex's Jeep to a nearby beach and abandoned it. Using his own car, he brought her dead body to a marsh where he dumped her corpse into the water.

The police officer who interviewed Fujita as the community was frantically searching for the missing girl noticed the suspect was calm and there was 'nothing out of the ordinary' when he spoke to Fujita, who initially denied he had seen his ex-girlfriend that night, bostonherald.com reported.

The suspect's mother, Beth Fujita, also allegedly claimed she and her son 'had been home all night watching movies together,' according to Wayland Police Officer William Smith.

A cyclist passing through a marsh discovered Astley's body after spotting the victim's knees and her clenched fist sticking up out of the water

But Fujita later admitted that she had stopped by the house at about 7:45 p.m. July 3.

Astley broke up with him about three months earlier, on her birthday in April, boston.com reported. They reunited briefly but then separated again.

Before Astley was killed, she had been texting and calling Fujita for a couple of weeks since she was worried about him. He didn't answer many of her calls, but in late June she got in touch with him and they began making arrangements to meet.

They decided to get together on the night of July 3.

Fujita arranged to meet Astley, who had been texting and calling to check up on him, at his house on July 3, and police say he then killed her in the garage

She called him at 6:51pm and he oddly instructed her not to park where she usually did when she stopped by his house. Her told her to instead park on a nearby street, next to a garage. She arrived at 7:05pm and at some point between then and 7:20, she was assaulted and killed.

The woman who discovered Astley's body said in court that she went for a bike ride the next morning on Water Row in Wayland and she couldn't believe it when she saw a pair of human knees sticking up out of the water.

'I thought no, this can’t be, that just happens on TV. You don’t see this in real life,' she said from the witness stand.

But when she got off her bike and took a closer look, 'that’s when I saw a clenched fist sticking out of the water.'

Fujita, 20, is charged with first-degree murder, two charges of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, and one count of assault and battery. If convicted, he faces life in prison without parole.

Fujita's defense attorneys appear to be preparing an insanity defense, and if the defendant is found not guilty because of a lack of criminal responsibility, he would be committed indefinitely.

The trial is expected to take about three weeks.

  VIDEO  Lauren and Fujita captured on surveillance video