Were Boston Marathon bombers involved in an earlier triple homicide?

Well, this is interesting.

Massachusetts investigators have developed what they call “mounting evidence,” bolstered by “forensic hits,” that point to the possible involvement of both Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his younger brother Dzhokhar in a gruesome, unsolved triple homicide in 2011, law enforcement officials told ABC News.

[snip]

In the wake of the Marathon bombings, Middlesex County began to probe a link between the elder Tsarnaev and Brendan Mess, one of the three men killed in the gruesome slaying on Sept. 11, 2011. Officials said Mess and two men were found in a Waltham residence with their throats slit and their bodies covered with marijuana. Tamerlan and Mess were once roommates and did boxing and martial arts training together.

It’s not conclusive, and it may never be – the only one who can confirm the allegations for certain is Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, and he’s lawyered up* – but it would explain a lot of the weird things about that murder, starting with the slit throats and the pot and ending with the cash not being taken and there being no leads among the local drug community.  It would also explain why the Tsarnaev brothers thought that they could get away with the bombings; after all, under this theory they had already literally gotten away with murder. That can provoke a certain hubris.

But, still, just speculation at this point.  Guess we’ll see…

Moe Lane

*Which won’t save him.  It’ll just add six years or so of solitary confinement to his life before we execute him.