Teen suspected in brutal slaying of college student turned loose by cops
A TEEN boy suspected in the brutal murder of a college student found dead in a park has been turned loose by cops.
The 14-year-old had been arrested hours earlier on Thursday and was one of three youths police believe were involved in the stabbing of Tessa Majors, 18, on December 11, in a case that has shocked the city.
Tessa 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 is part of the Ivy League Columbia University.
The aspiring journalist staggered up a flight of stairs to street level and collapsed in what police are called a “robbery gone wrong”.
After being found unconscious around 30 minutes later, she was taken to Mount Sinai St. Luke’s Hospital, New York, where she died.
On Thursday, Chief of Detectives Rodney Harrison tweeted that finding the suspect “was a significant development in the investigative process,” but that the youth had since been released to the custody of his lawyers. Harrison didn’t say why the boy was released.
A police spokesman declined to provide details, saying “the investigation remains active and ongoing.”
A spokesman for Neighborhood Defender Service confirmed that the organization is providing the boy with legal representation but declined to comment further.
The 14-year-old is one of three youths police believe were involved in the stabbing of 18-year-old Tessa Majors as she walked through Manhattan’s Morningside Park on Dec. 11.
Police tracked him down after taking the unusual step last Friday of releasing photographs of him but not his name or any other identifying information.
Harrison announced in a tweet Thursday morning that the boy had been found, but a police spokeswoman declined to answer questions about where and how he 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.
The case has become embroiled in controversy after the head of the NYPD sergeants’ union Ed Mullins claimed Tessa was in the park buying weed on the night she was killed.
Mullins made the comments while discussing NYC crime rates on John Catsimatidis’ radio show, The Cats Roundtable.
But Tessa’s family and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio accused the union boss of blaming Tessa for her own death.
Her family told NBC: “The remarks by Sergeants Benevolent Association president Ed Mullins we find deeply inappropriate.
“They intentionally or unintentionally direct blame onto Tess, a young woman, for her own murder.”
He later said his words had been twisted by the Mayor and apologized to Tessa’s family.
Some city leaders have urged police to use caution in investigating Majors’ death to avoid repeating mistakes made with the Central Park Five — a group of five black and Hispanic teens wrongfully convicted of a 1989 rape.
Harrison said in a tweet that the youth taken into custody Thursday had lawyers present “for the entire investigative process.”
At a press conference last week, he said the youths previously questioned in the Majors case had guardians present and were told of their right to a lawyer.
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The Legal Aid Society, which represents the first arrested youth, said detectives should have waited until he had a lawyer before questioning him.
In the wake of Majors’ death, Barnard and Columbia faculty have reported receiving “abhorrent and viciously racist” robocall messages from a white supremacist organization, and a Connecticut man was arrested after police say he posted online that he was going to kill the suspected stabber.
Majors played in a rock band, sported green hair and had told an editor from a newspaper internship in high school that she planned to take journalism classes in college.