Witness testifies he watched beating of Peabody man

SALEM – A key witness in the murder trial of Fernando Aristy testified this morning in Superior Court to seeing the Chelsea man straddle Chad McDonald outside a Lynn warehouse and beat him in the head with a piece of wood.?I told him like four or five times, ‘Let’s go, let’s get out of here,'” Wilfredo Mordan, 39, of Boston, told the courtroom through a Spanish interpreter. “He hit him with a stick. I don’t know how many times.”Mordan, who has a criminal record and will be deported to his native Dominican Republic when the trial ends, is the only witness in the case who attests to seeing Aristy use a weapon in the fight.Aristy, 25, formerly of Chelsea, is charged with first-degree murder in the beating death of McDonald, a 34-year-old father, in front of a 47 Bennett St. auto repair shop.McDonald died at Massachusetts General Hospital on Oct. 20, 2010, 11 days after the incident.Read the full story in Friday’s Daily Item.