After NYPD's Unusual Step in Murder Case, an Arrest

Cops nab 14-year-old suspect in Tessa Majors case
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Dec 26, 2019 12:04 PM CST
NYPD: We've Found Teen Suspect in Tessa Majors Case
A sign for a celebration of life service for Tessa Majors is shown in Charlottesville, Va., on Saturday. Relatives and friends of the 18-year-old Barnard student who was killed in New York City on Dec. 11 came together in her hometown to honor and remember her life.   (Erin Edgerton/The Daily Progress via AP)

New York City police say they've located a 14-year-old boy suspected of fatally stabbing a Barnard College freshman as she walked through a park near the school. Chief of Detectives Rodney Harrison tweeted Thursday that the boy had been found but gave no other details, the AP reports. He's one of three youths police believe were involved in the stabbing of 18-year-old Tessa Majors on Dec. 11 in Morningside Park in Manhattan. Police tracked down the teen after taking the unusual step of releasing photographs of him, but not his name or any other identifying information. A police spokeswoman declined to answer questions about where and how the teen was located. Of the two other suspects, only one has been charged.

A 13-year-old boy arrested Dec. 13 and charged as a juvenile with felony murder told detectives he was at the park with the other youths but wasn't the one who stabbed Majors, police said. Another juvenile suspect was questioned for several hours, also on Dec. 13, but police let him go, Harrison said. He has declined to say why that boy wasn’t charged. Majors was stabbed while walking in the park just before 7pm, two days before the start of final exams at Barnard, an all-women's school that's part of the Ivy League's Columbia University. She staggered up a flight of stairs to street level and collapsed in a crosswalk. Her death has troubled city and college leaders, both for its proximity to campus and its apparent randomness.

(More Tessa Majors stories.)

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