Majors was discovered collapsed and bleeding on a staircase exiting Morningside Park and transported to a nearby hospital, ultimately succumbing to the injuries.

[15] At a 2021 sentencing hearing for Lewis, Assistant District Attorney Matthew Bogdanos characterized the attack as long, intentional, and pre-meditated.

[17][16] Majors then attempted to climb up the steep stairs found at the park's entrance nearest to the university.

[18] Majors staggered up the stairs and collapsed at the corner of Morningside Drive and 116th Street,[19][2] before being found by a security guard at the top of the staircase.

She also denied requests by his lawyers for him to be released into his aunt and uncle’s custody, due to the seriousness of the charges against him.

[24] Police were unable to locate the third suspect, a fourteen-year-old, for two weeks, but apprehended him on December 26 after publicly releasing his photograph.

[34] On June 3, 2020, the 13-year-old male arrested the day after the incident, and who had since turned 14, pleaded guilty in family court to robbery in the first degree.

[35] Police investigation of surveillance footage had shown that this juvenile, the youngest of the three in the group, had not touched Majors during the crime, which the prosecutor said had contributed, along with his young age and clean record, to their decision to drop the murder charge if the boy pleaded guilty to the robbery.

Though Majors's parents were not present at the sentencing, they submitted a victim impact statement which was read in court.

In the statement, they criticized the deal that led to the offender's guilty plea and argued that he “has shown a complete lack of remorse or contrition for his role in the killing of Tess Majors.” They also criticized the offender's choice to pick up the knife and handing it to the person who stabbed Majors with it.

At the plea hearing, Weaver acknowledged that he "intentionally caused the death of Tessa Majors by stabbing her with a knife."

[42] Majors also led the creative writing club in high school, ran cross-country, and volunteered on political campaigns.

NYPD committed additional officers for patrolling the park, and Columbia University pledged more security guards.

[47] New York City Council member Mark D. Levine announced he was attempting to get funds to add security cameras that could be monitored in real time by police officers.

[48] The murder of Majors garnered considerable news coverage and was referred to as a political football,[49] in part because violent crime had fallen significantly in New York City in preceding years.

[51] In addition, due to the suspects being black and the victim of the killing being white, the murder is reported to have "resurfaced the longstanding racial and class tensions between Columbia University and the fast-gentrifying neighborhood of Harlem".

[54] Gale Brewer, the borough president of Manhattan, urged detectives to proceed with caution to avoid an outcome similar to the jogger case.

[55] In an effort to avoid the mistakes made by police 30 years prior, all questioning of the suspects in the Tessa Majors case was video recorded.