Linda Stein Murder Trial Continues

Earlier this week Natavia Lowery's trial began—the former personal assistant of Linda Stein was charged with second-degree murder after her boss was found dead in her Upper East Side apartment in 2007.

The first witness to take the stand was Stein's daughter Mandy, and yesterday her other daughter Samantha Wells testified. The NY Times reports that the defense subjected her to intense questioning about her financial situation and her mother’s alcohol abuse—but they were prohibited from asking for specific names of people both daughters had investigated after the murder (allegedly one included Wells's husband). The defense has consistently been trying to prove others had motives to kill the real estate mogul.

However, it remains that Lowery's motive (she has admitted to $30,000 from Stein) is still at the forefront of the trial. Stein's friend Mark Benecke (who she had known since he was a doorman at Studio 54) also testified yesterday saying he was at her apartment the night before she was killed, when Stein asked him, "Mark, what would you say if you thought that someone was stealing from you and not doing right by you?’"

The prosecution’s contention has been that Stein confronted Lowery the following day, which escalated into a fatal fight. When Benecke and others tried to call Stein that afternoon, Lowery would say she stepped out for a walk. However, at the start of the trial surveillance footage (watch after the jump) showed that Stein never left the building, and Lowery was in and out—at one point with Stein's purse—presumably covering her tracks. Meanwhile, with her alleged victim being "the realtor to the stars," the Daily News looks at Lowery's obsession with the famous... or at least, with meeting Denzel Washington.