There is “mounting evidence” which suggests that Boston Marathon bombing suspects Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were involved in an unsolved triple homicide in 2011, according to Massachusetts investigators.
Forensic evidence from the crime scene matched the brothers’
DNA, and cell phone records put them in the area of the murders on
the date they occurred, officials told ABC News.
In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings, authorities in
Middlesex County began to investigate the link between Tamerlan and
Brendan Mess – one of the three men killed in the triple
homicide.
Mess and two other men were found in a Waltham, Massachusetts
residence with their throats slit and their bodies covered with
marijuana on September 11, 2011. Tamerlan and Mess were once
roommates and practiced boxing and martial arts together.
The officials stressed that until more definitive DNA testing is
complete, it is still too early to bring an indictment against the
surviving suspect, Dzhokhar.
The cold case was made active again once the victims’ family and
friends saw the Tsarnaev brothers’ photos in the media. It was then
that they were reminded of Tamerlan’s behavior after the murders.
He did not attend Mess’ funeral and disappeared from the martial
arts gym where the men had sparred together.
A spokesperson for Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan
declined to comment on the brothers’ possible involvement. Miriam
Conrad, one of the attorneys representing Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, also
declined to comment through her legal assistant.
Tamerlan, the deceased suspect, was buried in a Virginia
cemetery, according to a death certificate released Friday. The
document says that he was shot by police before being run over and
dragged by a motor vehicle.
The cause of death was gunshot wounds of the torso and
extremities and blunt trauma to the head and torso. He was
pronounced dead at 1:35am on April 19.
The news comes after a week of protests outside the funeral home
which was keeping his body. The funeral home struggled to find a
cemetery to accept the suspect’s body.
He has been buried at Al-Barzakh Cemetery in Doswell, Virginia,
imam of the Virginia Islamic Center, Ammar Amonette, told Reuters.
He added that he disapproved of the decision to bury Tamerlan at
the Muslim cemetery.
“It was done by individuals without our knowledge or
consent…we are quite upset. It’s affected thousands of Muslims
and we were not consulted. It has nothing to do with us,” he
said.
Tamerlan’s younger brother, 19-year-old Dzhokhar, is being held
in a prison west of Boston after being charged with crimes which
carry the death penalty. The bombings killed three people and
injured 264 others on April 18.
This article originally appeared on : RT