[Update: The focus in the Tessa Majors case turned to DNA evidence.]

Two weeks after an intensive manhunt for a 14-year-old linked to the killing of Tessa Majors, police officers finally located the teenager on Thursday at a family member’s home in the Bronx.

The authorities believed that the teenager’s family was shielding him until a mark on his hand healed, an official briefed on the case said. The official described the mark as consistent with a bite.

But just hours later, after he was questioned by the police, the 14-year-old was released on Thursday afternoon. It was unclear whether he would be charged in the murder of Ms. Majors, the Barnard College student who was found bleeding to death earlier this month just outside Morningside Park in Manhattan.

The police have said that Ms. Majors bit one of her three attackers during a park mugging, and that the 14-year-old is believed to be the person who wielded the knife that killed her.