Sept. 21 (UPI) -- One of three teens charged in the fatal stabbing of a New York college student in 2019 pleaded guilty to second-degree murder on Tuesday.
Luchiano Lewis, 16, also pleaded guilty to first-degree robbery in Manhattan Criminal Court as he and two other teenagers were charged with killing 18-year-old Barnard College student Tessa Majors in Manhattan's Morningside Park in a botched mugging on Dec. 11, 2019.
Lewis, who was 14 at the time of the incident and was charged as an adult, said Tuesday he did not see the stabbing but saw feathers come out of Majors' jacket.
He added he did not realize Majors had been killed until he recognized her on the news the following day.
Lewis said the three middle school friends planned to rob people in the park, saying 16-year-old Rashaun Weaver, who has pleaded not guilty, devised the plot.
"He wanted the three of us to do robberies in Morningside Park," Lewis said. "I assumed Rashaun had a knife on him, but using a knife was not part of our plan."
Lewis added that he believed Weaver threw the knife in the sewer after the attack.
"This was not a premeditated murder as we heard inside," Jeffrey Lichtman, who is representing Weaver said. "These were 14- and 13-year-old boys and we should remember that."
A third teen, who was 13 years old at the time of the stabbing, pleaded guilty to robbery and is serving an 18-month sentence in custody of New York's Administration for Children's Services.