Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who has admitted taking part in the deadly 2013 Boston Marathon bombings, went about his life as though nothing had happened, even going shopping for milk less than a half-hour after the explosions, jurors were told — and shown — Monday.
The bombs, which killed three people and injured 260 others, went off at 2:49 p.m. on April 15, 2013. Prosecutors showed jurors in U.S. District Court in Boston security video from a Whole Foods in nearby Cambridge showing Tsarnaev rummaging through the dairy section for a carton of milk at 3:14 p.m. — just 25 minutes later.
Tsarnaev's lawyers said in opening statements that he and his older brother, Tamerlan, who was killed in a police shootout, were behind the bombings, and their strategy is to save him from the death penalty. Prosecutors introduced the Whole Foods evidence as part of a larger effort to convince the jury that Tsarnaev was numb to the carnage he and his brother had caused
A casual Tsarnaev appeared so carefree that the security video showed him leaving the store, then later returning to exchange his first choice for a second milk carton.
Later that night, prosecutors said in opening statements, Tsarnaev "hung out with his friends and partied." The next day, he went to the gym at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth for a workout, a college administrator testified Monday, verifying surveillance video from the gym.
Tsarnaev, dressed in a blue shirt with a white T-shirt underneath, sat stoically at the defense table, just as he did earlier in the day and last week during graphic and emotional testimony from bombing victims and emergency responders.
IN-DEPTH
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- Boston Marathon Bombing Trial Begins For Dzhokhar Tsarnaev
— Tom Winter, Andy Thibault and M. Alex Johnson