Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been convicted for his role in the April 15, 2013 bombings of the Boston Marathon, ending the first phase of a terror trial that will now continue with a penalty phase to determine whether he will be executed.
A jury of seven women and five men who had deliberated for two days delivered guilty verdicts Wednesday in all 30 criminal counts against Tsarnaev, who was 19 years old when twin blasts rocked the race’s finish line. Three people died and 260 were injured in the worst terror attacks on American soil since 9/11.
“I am thankful that this phase of the trial has come to an end and am hopeful for a swift sentencing process,” Boston Mayor Marty Walsh said in a statement. “I hope today’s verdict provides a small amount of closure for the survivors, families, and all impacted by the violent and tragic events surrounding the 2013 Boston Marathon. The incidents of those days have forever left a mark on our City. As we remember those who lost so much, we reflect on how tragedy revealed our deepest values, and the best of who we are as a community.”
As the verdict was being read out, Tsarnaev appeared to have no emotion. After the last “guilty,” he sat with his defense lawyers, looking straight ahead, resting his chin on his hands. William Richard, the father of 8-year-old bombing victim Martin Richard, put his arm around his wife as they listened from the gallery.
The jury could begin hearing testimony in the penalty phase early next week.
The verdicts arrived a week before the bombing’s second anniversary, bringing the city closer to reckoning as it prepares for the 119th Boston Marathon, to be held April 20.
Jeffrey Bauman, who lost two legs in the bombing and testified against Tsarnaev, called the verdict “a relief, and one step closer to closure.”
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Tsarnaev, now 21, was widely expected to be found guilty of at least several of the charges, since his defense lawyers admitted from the trial’s outset that he took part in the attack. Their strategy was to save him from execution by painting him as a dupe of his radicalized older brother.
Lead defense lawyer Judy Clarke left the federal courthouse without making any comment.
The trial began March 4 and included weeks of graphic testimony that dragged the city through painful memories of the bombings and the four-day manhunt that followed. While on the run, authorities said, Tsarnaev and his brother, 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, killed an MIT police officer, carjacked a Mercedes SUV and got into a shootout with police in suburban Watertown, Massachusetts. Tamerlan was killed, and Dzhokhar escaped in the SUV, abandoning it to take refuge in a boat parked behind a nearby house. He was arrested a few hours later.
Prosecutors called dozens of witnesses in an attempt to document Tsarnaev’s gradual radicalization into a full blown jihadist, and his planting of one of two pressure cooker bombs that exploded on Boylston Street. They argued that he was an equal partner with his brother in the attack and the mayhem that followed. Among the 30 criminal counts Tsarnaev faced was the murder of the three bombing fatalities — the little boy, Richard Martin, 8; Lingzi Lu, 23; and Krystle Campbell, 29 — and of the MIT officer, Sean Collier, 26, even though prosecutors couldn’t prove which brother pulled the trigger. The jury heard from Martin’s father, and from friends and rescue workers who tended to Campbell and Lu. Other victims recalled losing limbs. Prosecutors played gruesome video footage of the scene, and shared photos of the injuries. RELATED: ‘I just killed a policeman’: Victim recalls carjacking by Boston bombers Tsarnaev remained silent and still through most of the trial, rarely showing any emotion. His lawyers called just four witnesses, all evidence technicians they hoped would bolster their argument that fingerprints, receipts and digital evidence showed Tamerlan was the mastermind, and Dzhokhar an impressionable teenager who bought into his brother’s twisted vision. Lead defense lawyer Judy Clarke asked the jury during the trial’s first phase to “keep your minds open” to that notion. She’ll expand on that in the trial’s penalty phase, which the jury will begin hearing soon. Andy Thibault and Jon Schuppe contributed reporting. This article originally appeared on NBCNews.com.
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