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Teen Arrested In Connection With Fatal Stabbing Of Barnard College Student Tessa Majors In NYC Park
New York City Police continue to search for any others who may be involved in the 18-year-old's slaying in Morningside Park.
A juvenile teen has been arrested in connection with the fatal stabbing of Barnard College freshman Tessa Majors.
Two senior law enforcement officials confirmed the arrest to WNBC. It's not clear what role the 13-year-old may have played in the fatal slaying of the 18-year-old Majors. Authorities are still searching for others who may have been involved.
Oxygen.com is not naming the suspect due to his age.
Majors was stabbed multiple times Wednesday when a group of people allegedly tried to rob her and take her phone as she walked through the park shortly before 8 p.m.
Majors managed to stagger up a set of steps in the park to seek help at a nearby security booth, but she later died from her injuries. Surveillance footage from the area showed her jogging down a set of steps in the park before she was attacked, according to The New York Daily News.
While it was initially reported that the security guard was not in the booth at the time of the stabbing and had been out on rounds, Columbia University, which is near Barnard and affiliated with the college, later refuted that claim.
“As we have shared elsewhere, troubling reports about the absence of the public safety officer assigned to 116th and Morningside are inaccurate,” the university said in a post on Twitter. “The officer was at his post and came to the student's aid immediately upon recognizing that she was hurt.”
However, in light of Majors’ stabbing, some students have called for more security in the area.
“There should be 24/7 security guards,” Columbia University student Marwa Khairy told WABC. “Personally, when I go through the park I almost never see a security guard.”
Majors' parents and younger brother traveled to New York City from the family’s home in Charlottesville, Virginia after her death, People reports.
Those who knew the 18-year-old have described her as a talented musician.
“Tessa was a beautiful person, she was very talented,” her grandmother Martha Burton told People. “She played guitar, mandolin and piano. She invented songs and melodies and was real talented.”
A memorial to the slain freshman now stands just feet away from where she was stabbed.
