‘Mounting’ Evidence Links Tsarnaev Brothers to Unsolved Jewish Triple Murder
Tamerlan Tsarnaev Image by getty images
Jewish Victim: Erik Weissman was murdered on Sept. 11, 2011, along with another Jewish man and a third victim described as Boston bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev?s best friend. Image by facebook
There is “mounting evidence” that the Boston Marathon bombers were involved in the unsolved murder of three men in a suburb of Boston.
Police officials have said that some crime scene forensic evidence was a match to Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the two brothers who are alleged to have set off two explosions at the finish line of the Boston Marathon last month, ABC News reported.
The officials also said records of cell phones used by the brothers put them in the area of the murders on that date.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev Image by getty images
Three men — Brendan Mess, Rafael Teken and Erik Weissman — were found dead in September 2011 in an apartment several miles from the campus of Brandeis University in the Boston suburb of Waltham.
The bodies of the men were found on Sept. 12, but friends believe the killings took place on Sept. 11, which was the tenth anniversary of the terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. That detail may assume new gravity as investigators probe the Tsarnaev’s path to radical Islam.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev knew Mess well but did not attend his funeral despite once referring to him as his “best friend,” and participating in boxing and martial arts training together.
The bodies of the three men were discovered with their throats slit and about seven pounds of marijuana dumped on the bodies, as well as $5,000 in cash left behind.
Two of the victims, Weissman and Teken, were Jewish.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed in a shootout with police several days after the bombing. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was charged with using a “weapon of mass destruction” — a charge that could bring the death penalty.
The brothers were identified as suspects after authorities reviewed photos and video taken on the afternoon of the marathon on April 15, when two bombs killed three people and wounded more than 170.
Police may not have focused on the crime’s possible link to the tenth anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks because it originally appeared to be drug related.
That changed with Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s involvement in the Marathon terror bombing.
“We’re eager to pursue any new leads or information,” Stephanie Guyotte, spokeswoman for the Middlesex district attorney’s office, told the Boston Globe. “It has been reported that [Tamerlan Tsarnaev] knew one of the deceased victims. It remains an open investigation.”
The death certificates of the three murdered men say they were killed on September 12, 2011, which was the day they were found with their throats slit in an apartment in Waltham, Mass., just three miles from the campus of Brandeis University.
Friends told the paper that they have always believed the men were actually killed on September 11 because all three men — abruptly stopped texting about a New York Jets vs Dallas Cowboys football game at the same time that evening.
“The three of them were definitely killed on Sept. 11,” the relative told the paper. “They all stopped using their cellphones at about eight o’clock that night.”
The September 11 link might also shed new light on why Weissman, who was outspoken about his Jewish faith, and Teken, who grew up in Brookline and attended predominantly Jewish Brandeis, were targeted by the killer.
With Forward Staff
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