Marathon Bomber Appeal Puts Spotlight On Waltham Triple Murder

WALTHAM, MA — More than four years after he was sentenced to death for his part in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's lawyers are appealing his death sentence. Ahead of oral arguments next month, a U.S. District court just unsealed one of the search warrants related to the case. This came after the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit originally denied the request Friday.

The seven-page document is a search warrant for Tsarnaev's older brother's Honda CR-V. It is still mostly redacted, but the non-redacted text indicates officials might have been looking for evidence in the 2011 Waltham triple murder. It also includes (see below), an inventory of what police confiscated in a car, including forensic evidence that might connect Tsarnaev's brother to the murders.

Tsarnaev's lawyers have said the trial judge committed a "grave error" by not permitting the defense to tell jurors about suspicions that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's older brother Tamerlan was connected to a 2011 Waltham triple murder two years before they both played a part in the marathon bombings.

The Waltham murders, on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, included a young man named Brendan Mess, who was close friends with Tamerlan. When police found the bodies inside a Harding Avenue home, they were slashed and marijuana was spread over them.

Police weren't able to solve the crime, but a month after the Boston Marathon bombings of 2013, FBI and law enforcement in Florida tracked down Ibragim Todashev, an acquaintance of Tamerlan. The FBI has said Todashev implicated himself and Tamerlan in the triple murder and was set to sign a handwritten confession before he allegedly came at them prompting them to kill him. The circumstances have raised questions, but Tsarnaev's attorneys said it could help prove their point and should not be kept from jurors.

"This proof went to the heart of his defense: that Tamerlan was a killer, an angry and violent man; that he conceived and led this conspiracy," Tsarnaev's lawyers wrote in December court documents. "The exclusion of this mitigating evidence violated the Eighth Amendment and yielded a verdict unworthy of confidence."

The defense team requested and will get the recordings of Ibragim Todashev's final interview with law enforcement, before an FBI agent killed him.

Tsarnaev was sentenced to death in 2015 for orchestrating — alongside his brother — the April 15, 2013, bombings, which killed three people and injured more than 250 others near the finish line of the Boston Marathon. The pair also shot a police officer in the ensuing manhunt.

High-ranking law enforcement officials said he Tsarnaev knew what he was getting into and deserved the death penalty. Tsarnaev's lawyers claimed he was under the influence of his older brother. Tsarnaev was 19 years old at the time of the bombings.

Tsarnaev is being held at a prison in Colorado.

Mostly redacted release:

Related:

• Did Waltham Murder Victim Know Marathon Bomber? (2013)
• Tamerlan Tsarnaev's Widow Subpoenaed in Waltham (2014)
• Possible Suspects in the 2011 Waltham Triple Murder? (2015)
• Jury Sentences Dzohkzar Tsarnaev to Death for Boston Marathon Bombing (2015)
• Boston Marathon Bomber Hospital Notes Released As (2018)
• Boston Marathon Bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Death ... (Aug. 2019)

Patch reporter Jenna Fisher can be reached at Jenna.Fisher@patch.com or by calling 617-942-0474. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram (@ReporterJenna).