March 26, 2015
The jury hearing the trial of accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on Thursday is due to hear more details about the deadly 2013 attack as prosecutors prepare to wrap up their case.
Through 13 days of testimony at U.S. District Court in Boston, the jurors have heard witnesses ranging from people who lost limbs when the twin pressure-cooker bombs ripped through the crowd at the race's finish line to FBI agents who described finding fuses and metal BB pellets in the apartment where the defendant and his older brother lived.
Tsarnaev, 21, is accused of killing three people and injuring 264 in the April 15, 2013, attack. He is also accused of shooting dead a university police officer three days later as he and 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev prepared to flee the city.
The two brothers took part in a heated gunfight with police in the Boston suburb of Watertown, Massachusetts, that ended when Dzhokhar roared off in a hijacked Mercedes SUV, running over his older brother. Tamerlan later died of his injuries.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev briefly escaped, prompting a day-long lockdown of most of the greater Boston area while police conducted a massive manhunt. He was found hiding in a boat parked in a backyard late on April 19, 2013.
Tsarnaev's lawyers opened the trial early this month with a blunt admission that their client committed all the crimes of which he is accused. Rather than trying to prove his innocence, they aim to spare him the death sentence he could face by convincing the jury that Tamerlan was the driving force behind the attacks.
The same jury that determines whether Tsarnaev is guilty will decide whether he is sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, or death.The bombing killed restaurant manager Krystle Campbell, 29, graduate student Lingzi Lu, 23, and 8-year-old Martin Richard. Tsarnaev is also charged with the fatal shooting of Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer Sean Collier three days after the bombing.
