Second suspect held in shooting of snow-shoveler in Jamaica Plain

The shooting scene was marked off on Feb. 11.Scott Eisen for The Boston Globe/Globe Freelance

Boston police made a second arrest Thursday in the murder of Kenneth “Kenny” Lamour, who was shot and killed earlier this month in Jamaica Plain while he shoveled snow with a work crew organized by the nonprofit Roca Inc.

Lamour was killed Feb. 11, and shortly afterward police arrested 18-year-old Josiah Zachery, who is accused of shooting Lamour and then firing at a police officer who stopped his car to investigate the sounds of gunfire. Zachery is being held without bail after pleading not guilty to murder and other charges.

On Thursday, the Boston Police Fugitive Unit arrested Donte Henley, 24, in the area of East Eighth Street in South Boston, police said. Henley will be charged with murder, according to police.

Henley was on the work crew with Lamour, according to a law enforcement official with knowledge of the investigation.

The Roca organization works with some of Greater Boston’s most at-risk youth, including high-school dropouts, young parents, and those who have been through the criminal justice system.

Lamour had been prosecuted in the past, most recently pleading guilty to threatening to shoot a woman who honked her car horn at him.

He also served time in prison after pleading guilty to a 2011 charge that he stomped on a Department of Youth Services worker, injuring him seriously, and he pleaded guilty in 2013 to assault and battery charges in another case.

But, according to his family and those who knew him, he was trying to turn his life around.

“It’s a devastating loss for our family. Kenny was such a promising young man,” said his aunt, Magalie Lamour, on Thursday. “That’s one of the things that hurts so badly. His life was cut short at the age of 21.”

Zachery had no connection to Roca, the agency’s founder and chief executive, Molly Baldwin, said at the time of the shooting.

A spokesman for the organization declined to comment on the new arrest Thursday because the inquiry was ongoing.

“The incident in and of itself is terribly tragic,” said spokesman John Ward. “It’s a profound human tragedy. We are doing everything we can to help the police, and we’re really saddened by the death of Kenny Lamour.”

Baldwin said at the time of the shooting that Roca has contracts with about 20 cities and is “very intentional” about where it sends its crews to ensure they do not go to places where they had previous problems.

Lamour’s aunt said Thursday that her family was relieved that he would get justice.

“I have the utmost confidence that the Boston Police Department is going to do their job, unbiased and slowly, so that if there are more people involved they will be arrested and arraigned and tried and sentenced,” she said. “It’s a painful process but it must get done.”

She said her nephew knew Henley, but the family knew of no motive for the killing.

“I imagine when I was that age — what in the world could any of my friends have done that would warrant me taking their lives?” she said. “This is a hard pill to swallow.”

In 2009, Henley was sentenced to 18 months in a house of correction for unlawful possession of a firearm, according to another law enforcement official, and was sentenced to another 18 months on a drug distribution charge in 2011.

Henley will be arraigned Friday at West Roxbury District Court, according to Boston police.

Police also made arrests Thursday in the slaying of 20-year-old William Davis, who was shot to death Dec. 17 on Dudley Street in Boston. Paul Francis, 24, of Quincy, and Markeese Skinner, 27, of Dorchester, were charged as accessories after the fact to murder.

The primary suspect in the case has not yet been caught, but an arrest warrant on a charge of murder has been issued, according to Boston police spokesman Officer James Kenneally.