Boston slaying trial begins
BOSTON » It was a grisly crime that focused attention on the homeless youth who congregate in a small plaza in funky Harvard Square. A young woman from Maui, raped, beaten and stabbed to death, her body tossed into the Charles River, allegedly by four men trying to recruit her friends into a robbery ring.
Io Nachtwey, 22, had come to Massachusetts from Maui, eager to strike out on her own. Several months later she was dead.
The trial of the men charged in her killing began yesterday with jury selection in Suffolk Superior Court. The case horrified advocates for the homeless and raised concerns about gang activity in Harvard Square, a collection of retail shops, bookstores and bars in the shadow of Harvard University.
Luis Vasquez, left, Ismael Vasquez, middle, and Harold Parker attended a hearing yesterday at Suffolk Superior Court in Boston. They are accused of killing a former Maui woman.
Prosecutors have said White and Alleyne held Nachtwey down while the others stabbed her and beat her with martial arts weapons. The killing took place on a railroad bridge under the Boston University Bridge on Nov. 3, 2001. Her body was found floating in the Charles River near Boston University the next day.
Nachtwey, a King Kekaulike High School graduate, had arrived in Cambridge just a few months earlier after dropping out of Maui Community College and traveling to the East Coast to stay with grandparents in Maine. Friends said she was homeless and sometimes slept in cemeteries. She quickly became one of the regulars who panhandled at "The Pit," a small sunken brick plaza above the Harvard Square subway station.
Samuel Weems, who works as a distributor at the Homeless Empowerment Project, recalled seeing Nachtwey in the Pit every day on his way to work.
"She had a different way of asking for money," Weems said. "She was extremely pleasant and took you totally by surprise so that you just wanted to give her money. ... For whatever it was you gave her, she would give you smiles, and she would give you smiles anyway. She was just a gentle creature."
Prosecutors said two brothers -- Luis and Ismael Vasquez -- and two other defendants, Harold Parker and Scott Davenport, were recruiting homeless people into a robbery ring. On Halloween night 2001, the recruits were ordered to steal valuables as a gang initiation.
But when Nachtwey's friends failed to bring back any goods three days later, Nachtwey was killed to send a message to her friends, prosecutors said.
All four men are charged with murder and kidnapping. One defendant, Luis Vasquez, is also charged with rape.
White's lawyer, Norman Zalkind, said she will receive a reduced sentence of 12 years in prison in exchange for her testimony against the others.
"It's a fair resolution as best we can see it and as best as the district attorney can see it," Zalkind said.
The trial is expected to last several weeks.
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