Fingerprint uncovers plot behind fatal robbery in Holbrook

By Shelley Murphy and Andrew Ryan, Globe Staff

Detectives investigating a robbery and killing in a Holbrook apartment last July caught a recent break that led to three arrests and unraveled what prosecutors described as a ruthless murder for flat-screen televisions.

(Norfolk District Attorney's office)

Chelsea police arrested a man on domestic violence charges two weeks ago and entered his fingerprints into a computer database. The man's prints matched a latent fingerprint found in the Holbrook apartment where a Nigerian immigrant on the dean's list at Quincy College was hogtied and beaten to death.

Investigators determined that the victim, Osahon Ighodaro, 25, was targeted after he met a woman in a nightclub and she learned he had several flat-screen televisions and other electronics in his home in the Ramblewood apartment complex on Route 37.

"Unfortunately that's the senseless and unconscionable price of a person's life," Norfolk District Attorney William R. Keating said this morning at a press conference.

The three people arraigned today on first-degree murder charges include the woman from the nightclub, Nekita Martin, 22, of Revere; the domestic violence suspect whose fingerprint was found at the crime scene, Jeffrey Anthony, 21, of Chelsea; and another man, Joshua Berrios, 20, of Taunton.

Lawyers for Berrios, Anthony, and Martin entered pleas of not guilty. Judge Mark Coven ordered all three held without bail pending the next court hearing on June 17.

Authorities are searching for a fourth assailant, Kencheser Martin, 26, of Chelsea, the brother of the woman who met the victim in the nightclub. Kencheser Martin "is dangerous, he may well be armed; he should not be approached by anyone who knows him," Keating said.

The victim worked at a parking garage near Fenway Park and was studying law at Quincy College.

"He was a young person who had a lot ahead of him," Keating said, and his life ended in a "senseless" killing over "what amounted to electronic appliances'' that also included a Bose stereo and a laptop computer.

The alleged plot began when Ighodaro met Nekita Martin in a nightclub.

"He met a woman at a nightclub," Keating said, "it was all very innocent."

Nekita Martin allegedly told her brother, Kencheser, that the victim had electronics in his apartment, prosecutors said. Kencheser Martin and the two other men are accused of breaking into Ighodaro’s apartment at 11 p.m. on July 10, 2008.

The three men allegedly hogtied Ighodaro and left him face down on the floor, prosecutors said. A female friend who was in Ighodaro's apartment at the time of the attack was tied up with a belt, prosecutors said.