Dramatic 911 call released from end of Boston bomber manhunt
BOSTON - More than three years after the Boston Marathon bombings, the 911 call that ended the most dramatic manhunt in Boston history was released to CBS Boston station WBZ on Friday.
On April 19, 2013 -- four days after three people were killed and more than 270 others were hurt when two homemade bombs exploded at the marathon finish line -- the Boston area was virtually on lockdown as law enforcement officers frantically searched for one of the suspects, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
The search followed the shooting death of an MIT police officer and a gunbattle between authorities and Tsarnaev's older brother and fellow bomber, Tamerlan, who was shot and killed.
Police believed the younger Tsarnaev was wounded and still in the Watertown area.
That evening, after authorities told people they could leave their homes, Watertown resident David Henneberry called 911 after discovering a bleeding Tsarnaev hiding in his boat, parked in Henneberry's backyard.
Henneberry: "I have a boat in my yard. There's blood all over the inside. There's a person in the boat."
911 Operator: "Are you sure?"
Henneberry: "I just looked in the boat."
911 Operator: "Okay. Stay on the phone. Are you in the house? Stay in the house."
Henneberry: "I just looked in it and I found something on the outside and I got nervous. And I looked in and I saw blood all over the floor of the boat and there's a body in the boat."
911 Operator: "Stay where you are."
Henneberry: "He's in the boat laying the floor. Climb up the ladder you can open the hatch. He's in the boat."
911 Operator: "Is he alive?"
Henneberry: "I don't know!"
The call ends with Henneberry calmly telling the operator police had arrived.
Tsarnaev was taken into custody later that night after a standoff with police. Before surrendering, Tsarnaev scrawled a note on the inside of the boat.
"God has a plan for each person. Mine was to hide in this boat and shed some light on our actions," Tsarnaev wrote in pencil, essentially admitting the role he and his brother played in the bombings.
"We are promised victory and we will surely get it. Now I don't like killing innocent people...but due to said [bullet hole] it is allowed," he continued.
"The U.S. Government is killing our innocent civilians but most of you already know that. I can't stand to see such evil go unpunished.... I ask Allah... to allow me to return to him and be among all the righteous people in the highest levels of heaven," the note read.
The so-called boat note was just one of hundreds of pieces of evidence introduced at Tsarnaev's trial. He was convicted and sentenced to death in May 2015 for his role in the bombings.