AUBURN — Prosecutors said Tuesday that the trial of the accused killer of Christiana Fesmire is an “extremely sad story” laced with the “three of the great modern American obsessions: sex, drugs and murder.”

Assistant Attorney General Andrew Benson outlined for the jury the brief life of 22-year-old Fesmire and her “horrible, brutal death.”

Edward “Ted” Dilworth, defense attorney for Buddy Robinson, 31, of Lewiston told the jury, “There’s not one physical or direct piece of evidence that connects” his client to Fesmire’s death.

The two lawyers agreed in their opening statements on the first day of Robinson’s trial on the charge of murder that Fesmire reconnected with Brandi Robinson, Buddy’s twin sister, on Facebook after having worked with her at ACS, a call center in the Lewiston Mall.

Brandi invited Fesmire to move into the downstairs apartment of a house at 36 Highland Ave. in Lewiston where Brandi and Buddy Robinson lived upstairs with Brandi’s 8-year-old son, Michael.

“At that point, the die was cast,” Benson said in his nearly hour-long opening. “And Christiana Fesmire’s fate was, in a sense, sealed.”

Brandi Robinson also offered Fesmire a job making a lot of money working for her as an “escort.” But several months later, after contracting a sexually transmitted disease, Fesmire stopped working for Brandi, Benson said.

At about the same time, Fesmire, who had been baby-sitting Michael, had apparently used physical force to discipline him. That “outraged” Buddy Robinson, who was “very close to his nephew,” Benson said.

Fesmire had all but moved out of the downstairs apartment when, on June 30, 2011, Fesmire’s father drove her from their Bremen home to Lewiston where she would spend the night with friends and retrieve the rest of her belongings from Highland Avenue the next day. Afterward, she planned to borrow a Lexus SUV Brandi offered to lend her so Fesmire could drive to Rangeley for a family reunion, Benson said.

But she would never leave Highland Avenue alive.

She was beaten to death, Benson said. “Her head, slammed against the bathtub. Held under water until she was dead.”

Buddy told his sister what he’d done, Benson said. He disposed of Fesmire’s body, stored in the back of the Lexus, in woods somewhere in a swampy area.

Shortly afterward, Brandi and Buddy Robinson rented a U-Haul and headed to Presque Isle with Brandi’s boyfriend, Levi Gervais, to collect Buddy’s belongings from college.

On their way back, the group went camping. At a campfire, Buddy cut up into pieces the comforter in which Fesmire’s dead body was wrapped. He tossed the pieces in the fire, Benson said.

He said the state has granted immunity to many of the state’s witnesses in exchange for their testimony because they were “criminals,” but played no part in Fesmire’s killing.

While on their trip to Presque Isle, Buddy Robinson texted a former Maine Army National Guard buddy that he had “hurt someone badly,” and he would “never see her again” because “she’s dead,” Benson said.

Fesmire’s body has not been recovered.

Defense attorney Dilworth told the jury that Brandi Robinson and Fesmire had a falling out. They had a “huge” fight during which Fesmire bit Robinson’s finger. Brandi was “constantly” arguing with Fesmire, he said.

Shortly before Fesmire’s disappearance on July 1, 2011, Brandi says she had “‘real problems with Christiana. I gotta do something about her. And she’s gotta go,'” Dilworth said.

Dilworth is hoping to cast doubt on Buddy Robinson’s guilt by suggesting his sister as an alternative suspect.

The testimony of the state’s witnesses is contradictory, inconsistent and their time lines don’t match up, he said.

Factual information presented at the trial will leave little doubt, he said. “What you’re going to have doubt over is the stories you’re going to be told,” he said. Many of the specifics don’t make sense, he said.

Benson told the jury to view the circumstantial evidence, which he plans to present as a puzzle. He began piecing together that puzzle Tuesday afternoon with law enforcement witnesses and forensics experts who explained that they found traces of blood in Fesmire’s Highland Avenue apartment on the floor, the bottom of a door, a radiator and other areas that matched her DNA.

The trial is expected to last more than two weeks.

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