CBS News: Boston Marathon Bomb DNA Does Not Match Tamerlan Tsarnaev's Wife
BOSTON (CBS) – Female DNA and fingerprints found on a bomb fragment recovered from the Boston Marathon attacks do not match the widow of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, CBS News reported Friday.
The FBI collected DNA and hair samples from Katherine Russell at her parents' home in North Kingstown, Rhode Island Monday.
The source of the genetic material on the pressure cooker bomb remains unknown.
"That could end up being anybody – a store clerk, one of the victims of the bombings – and they may never know," said CBS News senior correspondent John Miller.
Russell is not a suspect and has not been charged with anything, but investigators still want to question her to find out what, if anything, she knew of her husband's plans.
Miller said since the FBI's visit Monday, she's basically stopped talking.
"From that point on what's being put out is that she's no longer cooperating. I think what we're actually seeing is lawyers doing their job, which is, she retained counsel and it was very clear that she was developing into a potential target of this investigation and they basically said if you want anything, it's not that we're not cooperating but bring it to us and we'll send you back an answer."
Investigators are looking at a phone call Tamerlan made to his wife just hours after the FBI released a picture of him on April 18.
"What they want to know from her was - what was the nature of that call? Did they disclose to her that they were the bombers? Did they say they were going on the run? Did they give her instructions to assist with any escape? But there's no known tape of that call, so really the account they're going to have to get of that, since Tamerlan is dead, is hers," Miller said.
"It's going to be a 'what did she know and when did she know it' thing. What they really want to know from her is here's a woman who dated Tamerlan, who converted to Islam after they were married who, you know, lived in the same apartment. Not a big apartment where bombs were being constructed and pressure cookers were being bought two and three at a time. So, they want to know is it possible all of this was going on concealed from you or did you know it the whole time?"
Do investigators believe Russell's insistence that she knew nothing of the attack?
"I think they're very skeptical about it," Miller said. "But again, skeptical isn't proof, so that's why they're trying to work through that and I think that's why her lawyers are slowing that down. "
