Murder in the Shadow of Harvard

March 13, 2002 -- To university officials and prospective students, it's known as Harvard Square. But to locals and the street kids who make it their home, it's the Pit.

The square is a busy pedestrian hub just outside the entrance to the Harvard campus in Cambridge, Mass. At its center is a sunken plaza — the Pit — that has for decades attracted a mixture of the homeless, the jobless and the adventurous. Many of the Pit regulars panhandle and a few sell drugs, but most just sit and talk.

Last summer, a new arrival joined the crowd at the Pit: Io Nachtwey, a sunny, free-spirited 22-year-old from the Hawaiian island of Maui. Nachtwey had been very successful in high school — an excellent student, fluent in several languages, and so popular that her classmates gave her an ovation at graduation. But when her family decided to move to a Hare Krishna community in Florida, she decided to strike out on her own.

Nachtwey came to the East Coast in the hope of becoming a flight attendant, but her money ran out and she ended up spending a few nights in a shelter in Maine. There she met Gene Bamford, a 10-year veteran of the street life known as Leppy.

The pair wound up in Cambridge, hanging out at the Pit during the day and spending their nights sleeping rough at a local cemetery.

The perpetually upbeat Nachtwey was popular at the Pit and told her friends she was happy. "She would say, 'If you can't spare any change, spare a smile,' you know," remembers Michael Sullivan, who runs a homeless outreach program in Cambridge.

During the summer, Nachtwey and Bamford became engaged.

"She never had a bad word to say of nobody," said Bamford. "All she wanted them to do was smile."

After Dusk

During the day, the Pit can be a friendly place. But it takes on a different character after the sun goes down. "The Pit draws people who prey on the weak. It draws predators, right, and there's nothing you can do to change that," said Sullivan.

During the summer, a new group appeared at the Pit, a gang of young men who claimed to be an offshoot of the Boston branch of the Crips. The gang allegedly offered the street kids a tempting offer: food, shelter and a sense of belonging — in return for robbing people.

Bamford said the gang recruited him, Nachtwey and some of the other kids to steal for them. "I was supposed to take everybody out down here to Harvard and send everybody out in teams to go get money," he said.

Sullivan noticed a change in Nachtwey. "She looked upset, like she had some anger issues with Leppy. I think she was trying to keep him out of gang activity ... but she wasn't going to give up on him," he said.

One night in late October, Bamford said, the gang told him and the others to come to their hotel for instructions. They told them to steal ATM cards and bring back at least $200 per team, according to Bamford, and they added a chilling warning.

"They said if you double-cross us, they'll try to kill us. If they can't get us, they'll get anybody who's close to us," he said. "Mom, dad, brothers, sisters — fiancées."

Nachtwey did not want to steal, Bamford said, so she stayed behind at the hotel. "She didn't have the mentality that would rob somebody. It wasn't in her," he said.

Backing Out

Out on the street, things quickly fell apart. Bamford learned that the gang leaders had nothing to do with the Crips and were just pretenders. But they were still dangerous, and the other kids decided to back out of the deal.

Even though his fiancée was still at the hotel with the gang he said had threatened their lives, Bamford did not call police. "In a situation like that, you don't know what to do," he said. "You know what's right, but you're afraid."

According to prosecutors, the gang leaders were livid when they realized the street kids were reneging on the deal. Six of them — four men and two women — allegedly drove Nachtwey around Boston for hours, then took her to an abandoned railroad bridge spanning the Charles River. Then, prosecutors say, they killed her as a warning to the other kids, stabbing her 12 to 15 times and rolling her body off the bridge into the river.

The next day, Bamford heard that the body of a young woman had been dragged from the river. He says he immediately knew it was his fiancée. He contacted the police, and they gave him photographs to identify. "It's one thing to, you know, go from hugging your woman ... the next day you're looking at a picture. She's dead and her eyes are still open and looking at you."

Prosecutors charged the six suspects with first-degree murder and kidnapping. All have pleaded not guilty. One of the suspects, Luis Vasquez, 19, also faces an aggravated rape charge. He is accused of sexually assaulting Nachtwey before she died.

Bamford said he is haunted by the memory of Nachtwey's body. "She died for me and that's all it comes down to. Because she was only there because of me."