Boston Marathon bomber Tsarnaev to face state charges for police officer’s murder

MIT Police Officer Sean Collier was shot and killed three days after the April 2013 attacks

Holly Bailey
·National Correspondent
CLICK IMAGE for slideshow: A courtroom sketch shows accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in court on the second day of his trial at the federal courthouse in Boston, Massachusetts March 5, 2015. Tsarnaev, 21, is accused of killing three people and injuring 264 with a pair of homemade pressure-cooker bombs on April 15, 2013 at the Boston Marathon finish line. (REUTERS/Jane Flavell Collins)

Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was indicted on local charges related to the shooting death of Massachusetts Institute of Technology Police Officer Sean Collier three days after the April 2013 attacks.

The charges, which had been long expected, came a day after forensics experts testified in Tsarnaev’s federal trial they had identified Collier’s blood on a pair of white golf gloves found in the driver’s seat floorboard of a Honda Accord that belonged to the confessed bomber. The car was found abandoned on a street in Watertown, Mass., after a shootout between the Tsarnaev brothers and police four days after the bombings.

In a statement Thursday, Middlesex County District Attorney Marian Ryan announced a local grand jury had indicted Tsarnaev for Collier’s murder. She said her office would “move forward with criminal charges … after the current federal trial is completed.”

Federal prosecutors say Tsarnaev and his older brother, Tamerlan, shot and killed Collier on April 18, 2003, in a failed attempt to steal his gun while on the run from police. Collier was ambushed while he sat in his police cruiser on the MIT campus just hours after the FBI had broadcast pictures of the Tsarnaev brothers, identifying them as suspects in the deadly marathon bombings, which killed three and injured nearly 300. Collier was shot six times, including three times in the head at close range.

This undated file photo released by the Middlesex District Attorney's Office shows Massachusetts Institute of Technology Police Officer Sean Collier, of Somerville, Mass. Investigators said Collier was shot to death Thursday, April 18, 2013 on the school's campus in Cambridge, Mass., by Boston Marathon bombing suspects Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in a botched attempt to obtain his gun several days after the twin explosions. During testimony Wednesday, March 11, 2015, in the federal death penalty trial in Boston of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, MIT Police Chief John DiFava testified he told Collier to be safe about an hour before he was shot dead. Prosecutors said the Tsarnaev brothers killed Collier during an unsuccessful attempt to steal his gun. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's lawyer said during opening statements that it was Tamerlan Tsarnaev who shot Collier.(AP Photo/Middlesex District Attorney's Office, File)

But surveillance video of the Collier killing introduced into evidence last week doesn’t clearly identify whether it was Dzhokhar Tsarnarev or his brother who pulled the trigger. Tsarnaev’s defense team has said it was Tamerlan Tsarnaev who shot and killed Collier. Federal prosecutors say both brothers are guilty — but they have worked hard in recent days to link Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to Collier’s murder, showing video of his Honda fleeing the scene and pointing to officer’s blood in the car.

Last week, Nathan Harman, an MIT student who happened to ride by Collier’s car on his bike that night, testified he saw the officer’s door open and someone leaning in. That person, Harman testified, was startled as he rode by and shot up out of the car to look at him. Asked on the witness stand if he could identify the person he saw, Harman pointed at Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, sitting a few feet away in the courtroom.

Tsarnaev, 21, faces the federal death penalty for his role in the bombings and Collier’s murder. While Tsarnaev has pleaded not guilty, his attorney Judy Clarke told the jury during opening statements her client participated in the bombings and their aftermath — though she insisted Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed during the Watertown shootout, was the mastermind of the events and had corrupted his younger brother.

The federal trial had been expected to last until June, but the testimony has been moving at a speedier than expected pace. The jury will first decide whether Tsarnaev is guilty, and the prosecution is expected to wrap up its case on that question as early as next week, about a month earlier than expected.

A Ruger pistol, that was shown during the Dzhokhar Tsarnaev federal death penalty trial, is displayed at a conference room at the John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse in Boston, Tuesday, March 17, 2015. Stephen Silva said during testimony Tuesday that he loaned Tsarnaev a P95 Ruger pistol in February 2013. Authorities say the P-95 Ruger was the gun used to kill MIT police officer Sean Collier. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Judge George O’Toole, who is overseeing the proceedings, has limited how much the defense can talk about Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s influence on his younger brother in the guilt phase, which means the defense may save most of its witnesses for the penalty phase.

That means the jury could weigh in on Tsarnaev’s guilt sometime next month before moving on to decide whether Tsarnaev lives or dies for his role in the bombings.