Parents of the dead and some of the scores wounded in the 2013 attack on the Boston Marathon defiantly confronted bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, calling him “cowardly” at a hearing where he was to be formally sentenced to death.
The same federal jury that earlier this year found Tsarnaev, 21, guilty of killing four people and injuring 264 in the bombing and its aftermath voted in May to sentence him to death by lethal injection. U.S. District Judge George O'Toole on Wednesday will order the punishment.
Rebekah Gregory, who lost her left leg in one of the highest-profile attacks on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001, addressed Tsarnaev directly.
“Terrorists like you do two things in this world. One, they create mass destruction, but the second is quite interesting,” Gregory said. “Because do you know what mass destruction really does? It brings people together. We are Boston strong and we are America strong, and choosing to mess with us was a terrible idea.
“How's that for your victim impact statement?” she asked.
Ed Fucarile, whose son Marc lost his right leg in the attack, stared at the bomber as he read a statement.
“The first time I saw you in this courtroom, you were smirking at all the victims for your unspeakable cowardly act. You don't seem to be smirking today,” Fucarile said. “Your sentence today should be severe as possible.”
Tsarnaev, who appeared in court dressed in a dark sport jacket and open-collared shirt, looked down and showed no emotion during the hearing.
Gregory and Fucarile were part of a stream of two dozen survivors of the attack and relatives of the slain who discussed the pain they had suffered as a result of the blasts. Several runners, some tearful, addressed the guilt they suffered for the injuries suffered by friends who had come to cheer them on.
Tsarnaev's trial brought back some of Boston's darkest living memories. Jurors saw videos of the bombs' blinding flashes and the chaotic aftermath on April 15, 2013 as emergency workers and spectators rushed to aid the wounded, many of whom lost legs.
The bombing killed Martin Richard, 8, and Chinese exchange student Lingzi Lu, 26, and restaurant manager Krystle Campbell, 29. Tsarnaev and his 26-year-old brother, Tamerlan, shot dead Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer Sean Collier, 26, three days after the bombing.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev died following a gunfight with police that ended when Dzhokhar ran him over with a car.
During the trial, federal prosecutors described the ethnic Chechen brothers as adherents of al Qaeda's militant Islamist ideology who wanted to “punish America” with the attack on the world-renowned race.
Tsarnaev's lawyers admitted their client had played a role in the attack but tried to portray him as the junior partner in a scheme hatched and driven by his older brother. The Tsarnaev family came to the United States from Russia a decade before the attack.
'COULD HAVE CHANGED HIS MIND'
The parents of Martin Richard, the youngest to die in the attack, directly addressed the defense's claim, saying the younger Tsarnaev could have prevented the attack.
“He could have stopped his brother,” said William Richard, who testified during the trial about the agonizing decision he made to leave his son to die in his wife's arms so that he could save the life of his daughter, Jane, who lost a leg in the attack.
“He could have changed his mind the morning of April 15, 2013, walked away with a minimal sense of humanity and reported to authorities that his brother intended to hurt others,” Richard said. “He chose to do nothing, to prevent all of this from happening and he chose to accompany his brother and participate in this hate.”
Tsarnaev, who did not testify in his own defense during the trial, will be able to speak but does not have to do so. He is expected to appeal.
Even after the sentencing, the legal wrangling over Tsarnaev's fate could play out over years, if not decades. Just three of the 74 people sentenced to death in the United States for federal crimes since 1998 have been executed.
Krystle Campbell's mother, Patricia, called Tsarnaev's actions “despicable.”
“You went down the wrong road,” Campbell said. “I know life is hard, but the choices you made were despicable and what you did to my daughter was disgusting.”
