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Tessa Majors Murder: Third Teenager Is Arrested Tessa Majors Murder: Third Teenager Is Arrested
(about 3 hours later)
A third teenager was arrested and charged on Wednesday in the murder of Tessa Majors, an 18-year-old Barnard College student who was stabbed during a mugging last December in Morningside Park in northern Manhattan. Three middle school classmates, one of them armed with a knife, entered Morningside Park in northern Manhattan on the night of Dec. 11 looking for someone to rob.
The boy, Luchiano Lewis, 14, was charged with second-degree murder and robbery. At about the same time, prosecutors said, Tessa Majors, an 18-year-old in her first year at Barnard College, walked into the park through a different entrance.
Mr. Lewis appeared in Criminal Court in Manhattan on Wednesday alongside Rashaun Weaver, who is also 14 and who the police believe actually stabbed Ms. Majors when she refused to give up her cellphone. Both have been charged as adults. The classmates, all teenage males, according to prosecutors, first set their sights on an unidentified man, then a woman, and finally, for reasons that remain unclear, Ms. Majors. They demanded her cellphone. When she resisted, biting one of them on the hand, one of teenagers placed her in a headlock and another stabbed her multiple times, the authorities said.
Mr. Weaver, wearing a blue button-up shirt and khakis, and Mr. Lewis, his middle school classmate who wore a camouflage jacket and gray jeans, stood next to each other as they listened to the charges. Both whispered to the judge that they were 14-year-olds and uttered the words “not guilty” when asked to enter a plea. She was found dying just outside the park.
Mr. Lewis kept Ms. Majors from fleeing from her attacks by putting her in “some sort of headlock or bearhug,” said Matthew Bogdanos, a prosecutor in the Manhattan district attorney’s office. On Wednesday, two months after the high-profile murder rattled a city now accustomed to historically low violent crime rates, prosecutors announced a third arrest in the case.
Prosecutors said they had accumulated a trove of evidence, including witness statements and video footage, to build a case against the two teenagers. Luchiano Lewis, 14, was charged in Criminal Court in Manhattan with second-degree murder and robbery.
Mr. Lewis’s 14-year-old friend, Rashaun Weaver, was arrested on the same charges over the weekend.
Both are being tried as adults. Prosecutors explained that under New York State law they have the discretion to try defendants as young as 14 as adults in certain cases of violent crime.
Mr. Weaver is accused of stabbing Ms. Majors, while investigators say Mr. Lewis restrained her to prevent her from fleeing.
A 13-year-old who was arrested in December implicated the two other teenagers in the fatal robbery. The 13-year-old was charged with second-degree felony murder as a juvenile.
On Wednesday, Mr. Weaver, wearing a blue button-up shirt and khakis, and Mr. Lewis, who wore a camouflage jacket and gray jeans, stood next to each other as they listened to the murder and robbery charges being read in court.
Both whispered to the judge that they were 14-year-olds and uttered the words “not guilty” when asked to enter a plea.
Mr. Weaver and Mr. Lewis were ordered held without bail at a juvenile detention facility.Mr. Weaver and Mr. Lewis were ordered held without bail at a juvenile detention facility.
Under New York State law, juveniles charged with intentional murder, as Mr. Weaver and Mr. Lewis have been, can be tried as adults. The killing of Ms. Major, who had come from Virginia to study at Barnard, recalled a more violent era in the city when park muggings and murders were far more common.
Relatives for the two teenagers as well as Ms. Majors’s father, Inman Majors, declined to speak to reporters leaving the courthouse. Her killing also echoed the notorious 1989 April attack on a jogger in Central Park. Investigators and prosecutors relied then on tough interrogation techniques to obtain confessions from five teenagers accused of the brutal assault and rape of the jogger.
The confessions were later proven to be false.
In the long shadow of that case, the authorities said they made sure to take extra steps to ensure that a guardian or a lawyer was present each time one of the teenagers accused of taking part in Ms. Majors’s killing was questioned by investigators.
But lawyers with the Legal Aid Society, which represents the 13-year-old defendant, have argued in court hearings that their client was subjected to aggressive interrogation tactics, including browbeating and screaming. That defendant is not accused of killing Ms. Majors but is accused of being involved in the robbery that led to her death.
The New York Times is not naming the 13-year-old because he is not being charged as an adult. He is expected to face trial for his role in the murder in family court in March.
Over two months, investigators accumulated a trove of evidence, including witness statements, DNA samples and video footage, to build a case against the teenagers, the authorities said.
“Our journey to reach that milestone today was not a sprint, but rather it was a painstaking, deliberate and meticulous search for the truth,” the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., said during the weekend while announcing Mr. Weaver’s arrest.
Neighborhood Defender Service, a legal group representing Mr. Weaver, said in a statement that their client’s age should shield him from facing harsh punishment.
“Our client is a 14-year-old child with no criminal record or family court history,” the group said. “In our shared history, we have seen too often the impact of hasty condemnations of children. Let us take these past experiences as a warning and allow due process to play out in our young client’s case, so that justice can prevail.”
Relatives for Mr. Weaver and Mr. Lewis — as well as Ms. Majors’s father, Inman Majors — declined to speak to reporters as they left the courthouse on Wednesday.
Alexis Padilla, a lawyer representing Mr. Lewis, told the judge he believed the prosecution’s case was not as strong as it was being made to seem.Alexis Padilla, a lawyer representing Mr. Lewis, told the judge he believed the prosecution’s case was not as strong as it was being made to seem.
“If the video is so clear, why wasn’t he arrested much sooner,” Ms. Padilla said, alluding to evidence cited by the prosecution. “This is my client’s first brush with the law.”“If the video is so clear, why wasn’t he arrested much sooner,” Ms. Padilla said, alluding to evidence cited by the prosecution. “This is my client’s first brush with the law.”
A lawyer representing Mr. Weaver did not speak during the hearing. Investigators said they did not anticipate charging anyone else in Ms. Majors’s killing.
In December, a third boy, who is 13, was arrested and charged as a juvenile with second-degree murder in family court. That boy is not accused of causing Ms. Majors’ death but is accused of being involved in the robbery that led to her killing. On Wednesday, Matthew Bogdanos, an assistant district attorney, told Justice Gayle Roberts that the teenagers had initially set their eyes on two other people before they encountered Ms. Majors at around 6:50 p.m. while walking up a set of stairs.
The 13-year-old boy was detained a day after the murder, which rattled the city and the nearby Barnard College campus.
Officials said he soon implicated himself in statements to detectives. He also identified Mr. Weaver and another 14-year-old middle school classmate as participants in the attack. The New York Times is not naming the 13-year-old because he is not being charged as an adult.
Investigators said they were not anticipating to charge anyone else in Ms. Majors’s killing.
Mr. Weaver was recorded by investigators implicating himself in the murder saying he attacked her because “she was hanging on to her phone.”
The teenager made the admission shortly after Ms. Majors’s killing.
Mr. Weaver and two middle-school classmates had initially targeted a man, and later a woman, the police said, walking through Morningside Park, near Columbia University, which is affiliated with Barnard. Soon, the boys turned their attention to Ms. Majors who was walking up stairs in the park, prosecutors said.
Ms. Majors was heard yelling “Help me! I’m being robbed!” Moments later she was found face down. She had been stabbed four times.
She was taken to a hospital but could not be saved. One of the stab wounds had pierced her heart.
Those details were revealed Wednesday during a hearing in State Supreme Court in Manhattan. Mr. Weaver pleaded not guilty to charges of murder in the second degree and robbery. He is being tried as an adult and is being held without bail.
It took investigators more than two months to arrest all three teenagers linked to the first high-profile murder the Police Department handled under the new police commissioner, Dermot F. Shea.
More than a week after the initial arrest, investigators took the unusual step of releasing images of one of the 14-year-old boys, asking the public’s for help in identifying him. In late December, detectives tracked that boy, later identified as Mr. Weaver, at a family member’s home in the Bronx.
The authorities believe that the teenager’s family was shielding him until a wound on his hand had healed, an official briefed on the case said. The official described the mark as consistent with a bite.
Several hours after being questioned by detectives, Mr. Weaver walked out of a police station house without being charged.
On Wednesday, Mr. Bogdanos told Justice Gayle Roberts that Ms. Majors, who was a first-year student at Barnard, entered Morningside Park at 6:43 p.m. the night of Dec. 11. Mr. Weaver, Mr. Lewis and the 13-year-old had also entered the park from a different entrance.
“So they entered at almost the same time,” he said. “It turns out to be a tragic coincidence.”
The teenagers, Mr. Bogdanos, had initially set their eyes on two others before they encountered Ms. Majors.
“She became intended victim number three,” he added. “They literally crossed paths.”“She became intended victim number three,” he added. “They literally crossed paths.”
Mr. Weaver was also recorded by investigators implicating himself in the murder, saying he had attacked her because “she was hanging on to her phone,” according to court records. Ms. Majors was heard yelling “Help me! I’m being robbed!” Moments later she was stabbed four times, the blade piercing her heart once, court records show.
Detectives found her headphones on the ground and her hair tie 10 feet away. She was taken to a hospital but could not be saved.
Investigators said on Wednesday that they knew the teenagers’ whereabouts all along and tracked their movements as they built a case.
More than a week after the 13-year-old’s arrest, investigators took the unusual step of releasing images of one of the 14-year-old boys, seeking the public’s help in identifying him. In late December, detectives tracked that boy, later identified as Mr. Weaver, at a family member’s home in the Bronx.
The authorities believe that the teenager’s family was shielding him until a wound on his hand had healed, an official briefed on the case said. The official described the mark as consistent with a bite.
Several hours after being questioned by detectives, Mr. Weaver walked out of a police station without being charged.
Days before Ms. Majors’s murder, investigators said Mr. Weaver had committed another mugging at knife point in Morningside Park wearing a distinct outfit: a navy jacket with a horizontal white stripe and a red stripe across the chest, according to court records.
Prosecutors said he was seen wearing the same outfit on the night Ms. Majors was killed.
Mr. Bogdanos said they would prove in court that the teenagers acted with ruthless determination when they attacked Ms. Majors for about five minutes as she pleaded for help.
“This wasn’t 10 seconds. This was more than a minute,” he said. “That’s extraordinary for a robbery and murder to take that long. This was a sustained attack, sustained in both space and time that ultimately resulted in Ms. Majors’s death.”
Ali Watkins contributed reporting.