The anguished parents of slain Barnard College student Tessa Majors sat in the front row of a New York City courtroom Wednesday, looking on as the teenager who ？stabbed their daughter was sentenced to 14 years to life.
Rashaun Weaver, who prosecutors said wielded the knife, and two other teenagers were arrested in the slaying of 18-year-old Majors, who was attacked in Morningside Park, just off the Columbia University campus, on Dec. 11, 2019.
Courtesy Conrad MacKethan
An undated photo shows Tessa Majors, an 18-year old Barnard College student who died after she was stabbed in Morningside Park in Upper Manhattan, N.Y., Dec. 11, 2019.
Majors, stabbed four times, stumbled up the park steps before she was seen on surveillance video collapsing against a lamppost, dying on the sidewalk.
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Views of the crime scene in Morningside Park four days after Tessa Majors, a Barnard freshman, was murdered, as seen on December 15, 2019 in New York City.
David Dee Delgado/Getty Images, FILE
A makeshift memorial stands for 18-year-old Barnard College freshman Tessa Majors in Morningside Park on Dec. 26, 2019 in New York City.
A victim impact statement read in court said Majors' family has "no idea what it is like to experience what she experienced. No idea what it is to fight with three males -- all of them larger than she -- for over a minute, escaping two times only to be surrounded and targeted again."
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"They have no idea what it is like to stumble up a long flight of stairs after being stabbed multiple times in the chest" and "bleed to death on a New York City street," the statement said.
Pool Photo
Inman Major, father of Tessa Majors, attends the sentencing of Rashaun Weaver for the death of Tessa in New York, Jan. 19, 2022.
"The family of Tess Majors misses her every second of every day and will continue to do so as long as they are living and sentient," the statement said.
Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images, FILE
New Yorkers join Barnard college students for a candlelight vigil for Tessa Majors, a Barnard freshman who was murdered earlier in the week, on December 15, 2019 at the scene of the crime in Morningside Park in Harlem, New York City.
Weaver, who was 14 years old at the time of the crime, pleaded guilty in December 2021.
In court, Weaver apologized to the family for his "selfish" and "immature" act and said he would "give anything to go back in time so it never happened."
Pool Photo
Rashaun Weaver appears in court for sentencing for the death of Tessa Majors in New York, Jan. 19, 2022.
Defense attorney Jeffrey Lichtman said Weaver's father and other adult role models had been imprisoned, calling his client a "symptom" of a broken system of repeated incarceration.
"It does not absolve him but it does explain," Lichtman said.
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A sign advertising a reward for information regarding a homicide is posted at the entrance of Morningside Park, Dec. 12, 2019, in New York City.
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Weaver's sentencing marked the final chapter of the court proceedings.
The second suspect, Luchiano Lewis, also 14 at the time and charged as an adult, pleaded guilty in September 2021 to second-degree murder and second-degree robbery. He was sentenced to the maximum of nine years to life in prison.
The third suspect, a 13-year-old who was treated as a juvenile, pleaded guilty to one count of first-degree robbery in 2020 and was sentenced to 18 months in detention.