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Third Suspect In Columbia Student Tessa Majors' Stabbing Death Pleads Guilty
Rashaun Weaver has admitted to stabbing Tessa Majors during a robbery attempt in December 2019.
All three teens charged in the fatal New York City stabbing of Barnard College freshman Tessa Majors have now pleaded guilty in connection with her murder.
Rashaun Weaver, 16, became the third and final of the three to admit his role when he pleaded guilty on Thursday to second-degree murder, as well as both first-degree and second-degree robbery, PIX 11 reports. He was charged as an adult and initially pleaded not guilty.
He was 14 years old when he and two other teens attacked Majors, 18, in Upper Manhattan’s Morningside Park in December of 2019. She was stabbed in the heart during the attempted robbery and staggered out of the park and into the street where she collapsed in a crosswalk.
Weaver is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 9 and is facing 14 years to life, according to the Associated Press.
Weaver was the first one arrested in connection with Majors' death and prosecutors say he was the one who used the knife on the college freshman, NBC New York reports.
In court on Thursday, Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Matthew Bogdanos claimed that Weaver told one of his co-defendant that he stabbed Majors because she "bit me,” according to NBC New York.
Weaver's attorney Jeffrey Lichtman told the court during Thursday's plea hearing that the teenager is redeemable. Weaver's family shouted to him that they loved him as the hearing concluded. Majors' father was also present in the courtroom but remained quiet.
The other two boys charged in Majors’ attack have also pleaded guilty.
Luchiano Lewis, 16, was sentenced to nine years to life in October after he was charged as an adult and pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and first-degree robbery. Lewis also admitted to robbing victims with Weaver in Morningside Park before Majors’ attack.
The third teen, who was 13 at the time of Majors’ stabbing, has not been named because he was charged as a juvenile. He pleaded guilty in June of 2020 and was sentenced to 18 months in a juvenile detention facility.
Majors was studying at Columbia University’s Barnard College at the time of her death. She planned to study journalism.
