(Photo : Larry W. Smith/Getty Images)
Police Make Arrest In BTK Murders
PARK CITY, KS - FEBRUARY 26: Police tape hangs across the street in front of the house that Dennis Rader lives in February 26, 2005 in Park City, Kansas. Rader is the suspect whom police have arrested on suspicion of first-degree murder in connection with the 10 deaths now tied to the serial killer known as BTK. (Photo by Larry W. Smith/Getty Images)
The teen who pleaded guilty to Tessa Major's brutal murder was sentenced to nine years in prison in Manhattan criminal court on Thursday.
Tessa Majors' family recounted their "immeasurable pain" in court. On behalf of Tessa Majors' father, Inman Majors, the family of Tessa Majors gave an emotional victim impact statement as a judge sentenced 16-year-old Luchiano Lewis to nine years to life in Manhattan criminal court on Thursday.
On the day of Tessa's murder, "the aspirations and dreams of our daughter Tessa came to an end," according to a statement read aloud by Assistant District Attorney Matthew Bogdanos as Tessa's father openly cried in court.
Teen charged in Tessa Major's death
The bereaved family explained how difficult it was to see the world go on without their daughter. Justice Robert Mandelbaum blasted Lewis for his lack of remorse in the tragic case at his judgment on Thursday.
According to WNBC-TV, the court stated that the defendant has proven in the year and a half after this occurred that this is not an aberration. From his experience in this case, the defendant has learnt no lessons.
On the robbery charge, Lewis was sentenced to 40 months to 12 years in prison. It's unclear if the sentences will be served simultaneously or sequentially. Majors was stabbed several times during a botched mugging in Morningside Park, near the Manhattan campuses of Barnard College and Columbia University, on December 11, 2019. He was one of three people charged in her death.
Rashaun Weaver, the suspected knifeman, has pleaded not guilty and has been prosecuted as an adult. Last June, the third boy involved in Majors' murder pled guilty to robbery and was sentenced to 18 months in prison, the maximum punishment for a juvenile.
Lewis stated before his sentence that he and his associates went to Morningside Park in search of someone to rob. They attempted to pursue a man at first, but he was moving too quickly for them to catch up, Daily Mail reported.
Majors was gazing down at her phone when Lewis and Weaver approached her, kicking her in the back and demanding that she hand up her phone and money, according to Lewis.
Father of college student killed in phone robbery incident breaks down in court
Before prosecutors could play a video of his daughter's dying minutes alive, Inman Majors fled the courtroom. The footage was recorded by a security camera at the top of the steep stairway near the park where Majors was attacked. She passed just a few minutes later, as per CNN.
According to Bogdanos, the incident lasted more than a minute and began on a steep stairwell in the park, which Majors raced up while fighting the adolescents. After she was stabbed, he stated Majors continued to run up another level of the stairwell.
On Thursday, Bogdanos said in court that the three guys had followed at least one other person before assaulting Majors, and that the teens wanted her iPhone.
Lewis detailed the interaction with Majors at his September plea hearing. He said that two of his companions kicked Majors to the ground and fought with her in two separate locations in the park.
Lewis indicated that while he was aware that one of the other teens had a knife that night, he was unaware that Majors had been stabbed, let alone murdered, until the next morning when he read a news article.
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