Tessa Majors Murder: Going for the Match in DNA and Other Questions

UPDATE:  Tessa Majors was 18, just starting out at NYC's Barnard College/Columbia University when she was confronted by three individuals  in Morningside Park, just a stone's throw from the college.  One of the three handed a knife to the youth who stabbed her. One of the saddest and most pathetic videos you will ever see is when Tessa, bleeding from the knife wounds, stumbles up a long flight of concrete stairs to seek help.  The courageous young woman makes it to the top, just a few steps from the college, collapses and dies there.  Today,  sixteen-year-old Luchiano Lewis, who confessed to participating in the crime, was given a sentence of nine years to life. He was fourteen at the time the crime was committed. A second youth is already serving a sentence with a third still awaiting trial. 

Everyone knows that the  1989 Central Park 5 murder case has made investigators proceed with an abundance of caution in the similarly  high-profile murder case of victim Tessa Majors. Everyone except the morons who sent racist robocalls to Barnard University personnel knows that white adolescents have committed similar crimes, and for similar reasons. 

But let’s not mix social activism with criminal investigation in the murder of the first year Barnard College student stabbed to death in New York City’s Morningside Park on December 11.  Tessa and her family cry out for justice which just happens to involve a thirteen year old and two fourteen year olds, one of whom (allegedly, to use the appropriate legal terminology of innocent until proven guilty) stabbed and slashed Tessa Majors to death. 

Of course there are people observing and participating in the proceedings who do not want the responsible parties to be found out and, if they are found out, to be subject to the penal codes which, under normal circumstances,   apply equally to everyone, regardless of color, creed,and the rest of all that.  Below, you will see previously published material about the crime as it happened in December of 2019

Defense Attorney Hannah Kaplan would be happy to see her thirteen year old client go scott-free even though he’s admitted being present at the murder scene,   witnessing the fatal attack, and picking up a knife and handing it to one of the other suspects.  While Kaplan and others are doing what defense lawyers always do — play upon suspicions of police misconduct — it’s a good bet that the thirteen year old is on video, as are the two fourteen year olds.  It’s kind of hard to deny you were somewhere else if you’re on video where a murder is committed. 

Of the fourteen year olds, one was interviewed (with his lawyer and guardian) and, owing to the kindness and caution of the police department, released.  The other fourteen year old was believed to have fled south but was in fact found Thursday in the Bronx apartment of a relative.  According to several news sources (NYT for instance), the boy’s relatives were planning to shelter him until a bite wound on his finger healed. 

The notion that Tessa Majors fought back against her attacker(s) by biting comes from the thirteen year old’s confession and description of events. If the news reports have it right, that thirteen year old describes seeing the feather fly out of Tessa Majors’ jacket as she was being repeatedly stabbed and slashed.

But here are a few things I don’t know:

The New York Times and other news outlets often report that two assailants grabbed Tessa from behind, and that one of them reached into her pocket to grab a “plastic bag.”  The “plastic bag” term has appeared in several articles.  Could it just as easily have been “plastic purse” or “plastic wallet?”  Was Tessa carrying around in her pocket an empty Ziplock baggie? No problem there, just wondering.  I always keep a spare plastic bag in my pocket as I’m wandering about. But if it’s true, as one of Tessa’s school friends has it, that Tessa had gone to Morningside Park to buy marijuana, then it should be part of the investigation to determine whether other persons had been near and if somehow, perhaps inadvertently, such persons were involved in activities surrounding the murder.  Such persons, if they do exist, might even provide additional witness information.

I’m puzzled also by the testimony of the thirteen year old first taken into custody.  He says he picked up a knife dropped by one of the two fourteen year olds and handed it to one of the fourteen year olds. This is repeatedly and routinely mentioned in most news stories of the attack.  Can we assume that someone is shown on video picking up the knife and handing it off? But more importantly, how did it happen to be dropped?  Did it drop from a pocket or a hand?  Was it the murder weapon or just a spare knife kept around just for fun?  Where is the knife now?  

So with New York Legal Aid, Hannah Kaplan, and other fantasists attempting to shift focus and blame onto the police department handling of the interviews, investigating authorities are playing it smart by going for the DNA match.

 According to the NYT, forensics has gone over clothing and even the inside of Tessa Majors’ mouth to see what kind of DNA found there would match with DNA from all three of the ‘boys,’ but most especially the one who did the stabbing.  A judge has cleared the warrant for obtaining DNA samples from the most likely of the fourteen year olds to have killed Tessa.