Tsarnaev, a 21-year-old ethnic Chechen, early this month was found
guilty of killing three people and injuring 264 in the April 15,
2013, attack, as well as fatally shooting a police officer three
days later as he and his brother prepared to flee the city.
In making their case that jurors should sentence the defendant to
death, federal prosecutors have called a series of witnesses to
describe the permanent gaps in their lives after the loss of their
loved ones. Eight-year-old Martin Richard, 23-year-old Chinese
graduate student Lingzi Lu and 29-year-old restaurant manager
Krystle Campbell were killed in the bombings, while Massachusetts
Institute of Technology police officer Sean Collier was shot to
death in his police cruiser.
Prosecutors have said that Tsarnaev read and followed bomb-making
instructions found in al Qaeda's "Inspire" magazine and left a note
suggesting the attack was an act of retribution for U.S. military
campaigns in Muslim-dominated countries.
Defense attorneys, who are due next week to begin making their case
that Tsarnaev should be sentenced to life in prison rather than
death, are expected to argue that 26-year-old Tamerlan was the
driving force behind the attack, with Dzhokhar playing a secondary
role.
Tamerlan died following a gunfight with police hours after Collier's
murder.
In the second day of the sentencing phase of Tsarnaev's trial,
jurors heard from Collier's brother and father, who said that even
as a kid Collier couldn't wait to have a police cruiser like the
ones he admired pulling over speeding cars.
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"He was a cop from an early age," said Joseph Rogers, Collier's
stepfather.
Jinyan Zhao, Lu's aunt, told jurors her niece was a plucky and happy
young woman who feared little, except the dark, when she left her
Chinese hometown to get an education in Boston.
"She told me, 'Oh, I can't wait for how pretty Boston is going to
be'," Zhao testified.
Lu's parents, who Zhao said were too distraught at the loss of their
only child to leave China to testify, buried their daughter in
Boston in a pink bridal gown and tiara.
Jurors also heard from two people wounded in the attacks. Seventeen
of those injured by the bombs lost legs.
(Editing by Scott Malone and James Dalgleish)
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