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A new witness in the second trial of a PCC student accused of killing his girlfriend took the stand Tuesday, saying that she heard the upstairs brawl between Isaac Campbell and Liya “Jessie” Lu that ultimately led to a “loud smack, like skin hitting skin.”

Campbell, a former PCC student, was arrested in 2007 and charged in connection with the killing Lu, also a PCC student, and stashing her body in a recycling bin filled with kitty litter. His first trial, which lasted two months, ended with a deadlocked jury.

On the night of Lu’s disappearance, Nikki Kazadi, the downstairs neighbor of Campbell, said that she could hear a lot of the interaction happening upstairs.

“It’s an old apartment,” Kazadi said in Alhambra Superior Court on Tuesday. “You can hear footsteps, water running. You can hear everything.”

Kazadi was pregnant at the time and was waiting to take her prenatal vitamins before going to sleep. After doing so, she lay in bed unable to sleep.

“I was laying in bed and I heard the two arguing,” Kazadi said. “Then the two started getting louder and louder. I heard her scream, ‘Why did you have to fuck her?’ And then he kept saying, ‘No, no I didn’t.”

Lu then started sobbing, Kazadi recalled, before she started screaming again.

“I heard him scream out ‘Fuck you,’ and then charging footsteps and a big smack sound, and then it was quiet,” Kazadi told the court.

“Had you heard the voice before?” asked Prosecutor Steve Ipson.

“It was Isaac’s voice,” Kazadi said. “I’ve heard that before.”

Kazadi said that after the smack, everything went quiet. Ipson put Lu’s picture up in front of the court.

“Did you ever see her [Lu] again?” Ipson asked.

“No,” Kazadi responded.

Asked why she did not call 9-1-1 or file a complaint with the apartment manager, Kazadi said she felt it was none of her business.

“I didn’t want anything to do with it at the time,” Kazadi said. “I really thought he was comforting her when it was quiet.”

Jim Duffy, Campbell’s public defender, questioned Kazadi about details of the night in question.

“Are you saying that five years later your memory of the event is getting better?” Duffy asked.

“No, I’ve just had an opportunity to think about it,” Kazadi responded.

Duffy continued to press Kazadi about the time and date of the fight she heard. He offered to show her a transcript of the first interview conducted with her in November 2011.

“In your original statement to Detective [James] Just, you said you couldn’t make out what they were saying,” Duffy told her. “Do you think looking at the transcript of that interview will help you remember?”

Kazadi told the court that it wouldn’t help, and that when she first talked to police it was the first time she had thought about that night in years.

“I had time to think about it, and I had to think about it, after I talked to the police,” Kazadi said. “The more I think about it, the more it comes back.”

Duffy continued to question Kazadi about the possibility of Detective Just suggesting specific dates and times for the incident until the judge ordered him to stop.

“If you think there is an issue with Detective Just suggesting specific details, you need to take it up with Detective Just,” said Judge Stan Blumenfeld.

Kazadi’s husband, Sanza Kazadi, also testified. He was a witness in Campbell’s first trial.

Sanza Kazadi reiterated his testimony from the first trial.

“I saw him [Campbell] the morning of August 11. I was at a restaurant in Pasadena with some students of mine and I saw him come in with a young woman,” Sanza Kazadi said.

“Was it Liya Lu?” Ipson asked.

“It was not,” he said.

August 11 is the night that Lu disappeared.

Under cross-examination Duffy asked Kazadi if he would say that he has a better recollection at his earlier testimony.

“I would not say that, no,” Kazadi replied.

The trial continues today.

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