Barnard College
New York City police have arrested a 13-year-old boy in connection with the fatal stabbing of a Barnard College student, according to three law enforcement sources.

The sources told ABC News that the juvenile suspect is facing charges of murder, robbery and weapons possession after he allegedly made statements linking himself to Wednesday's killing of Tessa Rane Majors, an 18-year-old freshman at the private women's liberal arts college which sits just outside Morningside Park in Upper Manhattan, alongside Columbia University.

Detectives believe there may have been as many as three people involved in the incident, the sources said.

Majors was walking through Morningside Park near campus on Wednesday evening when she was accosted by an unknown number of people and stabbed multiple times during a struggle, police said. Majors managed to get herself out of the park and onto a nearby street, where she was spotted by a school public safety officer who called 911, police said. She died soon after at a local hospital, according to the New York City Police Department.

Tessa Majors
© Conrad MacKethanAn undated photo shows Tessa Majors, an 18-year old Barnard College student who died after she was stabbed in Morningside Park in Upper Manhattan, N.Y., Dec. 11, 2019.
Majors' family said they are "devastated by the senseless loss of our beautiful and talented Tess."

"We are thankful for the incredible outpouring of love and support we have received from across the country," the family told ABC News in a statement Friday.

Majors, a native of Charlottesville Virginia, was the daughter of Inman Majors, a novelist and English professor at James Madison University, and the grandniece of famed football coach Johnny Majors, according to a family spokesperson.

Majors was finishing up her first year at Barnard College, with final exams set to begin Friday. The school's president, Sian Leah Beilock, said that the teen was wounded "during an armed robbery" that occurred off campus in the park.

"This is an unthinkable tragedy that has shaken us to our core," Beilock said in a statement.

Police officers patrol
© Jeenah Moon/Getty ImagesPolice officers patrol the entrance of Morningside Park in New York City on Dec. 12, 2019. Barnard College student Tessa Majors, 18, was stabbed to death in the park on the evening of Dec. 11, 2019.
Investigators continued combing Morningside Park for evidence on Thursday. The New York City Police Department's chief of detectives, Rodney Harrison, told reporters that a knife was recovered from the crime scene but it's unclear whether the weapon was used in the stabbing.

Several people have been let go after being questioned by police, Harrison said.

Police are increasing patrols near the park and the neighboring college campuses in the wake of Majors' death, according to Harrison.

Hundreds of people gathered at Barnard College to mourn Majors at a vigil Thursday night. Students, faculty and other community members placed flowers, candles and notes at a makeshift memorial on campus.

"The idea that a college freshman at Barnard was murdered in cold blood is absolutely, not only painful to me as a parent, it's terrifying to think that that could happen anywhere," New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a press conference Thursday. "It's an unacceptable reality."