Third Teenager Is Arrested in Tessa Majors Killing

The classmates, all teenage males, according to prosecutors, first set their sights on an unidentified man, then a woman, and finally, for reasons that remain unclear, Majors. They demanded her cellphone. When she resisted, biting one of them on the hand, one of the teenagers placed her in a headlock and another stabbed her multiple times, authorities said.

She was found dying just outside the park.

On Wednesday, two months after the high-profile murder rattled a city now accustomed to historically low violent crime rates, prosecutors announced a third arrest in the case.

Luchiano Lewis, 14, was charged in Criminal Court in Manhattan with second-degree murder and robbery.

Lewis’ 14-year-old friend, Rashaun Weaver, was arrested on the same charges over the weekend.

Both are being tried as adults. Prosecutors explained that under state law they have the discretion to try defendants as young as 14 as adults in certain cases of violent crime.

Weaver is accused of stabbing Majors, while investigators say Lewis restrained her to prevent her from fleeing.

A 13-year-old who was arrested in December implicated the two other teenagers in the fatal robbery. The 13-year-old was charged with second-degree felony murder as a juvenile.

On Wednesday, Weaver, wearing a blue button-up shirt and khakis, and Lewis, who wore a camouflage jacket and gray jeans, stood next to each other as they listened to the murder and robbery charges being read in court.

Both whispered to the judge that they were 14-year-olds and uttered the words “not guilty” when asked to enter a plea.

Weaver and Lewis were ordered held without bail at a juvenile detention facility.

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The killing of Majors, who had come from Virginia to study at Barnard, recalled a more violent era in the city when park muggings and murders were far more common.

Her killing also echoed the notorious 1989 April attack on a jogger in Central Park. Investigators and prosecutors relied then on tough interrogation techniques to obtain confessions from five teenagers accused of the brutal assault and rape of the jogger.

The confessions were later proven to be false.

In the long shadow of that case, authorities said they made sure to take extra steps to ensure that a guardian or a lawyer was present each time one of the teenagers accused of taking part in Majors’ killing was questioned by investigators.

But lawyers with the Legal Aid Society, which represents the 13-year-old defendant, have argued in court hearings that their client was subjected to aggressive interrogation tactics, including browbeating and screaming. That defendant is not accused of killing Majors but is accused of being involved in the robbery that led to her death.

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The New York Times is not naming the 13-year-old because he is not being charged as an adult. He is expected to face trial for his role in the murder in family court in March.

Over two months, investigators accumulated a trove of evidence, including witness statements, DNA samples and video footage, to build a case against the teenagers, authorities said.

“Our journey to reach that milestone today was not a sprint, but rather it was a painstaking, deliberate and meticulous search for the truth,” the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., said during the weekend while announcing Weaver’s arrest.

Neighborhood Defender Service, a legal group representing Weaver, said in a statement that their client’s age should shield him from facing harsh punishment.

“Our client is a 14-year-old child with no criminal record or family court history,” the group said. “In our shared history, we have seen too often the impact of hasty condemnations of children. Let us take these past experiences as a warning and allow due process to play out in our young client’s case, so that justice can prevail.”

Relatives for Weaver and Lewis — as well as Majors’ father, Inman Majors — declined to speak to reporters as they left the courthouse Wednesday.

Alexis Padilla, a lawyer representing Lewis, told the judge he believed the prosecution’s case was not as strong as it was being made to seem.

“If the video is so clear, why wasn’t he arrested much sooner,” Padilla said, alluding to evidence cited by the prosecution. “This is my client’s first brush with the law.”

Investigators said they did not anticipate charging anyone else in Majors’ killing.

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On Wednesday, Matthew Bogdanos, an assistant district attorney, told Justice Gayle Roberts that the teenagers had initially set their eyes on two other people before they encountered Majors at around 6:50 p.m. while walking up a set of stairs.

“She became intended victim number three,” he added. “They literally crossed paths.”

Weaver was also recorded by investigators implicating himself in the murder, saying he had attacked her because “she was hanging on to her phone,” according to court records. Majors was heard yelling “Help me! I’m being robbed!” Moments later she was stabbed four times, the blade piercing her heart once, court records show.

Detectives found her headphones on the ground and her hair tie 10 feet away. She was taken to a hospital but could not be saved.

Investigators said Wednesday that they knew the teenagers’ whereabouts all along and tracked their movements as they built a case.

More than a week after the 13-year-old’s arrest, investigators took the unusual step of releasing images of one of the 14-year-old boys, seeking the public’s help in identifying him. In late December, detectives tracked that boy, later identified as Weaver, at a family member’s home in the Bronx.

Authorities believe that the teenager’s family was shielding him until a wound on his hand had healed, an official briefed on the case said. The official described the mark as consistent with a bite.

Several hours after being questioned by detectives, Weaver walked out of a police station without being charged.

Days before Majors’ murder, investigators said Weaver had committed another mugging at knife point in Morningside Park wearing a distinct outfit: a navy jacket with a horizontal white stripe and a red stripe across the chest, according to court records.

Prosecutors said he was seen wearing the same outfit on the night Majors was killed.

Bogdanos said they would prove in court that the teenagers acted with ruthless determination when they attacked Majors for about five minutes as she pleaded for help.

“This wasn’t 10 seconds. This was more than a minute,” he said. “That’s extraordinary for a robbery and murder to take that long. This was a sustained attack, sustained in both space and time that ultimately resulted in Ms. Majors’ death.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .