Memorial to
TESSA MAJORS
on Morningside Drive @ 116 Street
in Morningside Heights.
She was murdered by youths
on December 11, 2019.
R.I.P.


The murder of Tessa Majors occurred near Morningside Park in Morningside Heights, Manhattan, on December 11, 2019. On December 11, 2019, Majors was walking in Morningside Park, several blocks from Barnard College. Shortly before 7:00 p.m., three people attacked Majors on a staircase near 116th Street and Morningside Drive. Majors, an eighteen-year-old student at Barnard College, was attacked and stabbed by three teenagers as part of a robbery. Majors was discovered collapsed and bleeding on a staircase exiting Morningside Park and transported to a nearby hospital, ultimately succumbing to the injuries.

Tessa Rane Majors (May 11, 2001 – December 11, 2019), also known as Tess, was from Charlottesville, Virginia. Majors graduated from St. Anne’s-Belfield School in May 2019, and was a first-semester freshman at Barnard College, a private all-women’s school in Manhattan. Majors sang and played bass in a band, which had recently released an album.The band had played its first gig in New York City that fall and was scheduled to play two more shows in Charlottesville during winter break Majors also led the creative writing club in high school, ran cross-country, and volunteered on political campaigns. An intern at the Augusta Free Press during the spring of 2019, Majors had an interest in journalism and planned to study journalism in college. Majors’ father is an English professor at James Madison University, and the author of six books.

One of the suspects, a thirteen-year-old, was arrested the following day and charged with felony murder. Two months later, two fourteen-year-old suspects, Luchiano Lewis (born February 22, 2005) and Rashaun Weaver (born April 3, 2005), both residents of New York City, were also charged with murder. On June 3, 2020, the 13-year-old (since turned 14) pleaded guilty in family court to robbery in the first degree. On September 21, 2021, Lewis pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and first-degree robbery. In December 2021, Weaver pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, first-degree robbery, and second-degree robbery. The 13-year-old was sentenced to 18 months of detention at Horizon Correctional Center in the Bronx, while Lewis was sentenced to nine years to life in prison, and Weaver was sentenced to 14 years to life in prison.

Source: Wikipedia