Police Arrest 13-Year-Old in Murder of Barnard Student

Other suspects sought in stabbing death of Tessa Majors
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 13, 2019 8:20 AM CST
Police Arrest 13-Year-Old in Murder of Barnard Student
People pause at a makeshift memorial for Tessa Majors on the Barnard campus Thursday, Dec. 12, 2019, in New York.   (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

Police have arrested a 13-year-old in the stabbing death of 18-year-old Barnard College freshman Tessa Majors, reports ABC News. Authorities are looking for other suspects in the attack, which took place Wednesday evening in Morningside Park, located near the New York City campus. Police say they think it was a robbery that went wrong; Majors ended up being stabbed multiple times. Coverage:

  • The victim: Majors was from Charlottesville, Virginia, where she interned for a local newspaper before college and played bass in a band called Patient 0, which recently released its first album, reports the Daily Progress. She hadn't picked a major at the liberal arts college, but talked about her love of writing in a podcast before leaving for school. "I’ve been writing in various forms since I was little kid," she said, with her latest outlet being songs.
  • The band: Majors' band, Patient 0, had performed its first gig in New York City in October and had played at venues in Virginia prior to that. Its first album, Girl Problems, is on Spotify.

  • The campus: Barnard is rattled. "All of us have been to Morningside Park," first-year student Madeline Hermann tells BuzzFeed. "We've all walked through after dark. We all know what is happening over there. It could have been literally any of us." Another student said she felt unsafe at the park even while walking there with others.
  • The park: Located in a Harlem precinct, Morningside Park has become generally safer in recent years but still has problems, reports the New York Times. At least five people have been robbed on or near the same staircase where Majors was confronted since June. Others have been punched and harassed by teens. Overall, the park has seen 20 robberies this year, up from seven last year. Police recently arrested several teens after a series of robberies.
  • Family, friends: "Tess shone brightly in this world, and our lives will never be the same," says a family statement. Her father, Inman Majors, is a James Madison University professor and novelist. "She was pushy in a good way," the editor of the Augusta Free Press, where she interned, tells the Washington Post. "When I was that age, I didn’t have that kind of giddy-up."
(More Barnard College stories.)

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