Parents Tell of Graciousness, Activism in Face of Daughter's Murder

"Extraordinary grace."

Such were the words Katie Couric used to introduce two of the guests on Monday's episode of "Katie." Those two guests were Mary Dunne of Weston and Malcolm Astley of Wayland, parents of Lauren Astley, the Wayland teenager killed in July 2011 by her ex-boyfriend and Wayland High School classmate Nathaniel Fujita.

"If you were her parents and she was your only child, how could you possibly go on?" Couric asked. "But they have managed to and with extraordinary grace."

Couric then went on to briefly describe the circumstances of Astley's murder, Fujita's arrest and then his conviction of first-degree murder just weeks ago in Courtroom 530 at Middlsex Superior Court. 

Couric focused in on the day of the verdict, March 7, 2013, when, just moments after the jury announced its verdict, one that carries a mandatory sentence of life without parole, Malcolm Astley "stunned the courtroom," Couric said, when he crossed the aisle to hug Fujita's parents, Tomo and Beth Fujita.

"Perhaps one step closer to finding forgiveness in the midst of unimaginable heartbreak," Couric said.

On the stage of the "Katie" set, Astley and Dunne sat side by side on a cream-colored sofa as Couric offered her condolences for the loss of their "darling daughter."

"She was something of a firecracker," Dunne said. "She had many interests and many passions, one of which was New York City, so when we come here ... we can both feel her, I think."

"You wake up in the morning as if it were a dream and then face it again," Astley added.

Couric questioned Astley on his reasons for wanting to embrace the parents of the man who killed his only daughter, and Astley replied that the situation was "more than that."

"His parents and we had spent a great deal of time looking after these two growing children," Astley explained. "We stayed in touch to try and make sure that they were being looked after each night depending on whose house they were in or where they were. When they went through the ups and downs of relationships, we consulted together about how to best support them. We were raising them together. And the pain of losing both of them was something I wanted to share with them."

Astley revealed that in the moment he hugged Tomo and Beth Fujita, they simply repeated, "Sorry, sorry, sorry."

Dunne told Couric that she, like the jury in his trial, didn't see signs of mental illness in Fujita, but looking back now she can see "very subtle stuff."

"It's not one thing or another thing," Dunne said. "What I've thought about since are the fact that Lauren's friends didn't like Nate, and I should have paid more attention to that fact."

She added that her daughter's multiple attempts to break it off with Fujita "didn't go anywhere" and had simply resulted in a "renegotiated truce."

"And I now think that he wasn't allowing her to break up with him or somehow keeping her in his clutches," Dunne said.

Dunne added that that she thinks Fujita tried to isolate her daughter by spending the bulk of their time together at his house, that he was difficult to engage and seemed be a distant and shy teenager when he did spend time around Dunne.

"In retrospect, those are the very subtle signs that I would encourage people to delve a little deeper into if they were at all worried aobut their child," Dunne said. "So we're talking about really, really soft signs that are not easy to see and not easy to address with a teenager."

Astley told Couric that dating violence is a "close cousin" of bullying and that society has done work in the past to address difficult issues of violence involving children.

"Provide some tools around the power and pain of breakups," Astley recommended. "That help kids get perspective on it before it happens."

He said that schools have to address the topic of healthy and unhealthy relationships.

"None of the other stuff matters if relationships aren't solid," Astley said. "Kids need time in school, every grade level, focusing on that issue. Healthy relationships, dangerous signs in relationships, how to have effective relationships and I think particularly around breakups where I think some of the greatest pains happen in human beings."

Dunne said that the chief goals of the Lauren Dunne Astley Memorial Fund are preventing dating violence first, but also supporting arts and community service opportunities for students, primarily in Wayland, but as far-reaching as possible.

Photos from the episode are available on KatieCouric.com, and the full segment is available here.