The shattered parents of slain Barnard College student Tessa Majors detailed their daughter’s dying moments, saying they miss her “every second of every day” — as the last of her three attackers was sentenced to 14 years to life on Wednesday.
Inman and Christy Majors wrote in a victim statement that they “have no idea what it is like to experience what [Tess] experienced” when she was stabbed to death by then-14-year-old Rashaun Weaver on the evening of Dec. 11, 2019.
“The family of Tess Majors misses her every second of every day and will continue to do so as long as they are living and sentient,” said the statement, read in Manhattan Supreme Court by Assistant District Attorney Matthew Bogdanos, as her parents looked on from the gallery.
“Their pain is immeasurable and does not go away.”
Weaver and two middle school pals — Luciano Lewis and Zyairr Davis, then 14 and 13, respectively — killed the college freshman from Virginia during a botched robbery in Morningside Park, in a case that rattled New York City.
The parents, who sat stoically in the front row, said that their 18-year-old daughter, a musician, fought her attackers as they tried to snatch her iPhone — because it contained three years’ worth of songs that she’d written and was planning to record over the upcoming winter break.
Weaver was the first to attack Majors after she passed the trio while staring down at her phone. He ran up behind her and kicked her hard in the back.
As the teen muggers descended on Majors, she struggled for her life, at one point biting Weaver in the finger — causing him to fly into a rage.
That’s when Lewis held Majors in a headlock, and Weaver repeatedly knifed her, piercing her heart, and sending the feathers of her down coat into the air.
The young woman’s parents said they have “no idea what it is to fight with three males — all of them larger than she — for over a minute, escaping two times only to be surrounded and targeted again.”
“They have no idea what it’s like to try and hail an Uber ride while sitting on a city bench after being stabbed. No idea what it is like to bleed to death on a New York City street in the presence of strangers next to a security booth,” the statement said.
Davis, who was charged as a juvenile delinquent, was the first defendant to plead guilty in the case. He copped to one count of first-degree robbery in 2020 and was sentenced to 18 months in detention.
Lewis pleaded in September to second-degree murder and first-degree robbery and was sentenced the following month to the maximum of nine years to life in prison.
Now 16, Weaver was the third and final suspect in the shock slaying to be sentenced, finally bringing the case to a close after more than two years.
Bogdanos told the court that Weaver “repeatedly committed crimes” and acts of violence, including a knifepoint robbery in the same park four days earlier.
During the mugging of Majors, Weaver “didn’t just attack her once,” Bogdanos said, detailing how the trio came after the college freshman three times in the park as she tried to escape.
“He didn’t just stab her once,” Bogdanos said. “He stabbed her four times. Four times in the chest.”
The prosecutor also said Weaver didn’t appear remorseful in the immediate aftermath, filming himself on his phone the next night while smoking weed he’d stolen from Majors.
“Yes 14 years to life is a long time,” Bogdanos said, “but at the end of his sentence Rashaun Weaver goes home. Tess never will.”
Weaver’s pro bono lawyer, Jeffrey Litchman, the high-profile attorney who defended Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, said his client had expressed remorse hundreds of times in the years since the killing.
He described Weaver as “a symptom rather than cause of a broken system,” saying the boy was born while his dad was incarcerated and had a “turbulent childhood,” growing up in public housing and homeless shelters.
“All of the role models in his life have been to prison,” Litchman said.
Weaver, who was brought into court with his hands cuffed behind his back, wearing a burgundy shirt and black tie, thanked his family for standing by him, telling them, “you continue to love me as society hates me.” Several of his relatives were present and one yelled out “I love you bro,” as Weaver was led away after the hearing.
The teen also addressed the court and apologized, saying: “I’d give anything to go back in time so that it never happened.”
Inman, an English professor at James Madison University, looked down, his head bowed as Weaver spoke, while his wife stared at her daughter’s killer.
“Nothing I will say or do for the rest of my life will make up for the harm and pain I have caused,” Weaver told them, vowing to use his time behind bars to “become a better person” and to help kids with similar backgrounds “understand life doesn’t have to be hopeless.”
“I want to be more than a statistic,” he said.
