Suspect questioned in Mass. student's slaying in NYC

By Brian R. Ballou, Globe Staff

New York City police investigators are currently questioning a suspect in connection with the slaying of Massachusetts native Kevin Pravia, a 19-year-old honor roll student at Pace University who was found strangled Sunday inside his apartment.

Investigators are withholding the name of the suspect because he has not been charged.

Pravia's roommate, Josephine Madonna, discovered him dead at 6:15 p.m. Sunday, lying face up in a bed. The cause of death has not been determined. Pravia was last seen alive leaving a party in Lower Manhattan at approximately 5:30 a.m. Saturday. He was entering a taxi at the time and appeared to be highly intoxicated, according to witnesses.

Pravia made at least five calls from his cell phone after leaving the party and authorities were working to interview the people he contacted. Investigators declined to comment on whether the suspect was among the five people Pravia called.

The Associated Press reported that Pravia apparently was suffocated with a pillow during a robbery by a stranger he invited to his Manhattan apartment, according to police.

Investigators said that a 22-year-old, who was being questioned in an unrelated case, admitted suffocating Pravia and stealing his cell phone, laptop, and iPod. The man claimed Pravia approached him in Union Square park around 6 a.m. Sunday looking for drugs and the two went to his apartment in the Chelsea neighborhood. The man, who was not identified, left sometime before 11 a.m., police said.

Police expected to charge the suspect in Pravia's death, Paul Browne, deputy commissioner of public information for the New York Police Department, told the AP.

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