Police want help locating juvenile in connection to murder of Barnard College student Tessa Majors

ByEyewitness News WABC logo
Saturday, December 21, 2019

MORNINGSIDE HEIGHTS, Manhattan -- Police need the public's help to locate a juvenile in connection with the fatal stabbing of Barnard College freshman Tessa Majors.

The NYPD released photos of the juvenile on Friday night, but declined to identify the person depicted in the photographs because he is a minor.

Authorities believed a 14-year-old suspect was going to surrender last Monday evening -- but he did not. Officers fanned out across upper Manhattan to look for him.

The police were led to that teen by a 13-year-old who was taken into custody after he was found with a knife.

The 13-year-old boy was charged as a juvenile in connection with the case, but he is not believed to be the one who stabbed Majors.

Majors, of Charlottesville, Virginia, was wrapping up her first semester at the school when she cut through Morningside Park just before 8 p.m. last Wednesday. As she approached the stairs to exit at West 116th Street, police say a group of teens tried to rob her and take her phone.

There was a struggle, and she was stabbed multiple times. She was rushed to St. Luke's Hospital and pronounced dead.

Anyone with information in regard to the identity of the juvenile is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782).