Husband Charged in Murder of Student

A Middlesex Grand Jury indicted the husband of a 28-year-old Harvard Extension School student on Tuesday, charging him with the murder of his wife and sending the case to trial in the local superior court.

Twenty-five-year-old Damion Linton is charged in the February 23 murder of Andrea Harvey, a Boston high school teacher who was also taking classes at the Extension School. Harvey’s death was the first murder in Cambridge since 2003.

According to a press release issued by the Middlesex District Attorney’s (DA) office, Linton allegedly strangled his wife to death. He pled not guilty at his arraignment on March 2, and is currently being held without bail.

Harvey, a math teacher at East Boston High School, had been working towards a Masters of Liberal Arts in Mathematics for Teaching degree from the Extension School.

She had been a part-time student at the school since the Spring of 2003.

“We regret the loss of a valued member of the Extension School community and wish to convey our support to Andrea Harvey’s family,” Harvard Extension School Director of Communications and Media Linda A. Cross wrote in an e-mail yesterday.

Preceptor of Math Dr. John D. Boller, who had taught Harvey in four classes at the Extension School, said that she was a strong student.

“Obviously we were very sad about all the things that happened,” Boller said. “She was terrific; the type of student for whom we designed the program in the first place.”

Linton’s indictment by the Grand Jury means that the case now will move from the Middlesex District Court to the Middlesex Superior Court, where he will be arraigned at a future date.

According to an earlier press release from the DA’s office, police were called to the Cambridge home of Harvey and Linton the day after the murder, after Harvey’s parents had called 911.

The police found Harvey lying unresponsive on the floor, and she was pronounced dead at the scene by the Cambridge Fire Department.

Linton was found by police in North Carolina two days later. He was arrested in a Raleigh Wal-Mart, and was initially charged in North Carolina as a fugitive-from-justice.

—Staff writer Reed B. Rayman can be reached at rrayman@fas.harvard.edu.