CBS News: Boston Marathon Bombings Suspect Left Note In Watertown Boat
BOSTON (CBS) – Boston Marathon bombings suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev left a goodbye note in the boat where he was captured in Watertown, CBS News reported Thursday.
According to CBS News senior correspondent John Miller, investigators say Tsarnaev left a note claiming responsibility for the bombings shortly before he surrendered to police April 19.
He wrote the note as he was hiding in the boat, according to Miller, while bleeding from gunshot wounds sustained in a shootout with police and his older brother.
"Unable to come up with a piece of paper, he found a pen and began to write on the wall of the cabin," Miller told WBZ NewsRadio 1030.
"There have been rumors in this case about a so-called suicide note. This is a little different from that."
The note, according to Miller, said that:
- Dzhokar did not mourn his older brother Tamerlan
- Tamerlan was a martyr now in paradise
- Dzhokar expected to join him there
- The bombings were retribution for what the U.S. did to Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq
- The Boston victims were collateral damage, like Muslims are in U.S. wars
- And, when you attack one Muslim, you attack all Muslims
"It was a bit of a goodbye note, a bit of a manifesto and somewhat of a confession as to his commitment and beliefs regarding the attack," Miller told WBZ.
The note on the wall was riddled with bullet holes, according to Miller, from the shots fired into the boat after Dzhokhar came up through the tarp and a police officer covering that side of the boat thought he was holding another bomb.
"One of the things investigators have struggled with is no claim of responsibility. It took days to learn the identity of the bombers, and in the interim there was no official claim of responsibility, which is unusual in these cases," Miller said Thursday on CBS This Morning.
"What he has done there is basically written that communiqué, that claim of responsibility, the thing that investigators never found anywhere else after the attack," Miller said.
"It's very interesting in that he admitted much of this to police and the FBI during the time he was interrogated, but before he was given his Miranda warning. So, in one sense, if this ever goes to trial, there's going to be a big fight to keep those statements out admitting responsibility and these writings, in his handwriting, in the place where he was alone during that time, are certainly statements that are admissible."
WBZ NewsRadio 1030's Karen Twomey reports
Legal Implications Of Tsarnaev's Note
"We've learned that the suspects didn't plan to stop after the Boston bombings. They planned to go to New York City and set off a bomb in Times Square. They weren't as organized after the bombings, but we know they still had intent. So as Dzhokhar lay in the boat, bleeding from wounds he'd sustained in the earlier gunfight with his brother and police officers, he wanted to leave a message behind. And that message was clearly supporting what he and his brother had just done," Miller said.
"It's interesting, the idea that he thought that this would be his last will and testament, that he didn't think he would live through the night there and that he wrote this down."
