NEW YORK — One of three teenagers charged in the death of Barnard College student Tessa Majors in 2019 pleaded guilty Tuesday.
Luchiano Lewis, 16, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and first-degree robbery.
Majors, 18, a freshman at Barnard College, was stabbed to death in Morningside Park in December 2019 during a robbery.
Lewis is cooperating with prosecutors against co-defendant Rashaun Weaver, 16, who faces the same counts and, like Lewis, is being tried as an adult.
Weaver, whom police believe stabbed Majors, has pleaded not guilty. Lewis previously pleaded not guilty to the murder and robbery charges.
A third co-defendant was 13 at the time and tried as a juvenile.
Prosecutors alleged the group of teens tried to rob Majors. Prosecutors said Majors wouldn't give up her phone and shouted out for help, leading to a violent struggle that nearby witnesses overheard.
She managed to break free and run up a landing, but there Lewis caught up with her and put her in a bear hold or a headlock, according to prosecutors, stopping her from getting away.
She broke free again, prosecutors said, but by then it was too late — she had been stabbed four times and died soon after.
During his testimony Tuesday, Lewis claimed he did not know Majors had been stabbed the night he, Weaver, and the third teenager mugged her, and he stated he discovered she died the next morning from a news story.
Lewis is set to be sentenced Oct. 14.
“We remain resolute in our belief that all parties who bear responsibility for Tess’s senseless death will be held accountable, and we are deeply grateful to the many people who continue to pursue that goal,” Majors’s family said in a statement after Lewis’s guilty plea.
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This story includes reporting from Jillian Jorgensen