Charleston , Kanawha County , West Virginia

As we start to learn more of the unspeakable horror that took place behind an apartment door in Institute, the woman who says she was forced to watch it all is trying to cope with the ordeal. She's hopeful she can somehow, someway find closure.

She says she had to watch as Nathaniel Lawton dismembered his girlfriend, Carol Rhim in front of her.

"I was just hysterical. I mean I was shaking. I didn't let him know because I didn't know what he would have done to me you know what I'm saying and everything? So I had to go along with it," explained the witness.

She is a former friend of Lawton and agreed to talk to Eyewitness News. She is working with police and asked that Eyewitness News not release her identity.

She says Lawton lured her to his apartment earlier this week. She thought he needed help taking care of his elderly mother who also lived with him. But when she got there she watched as the unimaginable happened.

"I had gone down there and he said, "it's bad news", and then the girl was in the kitchen dead."

The woman says she feared for her life.

"I seen him cut her head off, her whole body and everything. It was bad, it was. I was afraid. I didn't say anything, I just went along with it. I had to play it to the "T" because if not, he was going to hurt me too," said the witness.

Afraid of what Lawton may do to her, she eventually got away on Thursday when Lawton allowed her to go to work. That's when she reported the gruesome crime to police. A crime she says was even more shocking because she says Lawton was a good man and she never dreamed this would happen.

"He took care of his mother and he really was a good person and everything he really was. So I don't know what led him up to do what he did."

Now she is left in fear and hopeful she'll somehow shake the painful memories and hopeful she can help investigators in the case. "He said that she provoked him...is what he told me. It was horrible. So horrible."

The woman says she's hopeful the Rhim and Lawton families will find peace.

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