FBI Special Agent Sarah DeLair arrived hours after explosions
ripped through the race's crowded finished line April 15, 2013, she
testified on Tuesday. She took pictures of the dead and coordinated
efforts to recover "everything from human remains to bomb components
to parts of backpacks," she said.
Prosecutors will resume questioning her on Wednesday, the fifth day
of the high-profile trial.
Tsarnaev, 21, is accused of killing three people and injuring 264
with a pair of homemade bombs, as well as fatally shooting a police
officer three days later as he and his brother tried to flee the
city.
His attorneys opened the trial by admitting he committed the crimes
of which he is accused, but are seeking to spare him the death
penalty by demonstrating he was following the lead of his older
brother Tamerlan, who died four days after the bombing after a
gunbattle with police.
Federal prosecutors contend Tsarnaev, who emigrated with his family
from Chechnya, was driven by an extremist view of Islam and a desire
to strike back at the United States in revenge for military
campaigns in Muslim-dominated countries.
On Tuesday, jurors were presented with photographs of the
blood-stained message that prosecutors say Tsarnaev wrote inside the
hull of a boat in which he was hiding in Watertown, outside Boston,
moments before his violent capture.
The note accuses the United States government of killing Muslims and
says "I can't stand to see such evil go unpunished". It adds "I
don't like killing innocent people it is forbidden in Islam but due
to said (...) it is allowed." Words were missing from the note due
to bullet holes.
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Other FBI agents on Tuesday described how some 3,000 pieces of
evidence, including shrapnel and body parts, were retrieved from the
blast sites near the marathon finish line, some on surrounding
rooftops as high as four stories.
Jurors were also presented with Tsarnaev's Twitter posts, which
ranged from jokes about girls, food, and homework, to musings about
Islam and a reference to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and
Washington.
(Writing by Richard Valdmanis; Editing by David Gregorio)
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