16-year-old American boy sentence 9 years for stabbing college girl to death in phone robbery

An American 16-year-old boy identified as Luchiano Lewis has been sentenced to 9 years in prison for stabbing a college girl, Tessa Majors to death in a phone robbery;

Lewis, who was one of three teens charged in the 2019 murder, was sentenced in Manhattan criminal court on Thursday. He pleaded guilty last month to murder and robbery.

At the time, Lewis was 14 years old and prosecutors at the Manhattan district attorney’s office decided he would be charged as an adult.

Luchiano Lewis

More so, the devastated family of Tessa, 18, described the family’s ‘immeasurable pain’ in court.

While speaking in a statement on behalf of Inman Majors, Tessa’s father, Assistant District Attorney Matthew Bogdanos said: ‘‘On December 11, 2019, the hopes and dreams for our daughter Tess came to a tragic end.

‘‘Nearly two years later, we still find words inadequate to describe the immeasurable pain, trauma, and suffering that our family has endured since her senseless murder.

‘Tess was a brilliant student, a voracious reader, a poet and a fledgling journalist. She had big dreams.’

Tessa Majors

Tessa, who was from Charlottesville, Virginia, was finishing her first semester at Barnard College in Manhattan when she cut through Morningside Park before 8 pm that night.

As she approached the stairs to exit at West 116th Street, police say the group of teens including Lewis, 16-year-old Rashan Weaver, and an unnamed 13-year-old, tried to rob her and take her phone, ABC 7 reported.

The teens stabbed her multiple times. In her final moments of life, a security camera caught her struggling up a flight of stairs dripping in blood. When she reached the street she collapsed against a lamppost, where she died minutes later.

The video of her death was played in the courtroom, along with a joint impact statement from her parents Inman and Christy Majors.

Meanwhile, in handing down the sentence, Judge Robert Mandelbaum said her murder ‘tore at the fabric of the entire city.