18 MOS. IN TESS SLAY
Teen who handed over knife used to kill student gets max
A 14-year-old who admitted taking part in a robbery that led to the brutal stabbing death of Barnard College student Tessa Majors was hit with the maximum sentence of 18 months in custody Monday.
The 5-foot-5 defendant — nabbed a day after Majors’ murder — admitted participating in the robbery and picking up the murder weapon off the ground shortly before it was used in the horrifying murder.
The sentence handed down by Manhattan Family Court Judge Carol Goldstein was the maximum possible time the teen could have gotten, according to the city Law Department.
In a statement read in court, the young woman’s devastated parents, Inman and Christy Majors, wrote of their unimaginable pain and grief in losing their daughter, and how it was compounded by the disturbing nature of her slaying.
“On Labor Day weekend 2019, the parents of Tess Majors dropped her off at Barnard College in New York City to begin her freshman year of college. One hundred days later, they brought her home to Virginia in an urn,” the statement reads.
“What words could be used to describe that grief? Compounding the sudden loss of their talented, kind, and beloved daughter, sister, granddaughter, great-granddaughter, cousin and niece is the incredibly violent nature of her death, which has been described in grisly detail by the respondent himself.”
The teen sentenced Monday, who the Daily News is not naming due to his age, admitted his part in the Dec. 11, 2019, slaying from the outset. He claimed that after spotting Majors
(inset) jogging down a set of steps in Morningside Park by E. 116th St., shortly before 7 p.m., he and two pals, Rashaun Weaver and Luchiano Lewis, ambushed her.
Just 13 when he was arrested, the youth admitted though he didn’t participate in the slaying, he picked up the knife used to kill her.
“Rashaun went up to her and said something to her, and Tessa yelled for help. Rashaun used the knife that I had handed to him to stab Tessa, and I saw feathers coming out of her coat,” the boy said when he pleaded guilty to robbery June 3.
“Then I saw Rashaun take a plastic bag out of her pocket. Tessa went up the stairs toward Morningside Drive and Rashaun, Lucci and I followed her up to the platform. After that, Rashaun, Lucci and I ran out of the park together.”
In its statement, the Majors family took aim at the youngster for picking up a weapon used to murder her.
“By his own admission, the respondent picked up a knife that had fallen to the ground and handed it to an individual who then used it to stab Tess Majors to death,” the statement reads. “The family can’t help but wonder what would have happened if that knife had been left on the ground.”
At her funeral, Majors, of
Charlottesville, Va., was described by her friends and family as a creative and warmhearted young woman who was passionate about music. Prior to her killing, she had performed in Virginia with the local band Patient 0, and worked as an intern with a local newspaper.
The sentencing marks the end of the city Law Department’s handling of the case. Weaver and Lewis, who were both arrested and charged with murder as adults in February, are in custody awaiting trial.
Goldstein placed the youngest defendant in the custody of the Administration for Children’s Services for 18 months. The agency will have discretion to release him from a limited secure facility in six months and may continue monitoring him until his 18th birthday, according to the Law Department.