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CNN Special Reports
Murder at the Marathon. Aired 7-8p ET.
Aired May 10, 2015 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN HOST: This is what they did in Boston.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh my God.
(CROSSTALK)
FEYERICK: But where did they go?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Less than half an hour after they did this they're agreeing about what kind of milk they'll buy.
FEYERICK: Who we're they really?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was always happy and peaceful. There was nothing malicious about him.
FEYERICK: And what drove them to kill?
You saw the victim that's grieving and broken. Now the side of the story you didn't see.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh my goodness. Officer down. Officer down.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get on it.
FEYERICK: Tonight, Murder at the Marathon.
April 15th 2013, Patriots Day, a Massachusetts tradition.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you talk to anyone from Boston, they'll talk about Patriots Day as the day, the week entity in Boston, it's our signature day, it's the week of Boston.
FEYERICK: The centerpiece of the day is the City's world famous marathon.
STEVE SILVA, BOSTON.COM REPORTER: It was a chilly morning, 30 degrees unlike when it was 80 degrees so we're like, oh the weather is not going to be the story this year, what's going to be the story?
FEYERICK: Journalist Steve Silva is covering the event for Boston.com.
SYDNEY CORCORAN, BOSTON BOMBING SURVIVOR: It was a normal day and it was a good day.
FEYERICK: Sydney Corcoran along with her mom and dad are among the 1 million spectators enjoying the day.
CORCORAN: My family and I have gone to Boston, we got to (inaudible) and we made our way down to the finish line.
FEYERICK: 30,000 runners have spent months preparing to cross this line.
Opposite Boston across the Charles River, two brothers are also preparing for the marathon in a much more sinister way. Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his younger brother Dzhokhar live in an unremarkable house on an unremarkable street. They've been working hard on a recipe from an online magazine; it's called "Inspire", the English language terror guide created by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. The recipe, make a bomb in the kitchen of your mom.
The ingredients are surprisingly simple, ordinary objects you can buy in everyday stores, like pressure cookers, the kind you might use to make dinner.
Records indicate pressure cookers are bought here at this Macy's in Saugus, Massachusetts. It's a middle-class community, about 13 miles from the Tsarnaev's home.
In late March just two weeks before the attack on the Marathon, one of the bombers comes to this home depot just north of Cambridge to buy a soldering gun.
A soldering gun is used to heat metal and connect wires.
The brothers also buy fireworks to extract the explosive powder inside. That goes into the pressure cooker along with BB pellets and nails. Homemade shrapnel intended to tear flesh and shatter bone.
It's 2:37 P.M., about 4.5 hours since the start of the race. It's when a majority of runners are finishing. It's also go time for the brothers who round the corner unto the marathon route. Their attack is timed to cause maximum damage.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I always think of the families that just lined in that finish line, sometimes 10 deep and it's difficult to get by.
FEYERICK: That's where Tamerlan positioned himself, high school student Sydney Corcoran is to his left.
CORCORAN: It was a great vibe. Everyone was just being nice and cheering them on, "You can do it. Keep going."
FEYERICK: Dzhokhar stops behind several families with small children including the Richards with 11-year-old Henry, 6-year-old Jane and 8- year-old Martin.
It's not 2:50 P.M. Dzhokhar raises a phone to his ear
[21:05:02] The plan is now in motion.
(OFF-MIKE) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What the hell was that?
FEYERICK: Tamerlan detonates the first bomb.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh my God, something blew up.
FEYERICK: In the ensuing chaos Dzhokhar walks quickly away from his backpack. He leaves it on the ground right near 8-year-old Martin Richard. Behind the Richards in a blue sweeter is 23-year-old Lindsay Liu.
ALYSHA PALUMBO, NECN CORRESPONDENT: She walks into frame right before that first bomb goes off. You see Lindsay Liu turned to look towards the finish line where that first bomb went off. Then you see Lindsay Liu continuing to walk across the frame and then the second bomb goes off.
FEYERICK: The blast levels spectators and separates families.
PALUMBO: My mind always goes to the Richard Family, Bill Richard who saw the first bomb go off and thought, I need to get my family out of here, trying to jump over the fence when the second bomb went off right behind his family.
You see him grab his grab his oldest son Henry, and then you see Jane and she gets up not realizing that she doesn't have a leg and her father grabs her and frees her to -- the pavement and road where -- he was able to find someone who could help him, one of the emergency personnel, and then you see him run back to where his wife and his son are.
He said it was one of those situations where he had to tell himself, Martin is gone, I need to focus on Jane. Jane needs my help right now. It's going to be the worst decision any parent has to make.
FEYERICK: And this picture of Lindsay Liu is the last one of her alive. A piece of metal from the pressure cooker slices her leg open. She bleeds to death on the sidewalk.
CORCORAN: I don't remember going down on the ground but I remember coming to and seeing everyone around me and I remember the massive amount of pressure being put on my leg and it was very painful.
FEYERICK: Like Lindsay Liu, bomb parts have severed a main artery in Sydney's right tight, she's loosing blood fast.
Near Sydney, 29-year-old Krystal Campbell is also bleeding profusely. My legs hurt she tells her friend Karen McWatters. They're the last words Krystal will ever speak.
KEVIN CULLEN, BOSTON GLOBE: Karen McWatters, she lost her leg and fell (ph) with her friend Krystal Campbell, she kind of inched towards Krystal and placed their faces almost next to each other and then put her hand in Krystal. So, the last sensation that Krystal would have felt besides the searing pain in her legs from the bomb would have been the warmth of Karen's face and the embrace of her hand. FEYERICK: One friend lives, the other dies.
Hundreds are left struggling to survive. And authorities are already trying to figure out who did this, how many are out there and where are they now?
Coming up, a cold-hearted killer seemingly without a care in the world.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:10:00]
FEYERICK: The marathon bombs kill three people, 29-year-old Krystal Campbell described by her brother as the heart of her family, Lindsay Liu, a Chinese exchange student who originally plans to stay home to study, and 8-year-old 3rd grader Martin Richard who loves sports including running.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Something blew up. Oh my God, something happened.
FEYERICK: More than 250 people are shredded and broken, lives hang in the balance.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sorry about that OK?
(OFF-MIKE)
FEYERICK: One of them is Sydney Corcoran.
CORCORAN: I remember feeling the blood just like come out of my leg and it was warm all over, and I thought like, I'm bleeding out, I'm not going to make it at the hospital.
(CROSSTALK)
FEYERICK: As doctors rushed to save lives, at least one of the bombers is here. That's 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev casually shopping at the Whole Foods in Cambridge. It's 3:14 P.M., just 24 minutes after the bombing.
CULLEN: He goes in (inaudible) half a gallon of milk, then the video shows him go back into the parking lot. The milk wasn't the right milk so he gets out -- this is less than half an hour after they killed three people, he's back in exchanging the milk because apparently it wasn't the right milk. It was an extraordinary thing to watch.
FEYERICK: It also appears perfectly normal, which is how friends who know Dzhokhar from before bombing describe him.
ERIC MERCADO, HIGH SCHOOL FRIEND OF DZHOKHAR TSARNAEV: He was definitely a normal kid. You know, carry on a conversation and make you laugh. He was fun, he was happy go lucky...
FEYERICK: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev arrives in the United States in 2002, an 8-year-old speaking little English.
[21:15:00] His family is Chechen, an ethnic minority long persecuted in Russia.
MARET TSARNAEVA, AUNT: First, parents came, mother and father and Dzhokhar when he was little. Three kids we're back home in Kazakhstan.
FEYERICK: By the time older sibling Bella, Ailina and Tamerlan arrived the following the year, Dzhokhar is fitting into American culture.
By high school, he's a popular guy.
CULLEN: He had a big cross-section of friends, most of them we're shocked when this came out that he was charged with the Boston Marathon bombing.
FEYERICK: Including these young men from his high school wrestling team who asked not to be identified.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With the wrestling, he is a really nice kid, you know. He was the kind of kid that would push me harder, I mean I was new to wrestling so he really helped me like -- he would push me all the time.
FEYERICK: By senior year he's a wrestling captain, he's also working as a lifeguard at Harvard. He's getting solid grades, and he speaks English perfectly with no accent. If he's harboring any anti-American feeling his friends don't have a clue.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He never hated America -- trying to be a typical American boy.
FEYERICK: A typical American boy who smoked a lot of pot.
CULLEN: I was talking to some kids (inaudible) at least two of them mentioned that likes to smoke a blunt (ph). Is that unusual in American high school kids? Probably not, particularly in city like, you know, Kansas.
FEYERICK: Brother Tamerlan, seven years older than Dzhokhar is having a harder time adjusting, but he is trying to find his place.
LUIS VASQUEZ, TAMERLAN TSARNAEV FRIEND: He love boxing, it was hi passion, it was his outlet (ph). Clearly he wanted to be a world champion one day.
FEYERICK: Tamerlan's high school buddy Luis Vasquez says his friend's ambitions caused some of his problems.
VASQUEZ: He can be intimidating because people knew he was a boxer and he had more of a reserved personality to him but if you went up to him he talks you right back.
FEYERICK: Ahead, what would cause an aspiring boxer and a popular high school wrestler to do this, and this, and this? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh my goodness. All units respond. Officer down. Officer down. All units.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get on it.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:20:00]
FEYERICK: This is where Tamerlan Tsarnaev feels most at home, in the boxing ring, his dominance, imposing, successful.
John Allan owns the gym where Tamerlan trains.
How do you describe Tamerlan's skill as a fighter?
JOHN ALLAN, GYM OWNER: Very good. Very good, he is a proficient boxer who is very talented.
FEYERICK: So talented he wins the New England Golden Gloves heavyweight championship twice, a step closer to his dream of fighting at the international level.
ALLAN: It was his life choice to use boxing to try to get to nationalized citizen, to compete in the Olympics.
FEYERICK: But then a sharp blow. He's barred from national competition because Tamerlan Tsarnaev is not an American citizen.
CULLEN: That would have just been one more box for him to check off in his sense of grievance.
FEYERICK: For Tamerlan, it's a familiar message. He is an outsider. That same year, he tells a local photo journalist, "I don't have a single American friend. I don't understand them."
ALI SOUFAN, FORMER SUPERVISORY SPECAIL AGENT: The older brother had a lot of problems. He wasn't able to assimilate to the U.S. culture like his little brother.
FEYERICK: His little brother Dzhokhar.
ROBERT MCFADDEN, SR. REP. DEPUTY UNDER SECRETARY OF THE NAVY, NCIS: Very well adapted, very personable, very popular within his school.
FEYERICK: He seems to be doing well.
MCFADDEN: He received a scholarship to go to college, talented wrestler, all those kind of things.
FEYERICK: But the rest of the Tsarnaev is struggling, the sisters with failed marriages, the parents with earning a living.
CULLEN: They had all sorts of opportunity in this country but by any measure they seem to have not, you know, fulfilled certainly what their expectations were. FEYERICK: Money is tight and the family relies on welfare to get by.
THOMAS DE WAAL, SR. ASSOC. CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INT'L PEACE: They have what's the common experience to many Chechens, living as a kind of alienated minority in foreign societies.
FEYERICK: The families homeland is Chechnya, its history violent, its citizens scattered. Many like the Tsarnaevs living far from home. And that can create issues.
SOUFAN: Issue of nationalism, Chechnya (ph), Issue of Turkestan and the Shaadi groups over there, issues that have to do with assimilation and with the sense of belonging.
FEYERICK: Tamerlan begins to find a sense of belonging in radical Islam.
ALLAN: He definitely started to talk about religion more. He would engage with people in the gym, talk about Jewish conspiracy and grew his beard for a while.
FEYERICK: In 2011, the FBI interviews Tamerlan and his mother after receiving a vague and unusual warning. Russian counterparts say they are "adherents of radical Islam." But the case is later closed for lack of evidence.
By January 2012, the parents' marriage has fallen apart.
CULLEN: Like a metaphor for the whole family, collapsed in just -- under its own weight, under all sorts of dysfunction and anger.
FEYERICK: As both parents separately moved back to Dagestan, Dzhokhar is left to send for himself at UMass Dartmouth.
CULLEN: While Tamerlan was becoming all devout, Dzhokhar was still hanging out with his buds talking about girls on Facebook.
FEYERICK: On Facebook and also in his Tweets, "Sleep after breakfast is so much sweeter."
[21:25:00] "I want to study abroad or two." "I'm doing laundry at this time?" hash tag college.
He is also smoking and dealing plenty of pot.
CULLEN: Everybody knew this kid. Had -- he came with a funny name. He always had pot.
FEYERICK: Dzhokhar's grades are now plummeting as brother Tamerlan takes a long trip to Dagestan. Like neighboring Chechnya, Dagestan is torn by ethnic violence and extremism. It is here that something in Tamerlan seems to click.
SOUFAN: There's something that happened during that trip. There are people that he met. There were mosques that he attended. There's training camps possibly that he went to and he probably received some training.
FEYERICK: Tamerlan seems eager to share what he is learning. E- mailing Dzhokhar video links and writing, "Watch this, it's interesting" or ideas " Those who help Allah's cause, Allah will help them" or articles to read like this one about Osama bin Laden's martyrdom.
Six months later when Tamerlan returns to Cambridge, he is radically different.
CULLEN: Even among mainstream Muslims in the Cambridge area, you know, he stood out as somebody who is a little more radicalized, a little more angry.
FEYERICK: Brother Dzhokhar becomes a U.S. citizen on September 11th 2012. Still he has strong ties to his Chechen roots.
SOUFAN: It seems that the fact that both of them believed that they are from Chechnya not to, you know, the United States where they lived.
FEYERICK: Dzhokhar and Tamerlan are spending more time together and listening to radical Islamist messages.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The way you should see it as a Muslim, you should see it that I'm one year closer to my best. Did I compare myself for it? A Muslim cannot afford to waste anytime.
FEYERICK: Three days before the marathon, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar stopped at this mosque to pray.
Then go from worship to workout at John Allan's gym.
We're surprised at his demeanor, 72 hours before his bombs...
ALLAN: Unbelievable...
FEYERICK: ... on the marathon?
ALLAN: I mean just him entering the ring, I mean, you know, like jumping over both legs, feet at his shoulder height clear in the ring, hopping in, jumping rope like, yeah, like he was on top of the world.
FEYERICK: On top of the world, and ready to act. That same week Dzhokhar Tweets, "If you have the knowledge and the inspiration, all that's left is to take action."
April 15th 2013, Marathon Monday, the two brothers take their respective positions.
Set of two bombs on Boylston Street and calmly walked away.
Coming up next, brothers on the run, an extraordinary manhunt in the City of Boston.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just saw the spark from the bomb and that's when I immediately hit the ground.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:30:00]
FEYERICK: University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth on the campus a day later everyone is talking about what happened at the marathon.
ZACH BETTENCOURT, DZHOKHAR TSARNAEV's CLASSMATE: We talked about the bombing for like about 5 minutes.
FEYERICK: Everyone including Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and classmate Zach Bettencourt
BETTENCOURT: He seemed very natural, didn't seem like nervous or anything. He said, yes I've been doing wrestling (ph) lately so I decided to come to gym.
FEYERICK: As Dzhokhar heads to the gym, Copley Square has become a crime scene, a forensic team sifts through the debris. They find pieces of the pressure cookers, remnants of the bag packs and a twisted fuse. FBI analysts are also pouring over surveillance footage.
RICHARD DESLAURIERS, RETIRED FBI: We watch that video hundreds and hundreds of times to detect any anomalies and try to detect any suspicious activity.
FEYERICK: Anomalies like this, the man in the white hat who after the first blast doesn't even flinch. So it was the absence of reaction.
STEPHANIE DOUGLAS, FMR. EXEC. ASST. DIRECTOR, FBI: Your normal reaction right? If you hear a loud noise you automatically will shift your head toward the direction of that loud noise he didn't do that. He was unfazed and that was the thing that really stood out.
FEYERICK: A crucial lead to follow.
DOUGLAS: We start retracing, back this up do we see him with any one else? And then we do we do see him with (inaudible) wearing a black cap.
FEYERICK: Investigators believe they have identified their suspect but they don't have their names.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are releasing photos of these two suspects they are identified as suspect one and suspect two.
FEYERICK: The two brothers are now the most wanted fugitives in America.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They knew that if they put their photos out there they're going to be identified quickly.
FEYERICK: After months of carefully planning their attack the Tsarnaev brothers have failed to plan their escape. ROBERT MCFADDEN, U.S. FEDERAL LAW ENFORCEMENT: Was obvious that the two brothers had little idea and little planning as to what they were going to do next.
FEYERICK: Dzhokhar text his friend, "If you want you can go to my room and take what's there." As reality hits his friends grab Dzhokhar's laptop and bag pack with fire works which later turned up in a land fill.
DOUGLAS: I think honestly with just the videos and photos they could have successfully fled immediately following the bombing.
FEYERICK: But they are definitely running now.
MCFADDEN: So within days of the act they're actually committing other criminal acts to just essentially make their getaway.
FEYERICK: The brothers only have one gun in search of another they confront MIT police officer Sean Collier.
CULLEN: You could see that Collier drives up into his cruiser parks there and you see these two images in dark and they come walking quite deliberately down this pathway.
[00:05:01] FEYERICK: After a struggle Collier shot multiple times at close range, the brothers run from the scene.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All units respond. Officer down. Officer down.
CULLEN: They killed him, murdered him in cold blood and then tried to take his weapon but his holster was designed to prevent people from stealing a weapon particularly in a struggle or something like that.
FEYERICK: Across the Charles River a few miles away the Tsarnaev brothers come upon in idling SUV and decide to cardiac the vehicle and it's driver, 26--year-old chinese app developer Dun Meng.
CULLEN: Tamerlan Tsarnaev said to him, you know, what the Boston marathon bomb he said, yes, I did that. I just killed a police man so don't do anything stupid.
FEYERICK: The brother's question may about New York City, uses bank card to withdraw $800 in cash and stopped for gas. Dzhokhar heads into the store for snacks.
CULLEN: They went inside the Shell gas station shows some getting of a bunch of Doritos and Red Bull which you get for a road trip.
FEYERICK: Alone in the car with Tamerlan, Dun Meng knows it's now or never. In a single motion he slips off his seat belt and opens the door bolting across the street to a gas station to call 911.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What happened when they took the car?
DAN MANG, CARJACKED BY THE TSARNAEVS: They are the suspects of the marathon explosion. FEYERICK: The plan is unraveling Tamerlan races to get his brother. Meng escaped gives investigators the break they desperately need.
CULLEN: The one thing that Dun Meng did which was actually quite brilliant, when Tamerlan asked if he had a GPS in there he said no but in fact he did.
FEYERICK: The police tracked the car to Watertown and the brothers engaged them in a massive fire fight.
ANDREW KITZENBERG, WATERTOWN RESIDENT: I hear pops outside and as I run in the window I just saw two shooters behind a vehicle, behind an SUV.
FEYERICK: And Andrew Kitzenberg takes these photos from his upstairs bedroom.
CULLEN: While Tamerlan was firing at them they could see Dzhokhar Tsarnaev throw bombs and them, and then they saw him grab what turned out to be another pressure cooker bomb, like the ones that they left on Boylston Street, at the marathon, but this one (inaudible) with quite a bit of effort because it was so heavy.
KITZENBERG: I just saw a spark from the bomb and that's when I immediately hit the ground. I could feel it shake the house.
FEYERICK: Police are in a fight for their lives.
KITZENBERG: At that point one of the shooters actually starting charging the officers running down the streets still firing his weapon.
ED DEVEAU, WATERTOWN POLICE DEPARTMENT: And they're literally about 10 feet away from each other exchanging gun fire, and then he runs out of ammunition, the bad guy.
FEYERICK: The bad guy, Tamerlan throws his empty gun at officers who then tackled him to the ground.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When Dzhokhar saw what was going on with his brother he jumps into the Mercedes SUV and comes back at the cops who are on top of his brother.
FEYERICK: Dzhokhar aims the car straight at the officers.
DEVEAU: Somebody at the last minute, you know, get out of the way and they dove out of the way.
FEYERICK: Instead he runs over his brother.
CULLEN: Fatal injuries on Tamerlan Tsarnaev inflicted by his brother Dzhokhar who run him over.
FEYERICK: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev makes his escape. He is wounded and bleeding and looking for a place to hide.
Coming up next, a city on lockdown.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're asking the people to shelter in place, in other words to stay indoors with their doors locked.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:40:00]
FEYERICK: Boston, a city attacked and left wounded and bleeding is now a city on lockdown.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Move, move, move. You got to get out here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're telling everybody to get off the street...
FEYERICK: After a vicious fire fight with police in Watertown, one brother is dead, the other is on the run.
There is a big concern because he's got explosives on him. If this guy comes out then he may come out and he may go down in a blaze of glory.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is a massive manhunt underway. We're asking people to shelter in place to stay indoors.
FEYERICK: This stolen SUV is found abandoned blocks from the shootout, inside it, an important clue.
DEVEAU: We knew as we had hit him because there was blood in that vehicle.
When we started the grid search, we found some blood behind the house so we knew he was wounded.
FEYERICK: But his bloody trail vanishes.
Tactical teams set up a 20 block search radius, terrified residents are hold up in their homes as police search block by block, house by house.
DEVEAU: We had reason to believe that he was still in the area but we never were 100 percent sure of that.
FEYERICK: Hours passed with no lead. Where is he? Is he alive? Will he kill again?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We didn't know whether we we're going to be able to apprehend him. But we were going to continue looking until we found him.
FEYERICK: At 6:00 Friday evening, the 12 hour long lockdown is temporarily lifted. People cautiously leave their homes.
David Henneberry goes into this backyard to secure a loose flap on the tarp covering his boat.
DAVID HENNEBERRY, BOAT OWNER: When I looked in the boat over here and on the floor and I see blood.
[21:45:00] CULLEN: Very quickly, that boat in that whole general area was surrounded by heavily armed police.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right, you hear those gunshots and we're seeing a lot of activity.
FEYERICK: You have hundreds of law enforcement officers who had zeroed in on the man they believe is the suspect.
Police surrounding the boat briefly opened fire.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were able to get state police helicopter over that fold and with the infrared they were able to give such great information like, -- moving his left arm, his right leg is moving.
FEYERICK: At 8:30 p.m., Dzhokhar is cornered during a tense stand off, as hostage negotiators try coaxing him out.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just come out. Just come out.
FEYERICK: At 8:45 P.M. Dzhokhar bleeding and shaking surrenders, a red laser from a snipers riffle trained between his eyes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We had every reason believed that he was on the riffle (ph). What was he going try to do?
FEYERICK: With both hands raised, Dzhokhar is finally taken down ending one of the biggest manhunts in U.S. history.
Gravely wounded by gunshots, Dzhokhar is taken to a Boston hospital.
EDWARD DAVIS, COMMISIONE BOSTON PD: The suspect is in critical but stable condition.
He is not in the condition to be interrogated at this point in time.
FEYERICK: The motive behind the horrific bombing comes into focus, when a bomb technician searching for explosives finds a crude note, scrolled on the inside of the boat, now riddled with bullets and stained with blood is Dzhokhar's manifesto.
"The U.S. government is killing our innocent civilians. I can't stand to see such evil go unpunished."
This is political? This is against the Americans because of what they did in Iraq. It's against the Americans because of what they did in Afghanistan. It has nothing to do with religion it seems.
MCFADDEN: In his young mind, he probably thinks it has everything to do with the religion. So you have this really mixed up notions about what's going on in the different conflicts around the world combined with a really superficial knowledge of his own religious doctrine and dogma.
FEYERICK: He writes, "We Muslims are one body, you hurt one, you hurt us all."
CULLEN: All you have to do is read the note that he left on the boat where he was captured and it was pretty clear that wherever he got this information, he internalized it to such a point he could lie in a boat badly wounded and write a lengthy script (ph) in which he regurgitate the ideas and the language and the rhetoric of the Jihadist all over the world.
COOPER: Earlier today, the suspect only managing head nod and a single word of the federal charges were read to him in his hospital room.
FEYERICK: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev will be charged with 30 federal counts including conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction.
17 of the charges carry a possible death sentence. He will plead not guilty.
Up next, survivors finally come face to face with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:50:00]
FEYERICK: In the months after the bombing, still recovering from his wounds, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev remains defiant. In his jail cell before his arraignment, he taunts U.S. marshals.
When his trial begins two years later, Judy Clarke will lead the defense team.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Judy Clarke is a legend in American Criminal Defense. This is a woman who is famous for taking impossible cases and not getting acquittals but getting life sentences as oppose to death sentences which is not an easy thing.
DESLAURIERS: As he was led into court, he was glancing over his right shoulder and smiling and smirking and (inaudible) is behind him. I found that absolutely gulling and reprehensible.
CULLEN: Judy Clarke got up there in the opening statement of the trial and said, "It was him." Those are her words, "It was him." This was obviously very strategic on the part of the defense.
FEYERICK: Clarke's strategy, don't fight the charges, fight the death penalty.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The defense is trying to show mitigation. Yes, he is guilty but consider the following about him, consider his alienation from American society, consider the malevolent influence of his older brother which led him inexorably to this crime.
FEYERICK: But the prosecution team isn't buying it.
CULLEN: (Inaudible) prosecutor said they were equal partners. If you put bombs down on a street, and shred the legs of innocent men, women and children, and then go into a store a half hour later and buy a half gallon of milk, can you really blame that on your brother?
PALUMBO: There was just so much evidence. They actually showed the jury and what these bombs potentially look like.
[21:55:03] They brought pressure court room, they let them actually handle these pressure cookers and see what was inside.
FEYERICK: Inside, nails and BBs designed to inflict maximum carnage.
The blast destroyed both of Jessica Kensky's legs.
CULLEN: Jessica Kensky rolled by in her wheelchair with her service dog looking for some kind of betrayal of human emotion, some sort of reaction to what was taking place around him and we never saw it (ph).
FEYERICK: Dzhokhar seems disengaged, disinterested and unaffected just as he was the day at the bombings.
CULLEN: You see Dzhokhar go in front of The Forum Restaurant and he stops very specifically back of the bunch of kids who were lined up against the barriers.
I think, the most effective things that the prosecution said during its case is that, Dzhokhar was there four minutes. So, in those four minutes, he could survey everything that was around him and he left the bomb there and walked away.
PALUMBO: It was really difficult to watch for anyone who was in that court room. There were tears with the jury. There were tears with the survivors who were in there, and there were tears in the media section because you see these people ringing cowbells, cheering on the marathon, standing just feet from the runners. It's just elation.
And in a moment, you just see the bomb go off.
FEYERICK: The jury also sees the bloody, bullet riddled message from inside the boat.
Dzhokhar writes, "I do not mourn because Tamerlan's soul is very much alive."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It speaks to that death cult kind of ethos where, if I die or those closest to me die fighting for the cause, then they're considered martyrs and they go to heaven.
FEYERICK: After presenting only four witnesses, the defense rest. The prosecutor closed by saying they've thought they were soldiers, they've thought they were going to bring the battle to Boston.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. They absolutely do. Although overwhelmingly, those of that faith would say what they're doing is abhorring (ph), in their minds, in their hearts, they feel what they're doing is completely about their religion.
FEYERICK: After a month of emotional testimony from more than 90 witnesses, the jury takes just 11.5 hours to reach a verdict. PALUMBO: It was so quiet in that courtroom. You could feel the
tension. You could feel the nerves.
FEYERICK: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev guilty on all 30 counts.
CULLEN: It took 20 minutes to read the verdict. And I don't remember hearing any noise. I didn't hear any sniffles. I didn't hear any shouts. I heard nothing.
FEYERICK: Now, Defense Attorney Judy Clarke will try to convince the jury, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's life is worth saving.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It takes 12 votes for death sentence. So, all the defense has to do is persuade one juror that death sentence is not appropriate.
CULLEN: There were jurors wrestling on their head whether they could do it. And not only whether they could do it, whether they could sentence someone to death. Whether they actually thought that was the worst thing they could do to somebody.
FEYERICK: As the trial moves forward, the stories of pain, loss and resilience are not easily forgotten.
PALUMBO: Bill Richard's testimony just talking about his family and what a perfect day it was and how they went to get ice cream and looked at me when he said, I could tell you the flavors that they had. I remember everything.
You just think back to that day as a parent. You think those are the moments you remember little details. You cannot forget back that perfect moment when they -- they're eating ice cream and all three of your children were alive, now three of your children had their legs -- it was a tough moment.
