PARIS — Six witnesses took the stand in Oxford County Superior Court on Tuesday in the murder trial of Agostino Samson of Windham.

In his opening remarks, Assistant Attorney General Andrew Benson accused Samson, 23, of bludgeoning Raymond landscaper Scott Libby, 25, with a cast-iron skillet in the early-morning hours of Feb. 20 in Bethel. Benson suggested that Samson was in Libby’s car with him and committed the murder on Westwood Road, a short distance from the Bethel Hostel where Samson was staying at the time.

Benson suggested that Samson took a watch and bracelet Libby had been holding as collateral for a loan, and left a bloody fingerprint on the exterior door handle of the Bethel Hostel after touching a speck of Libby’s blood on the watch. Benson said police found scrapes and scratches on Samson’s hands and an alcohol swab that tested positive for both Samson’s and Libby’s DNA.

Benson said Samson left Libby’s body in his car on the railroad tracks near the Barker Road crossing in an attempt to destroy evidence and walked back to the hostel, disposing of a bloody jacket and a skillet fragment along the way. He said he did not know why Samson may have committed the murder but the state is not required to prove a motive.

“We may never know the exact, precise reason that motivated Mr. Samson to do what he did,” Benson said.

Defense attorney Maurice Porter said police had not found Samson’s DNA in the car or on a skillet handle found in the vehicle. He said police also never found evidence between Barker Road and the hostel, and that the handle did not come from the hostel or the restaurant where Samson worked as a cook.

Porter said Samson had complied with investigators, allowing a DNA swab and a search of his room and phone records. He suggested Libby may have been killed on the tracks, possibly by more than one person, and that police did not investigate other guests at the hostel or pursue Libby’s connections in the Boston area aside from five to six phone calls.

“This was a case where the police focused on one person, despite the fact that there were other leads,” Porter said.

Michael Jerry of Raymond and Jarrod Byrd of Gorham, N.H., testified that they were the respective engineer and conductor aboard the westbound freight train that struck Libby’s 2007 Chevrolet Cobalt. Jerry said the collision collapsed the car’s trunk and shattered the rear window. He likened the damage to what would happen in a minor rear-end accident. He said the speed limit for trains on the section of track is 25 mph.

Byrd said he saw footprints from the car before the collision, leading from the passenger side and possibly the driver’s side. Both men testified that the interior of the vehicle was covered with blood, but they denied getting blood on themselves when questioned by Porter.

Dr. Marguerite DeWitt, the state’s deputy chief medical examiner, said she concluded that Libby died of multiple traumatic injuries to his head and neck. Libby had six lacerations from blunt force trauma on his head and one skull fracture, as well as fractures in his neck.

DeWitt said Libby had defensive wounds on his hands, small hemorrhages in his eyes and marks on his neck that suggested he may have been strangled. She said she determined that none of the injuries was caused by the train hitting the car.

Under questioning by Porter, DeWitt said she could not rule out the possibility that one person may have strangled Libby while another beat him. She also said she had determined that Libby’s nose was not broken, but she did not look into his nose during her examination.

According to a police report, Samson told police that he bloodied Libby’s nose by punching it after Libby made sexual advances toward him when the two met at the hostel before Libby’s death.

Paul McCarthy of Malden, Mass., testified that Libby worked at a gay bar McCarthy owns in Cambridge, Mass. He said Libby called him on Feb. 19 to tell him he was going to Bethel to exchange collateral he had taken from “A.J.” in exchange for the return of a $400 loan. McCarthy said he asked Libby if he was going alone and Libby said he was.

After McCarthy testified that Libby was gay, Horton instructed the jury that they could take Libby’s sexual orientation into account but that they must remain neutral despite any personal opinions they have on homosexuality.

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