Sixth Man Charged in Death of ‘Pit’ Woman

Prosecutors charged a sixth man yesterday in connection to the gang-related murder of a woman who frequented the “Pit” area around the Harvard Square T station.

Scott Davenport, 27, of Cambridge, was already in police custody for kidnapping a friend of the murder victim, identified as Io Nachtwey, 22.

Several hours after the Nov. 3 murder, a man was kidnapped at knifepoint in Harvard Square. A witness informed the Cambridge City Police, who arrested four men on kidnapping charges, three of whom were quickly tied to the murder.

Davenport was not linked to the killing until yesterday, after subsequent investigation by the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office, according to its spokesperson David Procopio.

“Verbal statements and physical evidence from [Davenport] linked him to the murder,” Procopio said. Procopio would not elaborate further on the nature of the evidence.

The district attorney’s office did not release the victim’s name until yesterday, when they contacted her parents, who positively identified their daughter in a photo.

The victim’s parents were living outside Massachusetts; but Procopio would not say where.

The victim, originally from Hawaii, had moved to Maine before coming to the Boston area this summer.

Prosecutors attributed the murder to gang violence. Recruits in a new gang tied to the suspects were allegedly instructed to steal and deliver goods to the ring leaders.

When the victim’s friends refused, prosecutors said, Nachtwey was stabbed and beaten. Her body was found in the Charles River.

The suspects, currently being held without bail, are scheduled to appear in Boston Municipal Court Nov. 30.

—Material from the Associated Press was used in the compilation of this report.