Members of the Bermuda Running Community as well as thousands around the World will have memories of the Boston Marathon Bombing 2013 flooding back beginning Monday as terror suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s trial begins.
Tsarnaev the bloodied fugitive, captured by police with rifle lasers tagging his head as he surrendered from a tarp-covered boat in a homeowner's backyard, which ended a massive manhunt for suspects four days after a pair of crude pressure-cooker bombs killed three people and injured 264 more.
Prosecutors say the ideology of Islamic extremists motivated him and that he knew what he was doing when he planted a bomb at the marathon's crowded finish line in April 2013.
Defense attorneys have suggested Tsarnaev was controlled by his brother, 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed in a confrontation with police three days after the bombing. The younger drove over the older brother and escaped.
Defense attorneys also have said the family's history played a role in shaping Tsarnaev. They note that the family, of Chechen ethnicity, experienced difficulties dating to World War II, when Josef Stalin deported mass populations to central Asia.
The death of Tamerlan Tsarnaev leaves Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, now 21, to stand trial alone. Jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday in a trial that could last months. He has pleaded not guilty to more than 30 federal charges, including using and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction resulting in death.