For the survivors of April 15, 2013, painful memories become fresh wounds Monday when the trial of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev begins.
It starts as most trials do, slowly, with jury selections. More than 1,000 people will be called to the federal courtroom of District Judge George A. O’Toole Jr. They will be filtered down to the men and women who will decide whether Tsarnaev, 21, is guilty of murder and a terrorist act. He entered not guilty pleas on all counts.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, in an artist's rendering from his December court appearance. (AP Photo)
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Three people — two women and a boy — were killed and more than 260 were wounded when two homemade bombs exploded near the marathon finish line that Patriots Day nearly two years ago. Of the survivors, 17 lost limbs. Others carry physical and emotional scars.
"We really are going to be reliving everything," victim Heather Abbott told The Boston Globe. Abbott, 40, of Newport, R.I., lost her left leg below the knee.
Rebekah DiMartino, 27, of Katy, Texas, also lost a leg and received a prosthetic replacement. Within the past week she took her first steps since being injured.
"You don't realize how many little blessings are in your life that you don't really even pay attention to because they're just expected," DiMartino told Houston TV station KHOU.
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Tsarnaev and his brother, Tamerlan, 26, were identified in surveillance videos as suspects. They were seen wearing backpacks in the area of the explosions, then seen without them before departing.
The Tsarnaev brothers in the crowd on April 15, 2013
Investigators and prosecutors say the brothers build bombs of pressure cookers filled with metal. The explosions seconds apart sent shrapnel flying through runners and spectators. Result: grievous injuries that severed limbs and left victims in need of amputations.
Before Tsarnaev was apprehended, his brother was killed in a shootout with police. The brothers are believe tied to the death of an MIT security guard during their attempted to flee Boston.
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Sunday, reports from Boston said the defense was rebuffed in another attempt to delay the trial. Pending unlikely success of last-minute efforts, Tsarnaev will step before the public, a rarity since his apprehension following a massive manhunt in Boston.
On Saturday, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals handed Tsarnaev's defense team its latest setback. Michael Kendall, a former federal prosecutor, told The Boston Herald the Tsarnaev team's plan was simple.
“The defense strategy here is to overwhelm the court with paper,” Kendall said. “If you can’t win on the merits, you try to win on these paper strategies and this shows that the courts can see right through that.”
O'Toole had earlier denied defense requests that included a nine-month delay and a change of venue. The defense believes it impossible to find a jury in Boston that is not tainted by information on the case.
Tsarnaev faces 30 federal counts for his part in the attack. If convicted on the biggest ones, he faces the death penalty.
This trial will rival that of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh in scope. Tsarnaev's defense team faces overwhelming evidence and, according to media reports, might focus its attention on fighting to prevent Tsarnaev from execution.
The Tsarnaev brothers
Prosecutors say the Tsarnaev brothers, as natives of Chechnya, were acting as Islamic terrorists. Before being found hiding in a boat stored near a Boston-area home, prosecutors say, Dzhokhar wrote a note describing his motive: "The U.S. Government is killing our innocent civilians … "We Muslims are one body, you hurt one you hurt us all."