New York police arrested the teen they are “confident” is the boy who stabbed Barnard College student Tessa Majors to death during a botched robbery in Morningside Park, the New York Post reports. Rashaun Weaver, 14, was taken into custody in the lobby of the Taft Houses in East Harlem Friday night and will be tried as an adult on two counts of murder. Majors, 18, played a pivotal role in cracking the case. It was her courageous fight for her life that helped cops nab her alleged killer. Weaver was tied to DNA recovered from underneath Majors’ fingernails as she clawed and scratched at her assailants, prosecutors said. “What we can do is say that we are confident that we have the person in custody who stabbed her,” said Police Commissioner Dermot Shea. Weaver is the second of the trio to be busted in connection with the Dec. 11 murder that stunned the city for its senselessness and brutality.
The group tried to rob the budding musician, who struggled with her assailants until one of them stabbed her multiple times. Zyairr Davis, 13, was nabbed and charged with felony murder days after the attack. “He saw feathers come out of her jacket, and all three of them ran out of the park … and they went home,” a detective said at the time. During the mugging, a witness heard a male voice say, “Gimme your phone. You got some weed, gimme that too,” the criminal complaints alleges. “The allegations are really laid out in heartbreaking detail. The complaint paints a picture of video evidence, blood evidence, smartphone evidence, iCloud evidence, the witness identification, and the defendants’ own statements that were rigorously collected and examined prior to this indictment,” said District Attorney Cyrus Vance.
