Boston bomber trial jury sees bomb-carrying backpack
BOSTON - Jurors in the Boston Marathon trial on Wednesday saw the tattered pieces of the backpack that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev used to carry a bomb in the deadly 2013 attack.
FBI Special Agent Sarah De Lair held up pieces of the black and white backpack for the jury. De Lair said the pieces were found near the Forum restaurant, where Tsarnaev planted and detonated a bomb April 15, 2013.
Three people were killed and more than 260 injured when Tsarnaev and his older brother, Tamerlan, set off two pressure cooker bombs near the marathon finish line.
Photos show debris and abandoned items scattered on the sidewalk and street - clothing, a stroller, plastic water bottles and matching cowboy boots a few feet apart.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's lawyers have admitted he participated in the bombing but say Tamerlan was the mastermind. Tamerlan, 26, died in a shootout with police four days after the bombing.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, now 21, faces the possibility of the death penalty if convicted.
Later Wednesday, prosecutors presented testimony on the fatal shooting of Massachusetts of Institute police Officer Sean Collier.
Collier was shot hours after the FBI released photos of the Tsarnaevs as suspects in the bombing and asked for the public's help in finding them.
Prosecutors say the Tsarnaev brothers killed Collier during an unsuccessful attempt to steal his gun. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's lawyer said during opening statements that it was Tamerlan Tsarnaev who shot Collier.
Jurors heard a frantic call made by a police officer who discovered Collier shot in his cruiser three days after the bombing.
MIT Officer David Sacco described receiving a call from a resident who heard loud noises and saw an MIT police cruiser outside. After being unable to reach Collier, Sacco sent another officer to check on him.
The jury heard a recording of that officer yelling "Officer down! Officer down!" when he discovered Collier shot multiple times.
On Tuesday, jurors saw photographs of a blood-stained, hand-scrawled note speckled with bullet holes inside the boat he was captured in days after the attack.
Prosecutors consider the note a confession and say it refers to the motive for the attack carried out by Tsarnaev and his late brother, Tamerlan.
In the note, written in pencil on the inside walls of the boat, Tsarnaev appears to decry U.S. actions in Muslim countries and says he is jealous of his brother because he is dead and now in paradise.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, died following a violent confrontation with police during a getaway attempt four days after the bombings. Dzhokzar, then 19, was found hiding in a boat parked in a yard in Watertown.
"I do not mourn because his soul is very much alive. God has a plan for each person. Mine was to hide in this boat and shed some light on our actions," he wrote, according to the photos shown to the jury by prosecutors.
The note also said: "The U.S. Government is killing our innocent civilians but most of you already know that. As a M (bullet hole) I can't stand to see such evil go unpunished, we Muslims are one body, you hurt one you hurt us all. ..."
"Now I don't like killing innocent people it is forbidden in Islam but due to said (bullet hole) it is allowed."