DNA evidence has moved to the fore, as law enforcement investigators work to put together a winning case against those charged with murdering Barnard College student Tessa Majors.
By: Millie Ciccese
Majors, of course, was stabbed to death in a park mugging in Manhattan early this month.
“The push for conclusive evidence comes a day after detectives detained and then released a 14-year-old believed to have wielded the knife that killed Ms. Majors,” the New York Times reported. “An official with knowledge of the investigation said the police were banking on pending DNA results they hoped would allow prosecutors to charge all three of the minors suspected of attacking Ms. Majors on Dec. 11 in Morningside Park, near the Columbia University campus.”
According to police, a 13-year-old boy was arrested after Majors was killed and is being held on charges that include second-degree murder. A pair of 14-year-old boys have been questioned and released by police, according to the New York City Police Department. One of the teens is said to be black.
An odd and disturbing sidebar to the case turned up recently, when several Barnard College faculty and staff members claimed to have received racist robocalls from a white supremacist group in the wake of first-year student Tessa Majors’ slaying.
“We have become aware that robocall messages from a white supremacist group were received on many faculty and staff landlines at Barnard and may have been received by a small number of Columbia faculty and staff as well,” a statement from university officials said. Majors attended Barnard, a women’s college affiliated with Columbia University. “The contents of this message, related to Tess Majors’ recent death, are abhorrent and viciously racist.”
The robocall was sent to multiple Barnard and Columbia faculty on Christmas Day. According to audio obtained and verified by the New York Times, the recording featured racist epithets by an unidentified caller who criticizes Majors’ parents for allowing her to associate with black people.
“The Office of University Life said that the calls were placed to landlines at both schools and that no students were believed to have received them. The statement refers anyone who has received a similar call to Columbia Public Safety,” reported columbiaspectator.com. “We condemn this racist, anti-black act in the strongest possible terms and have referred it to the N.Y.P.D.,” a Barnard spokeswoman said in a statement to the Times. “Our community stands together against hate.”
