Virginia Freshman Stabbed To Death In NYC By Muggers: Report

MORNINGSIDE HEIGHTS, NY — A freshman from Charlottesville, Virginia, finishing her first semester at Barnard College in Manhattan, New York, was stabbed to death Wednesday during a robbery near the campus, according to school and police officials.

Tessa Majors, 18, was found shortly after 5:30 p.m., her body riddled with stab wounds, police said. Medics rushed her to Mount Sinai St. Luke's Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

Majors was walking through the park when she was approached by a group of muggers and robbed at knifepoint, NYPD Chief of Patrol Rodney Harrison said Thursday. During the robbery, one of the men stabbed her repeatedly in the stomach, he said. Majors walked to a nearby Columbia University security booth, where the guard immediately came to her aid, the college said.

Two minors were taken into the 26th precinct for questioning and have not yet been released, Harrison said. A third minor is also wanted for questioning. A knife was recovered from the park, and investigators are working to determine if it was the knife used during the murder, police said.

Barnard President Sian Leah Beilock described the murder as an "unthinkable tragedy that has shaken us to our core," and added that the school reached out to Majors' family. Her parents are making the trip from Charlottesville to New York City after speaking with Barnard officials, the school said.

Majors' grandfather described the young students as "a lovely, lovely girl, very very smart and sweet," in an interview with the New York Daily News.

Read more about the fatal attack on the Upper West Side NY Patch.

— Written by NYC Editor Adam Nichols