Tessa-slay susp had knife – cop

A suspect in the stabbing death of Barnard College freshman Tessa Majors had a large knife in his backpack after he was arrested, a cop testified Wednesday.

Prosecutors, at a pretrial evidence hearing in Manhattan Family Court, made no connection between the knife and Majors’ death, and it was not immediately clear if the blade was the murder weapon.

The 13-year-old suspect told cops he was “holding it for a friend” and insisted he was present during the robbery that led to Majors’ murder but did not stab her.

Body cam footage aired in court Wednesday of the suspect at an NYPD stationhouse two days after the December slaying shows Officer Randy Ramos Luna going through the boy’s backpack. He removes papers, notebooks and a large blue knife with a blue blade cover.

“You can’t take that to school, can you?” one of the officers says.

Luna can also be seen flipping through a few school notebooks he found in the backpack. Luna testified that the notebooks were empty.

“You don’t take notes, man,” Luna says in the video. “There’s nothing in this book.”

The eighth-grader replied that he liked having extra notebooks in his backpack, just in case.

Among those who listened to the videotaped exchange was the victim’s father, novelist Inman Majors, who gazed at the suspect intently when the the boy was led into the courtroom.

The suspect was arrested by police who said they saw him lurking in a nearby building two days after the Dec. 11 murder.

Cops said the boy was wearing clothes, including red sneakers, that matched the description of one of the suspects.

“He said he was inside the vestibule getting warm,” Luna said. “That raised my suspicions.” The boy has been charged with felony murder, robbery and criminal possession of a weapon.

The 18-year-old victim was jogging down a set of steps in the park on W. 116th St. near Morningside Drive shortly before 7 p.m. when she was attacked.