NEW YORK _ A young Barnard College student was fatally stabbed during a mugging in Morningside Park Wednesday night, just steps away from Columbia University, police sources said.
The 18-year-old victim was walking down a set of steps to the park on W. 116th St. near Morningside Drive when a group of young men confronted her and tried to rob her, sources said.
One of the men knifed her repeatedly in the stomach, and the group scattered, sources said.
The victim staggered back up to the steps to a Columbia security guard booth, but the guard was out doing his rounds, sources told the Daily News. When he returned, he found the collapsed victim and called 911.
Medics rushed the student, who had several stab wounds, to Mount Sinai St. Luke's Hospital, but she couldn't be saved.
Police found a woman's hat, a butterfly knife and an uncharged cell phone near the victim, cops said. Her name was not immediately released.
Cops followed a trail of blood to a fifth-floor apartment the nearby Grant Houses on Amsterdam Ave. Inside, they found a 16-year-old boy who fit a description of her attacker, wearing a green jacket.
He's been taken into custody, though charges against him are pending.
The apartment is a known hub for criminal activity, the sources said.
