Barnard College students react to grisly fatal stabbing of female freshman
Students at NYC's all-female Barnard College react to the fatal stabbing of 18-year-old freshman Tessa Rane Majors, who was killed Wednesday evening near Morningside Park in upper Manhattan.
New York City police have reportedly arrested a 13-year-old boy and a source on Friday told Fox News cops could soon charge two other young teens in the shocking stabbing death of a Barnard College student.
Tessa Majors, an 18-year-old freshman, was discovered unconscious with “multiple stab wounds about the body” near a staircase in Manhattan’s Morningside Park just before 7 p.m. Wednesday, police said earlier this week. The president of the all-women school says she “was fatally injured during an armed robbery” attempt.
A police source told Fox News on Friday that one juvenile has been arrested and charged in the killing and is set to make a family court appearance this afternoon. The source added that a second juvenile is currently being held at a precinct and is likely to face charges, while a third is being "actively sought".
All three juveniles appear to be between 13 to 14 years old, according to the source.
“The passing of Tess Majors is an unthinkable tragedy that has shaken us to our core,” Barnard College President Sian Leah Beilock said during a community gathering Thursday. “We are all grieving, and trying to grasp the senseless tragedy that took Tess from us.”
People pause and place a candle at a makeshift memorial for Tessa Majors inside the Barnard campus on Thursday. (AP)
Beilock described Majors as “an artist, a musician who played instruments, wrote songs” and had “just recently performed the first big gig in New York City.”
“In high school, Tess was the leader of Creative Writing Club, volunteered for political campaigns, was a cross country runner and a musician,” she added.
BARNARD COLLEGE STUDENTS ‘APPREHENSIVE’, ‘SHAKEN UP’ AFTER FRESHMAN, 18, STABBED TO DEATH NEARBY
Mayor Bill de Blasio tweeted Thursday, following the stabbing, that the NYPD would increase its presence in the area to “keep this community safe, arrest the perpetrators and ensure NOTHING like this can happen again."
“We’ve lost a young woman full of potential in a senseless act of violence,” he said. “I want every student and every member of faculty to know your city will be with you in the days ahead.”
Officers from the New York City Police Department inspect a crime scene where an 18-year-old college student was stabbed to death Wednesday night. (Greg Norman/Fox News)
Barnard College, which is affiliated with Columbia University – an Ivy League institution across the street from it and also near the crime scene – has an enrollment of 2,682 undergrads, 632 of which are first-year students.
Students there told Fox News they are “apprehensive” and the community is “pretty shaken up” following the stabbing.
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The scene of the stabbing was surrounded by police Thursday. (Greg Norman/Fox News)
“It just makes me think about myself and what that means for me in the city because I love going out in the city and exploring and now I just feel more apprehensive towards doing that,” Natasha, a freshman biochemistry major, said outside one of the college’s entrances Thursday.
“I actually walked through the park that morning,” she added. “I walked up those stairs.”
Fox News' Marta Dhanis contributed to this report.
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