The New York Post:
The teen charged with fatally stabbing Barnard College student Tessa Majors pleaded guilty to murder and robbery charges Thursday — just over two years after her death.
Rashaun Weaver was just 14 years old when prosecutors say he repeatedly knifed Majors, 18, in the torso — while one of his other baby-faced cohorts held her in a headlock — on Dec. 11, 2019, in Morningside Park.
He faces 14 years to life in prison after pleading guilty to murder and robbery charges in Majors’ slaying in the deal that also resolves two other theft cases.
The teen would have faced from 20 2/3 years to life if convicted at a trial on all the cases.
“He was 14 when he committed these crimes,” Assistant District Attorney Matthew Bogdanos said in Manhattan Supreme Court. “If he pleads guilty, he will save the Majors family the trauma of a trial and that counts for something.”
Prosecutors said Weaver, Luchiano Lewis and Zyairr Davis, then 14 and 13, respectively, were in the park that evening looking to rob people.
When the teen muggers descended on Majors, she fought for her life, at one point biting Weaver in the finger — causing him to fly into a rage and stab her to death.
“The bitch bit me,” Lewis later told investigators about what Weaver said after Majors’ murder, Bogdanos said in court.
The Post previously reported that Weaver admitted to his role in her death in a jailhouse phone call to his father, telling him that “he was in the park and tried to take the girl’s phone and ‘she was hanging onto her phone’ and that he hit her with a knife,” according to court papers describing the chilling conversation.
