Wayland Patch 7/13/11: Malcolm Astley: ‘Such Losses Bring On the Great Fact of the Inexplicable’. A little more than a week has passed since the body of Lauren Astley was discovered in a marshy area just off Wayland’s Water Row.

Just more than a week has passed since Wayland learned abruptly and staggeringly that even small, quiet suburbs can be touched by horror.

Over the course of the past eight days, Wayland has learned the story of this tragedy, a tragedy that Wayland Superintendent Paul Stein said, “shouldn’t happen anywhere – anywhere or to anyone.”

But it did happen, and over the past eight days Wayland has also learned a lot about how to graciously cope and compassionately respond to such a tragedy. And it has learned this lesson from perhaps the least likely individual: the victim’s father, Malcolm.