Jurors in the federal death-penalty trial of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev have been shown pressure cooker parts, BBs, nails and a piece of hobby fuse that were found in his apartment.
The items were found four days after the 2013 terror attack, which killed three people and injured more than 260 others.
Tsarnaev's lawyers have admitted that he and his brother, Tamerlan, planted and detonated two pressure-cooker bombs near the marathon finish line.
Prosecutors have said the bombs were filled with BBs, nails and other shrapnel. They have also said the bombs were made with fuses from Christmas tree lights. A string of lights was also found in the Cambridge apartment.
On the whole, testimony was slow as both the prosecution and defense went item by item through things taken out of the 800 square-foot apartment -- at 410 Norfolk street in Cambridge -- occupied by Tamerlan Tsarnaev his wife and child -- and Dzhokhar on occasion.
One area of the apartment was described as looking like a construction site.
Later Wednesday, bloody clothing of the 3 marathon victims will be entered into evidence - the parents of 8-year old Martin Richard, who died in the blast, were in court
The defense says Tamerlan was the mastermind of the attack. He died in a gunfight with police.
Tsarnaev's defense team completed its cross examination of the FBI agent who searched the Cambridge apartment.
Earlier, the prosecution had inventoried several damning items found at the scene, including a copious amount of bomb-making materials. As she concluded her cross-examination, attorney Miriam Conrad asked Special Agent Christopher Derks if he was aware that many of these items actually bore Tamerlan's fingerprints-- but a government objection was sustained, and cut her short.
As the Tsarnaev trial continues trial, his defense is limited by the judge putting the alleged influence of Dzhokhar's deceased brother Tamerlan off limits until the sentencing phase. Still, the defense is occasionally able to broach that topic--and did so to dramatic Wednesday afternoon., making some significant headway.
Just before the court’s 1 pm recess, the defense showed an image of Tamerlan Tsarnaev leaving a Watertown Target the day before the marathon bombings — carrying a bag containing the backpacks that bore two bombs to Boylston Street. He was walking alone. The defense wants to cast Dzjokhar as a follower in thrall to a domineering older brother. The image shown in court today may be their best asset yet.
Later in the day, the government zeroed in on text messages, documents and tweets attributed to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Some were in his native Chechen or in Arabic , and prosecutors introduced on the stand a Russian speaking FBI linguist and agents who have read the materials.
At one point Prosecutor Aloke Chakravarty and FBI agent Heidi Williams played roles in the courtroom of Tsarnaev and a person he was texting with whose name was redacted. The government pointedly said that it was not Tamerlan.
Those text messages, according to a government document, included an exchange between Dzhokhar and the unidentified individual who wrote: "I'm really down for that jihad life..I been thinking about that lately.” Dzhokhar had written that he had been thinking about other options in life and spoke of achieving ""the highest level of Jannah" (the Islamic conception of paradise) At another point, Dzhokhar wrote that he was concerned about how an "influential person" might see him: "I've been sober for a month" he said.
The Defense argued that influential person was Tamerlan; someone they say whom Dzhokhar both feared and worshipped.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article incorrectly attributed the headline quote to Tsarnaev. In fact it was an unidentified friend of the defendant who was quoted in the exchange of texts released by the government to the public.
