Tessa Majors

UPDATE: Police question, release 14-year-old boy suspected of stabbing Tessa Majors

A 14-year-old boy implicated in the December 11 stabbing murder of 18-year-old Tessa Majors was questioned and released on Thursday after he’d been located earlier in the day, New York police said.

Police had been searching for the boy after a 13-year-old was arrested in connection with the murder and named two 14-year-olds, one of whom he reportedly said wielded the knife that killed Majors.

The boy police questioned on Thursday is believed to be that boy. Detectives had already questioned and released the other 14-year-old, saying they did not have enough evidence to hold him.

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Majors, a freshman at Barnard, was fatally stabbed on the evening of December 11 in Morningside Park. Two days later, police arrested the 13-year-old boy, who is being tried in family court.

NYPD Chief of Detectives Rodney Harrison said the apprehension of the 14-year-old — in the Bronx at about 8:30 a.m. — “was a significant development” in the investigation even though he was released after questioning. A police spokesman later told NBC New York that “the investigation remains active and ongoing.”

The boy is being represented by attorneys provided by the Neighborhood Defender Services of Harlem, the station said.

Though police have not named the suspect, they did release his photo after authorities lost track of him, as CrimeOnline previously reported.

While investigators were questioning the boy on Thursday, Columbia University officials said in an email that “viciously racist” robocalls had been sent to some faculty and staff members at both Columbia and Barnard, the New York Times reported. The email said the calls came from a white supremacist group and were related to Majors’ murder. The calls are being investigated by the universities and police.

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