New York police announced on Saturday the arrest of 14-year-old Rashaun Weaver for the stabbing death of Barnard College student Tessa Majors on December 11, the New York Times reported.
Majors, 18, was stabbed multiple times in Morningside Park that evening in what police believe was a mugging that turned into a murder when Majors fought back and bit her assailant.
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R Vance said Weaver has been charged with second degree felony murder, second degree intentional murder, and five robbery counts, one of which occurred a few days before Majors was killed, NBC New York reported. He will be tried as an adult.
Weaver and another 14-year-old were implicated in the stabbing by a 13-year-old boy who was arrested shortly after the incident. As CrimeOnline previously reported, the 13-year-old, identified as Zyairr Davis, told detectives that the three boys went to Morningside Park to commit a robbery. They initially targeted a man but backed off and instead targeted Majors. He told investigators it was Weaver who stabbed the college freshman after she fought him and bit his finger.
According to an affidavit filed in court, detectives collected surveillance footage that corroborated Davis’s account, and DNA underneath Majors’s fingernails matched Weaver. The affidavit says that the chief medical examiner reported Majors was stabbed multiple times in the torso and “that one of the stab wounds pierced her heart.”
Davis has been charged in the murder as a juvenile. His case will be heard in family court.
Weaver had reportedly been on his way to meet with detectives nine days after the stabbing when he jumped out of the car and fled. At that point, police went to the unusual measure of releasing photos of him. Weaver evaded police for another week before he was taken into custody, questioned, and released, CrimeOnline reported in December.
Vance said Weaver was arrested Friday night after an exhaustive investigation by police.
“This arrest is a major milestone on the path to justice for Tessa Majors,” he said. “And our journey to reach that milestone today was not a sprint, but rather, it was a painstaking, deliberate and meticulous search for the truth.”
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