Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, is pictured in 2010. Credit: FBI
The Worcester funeral home caring for the body of accused terrorist Tamerlan Tsarnaev has stopped releasing information on when and where the alleged Boston Marathon bomber will be buried.
A woman who answered the phone at the Graham, Putnam and Mahoney Funeral Parlors said today that funeral director Peter Stefan and his staff has been advised not to conduct any more interviews.
She would not comment on burial plans for Tsarnaev, who was killed nearly three weeks ago during a shootout with police.
The government has refused to get involved in the burial plans, despite Stefan’s trouble locating a cemetery that will accept Tsarnaev’s body. Protesters have also staked out the funeral home, calling for deportation of the remains.
Cambridge preemptively shot down the idea, and when asked how he would feel if Tsarnaev were buried in Boston, Mayor Thomas Menino said, “I wouldn’t allow it, that’s for sure.”
Stefans reportedly told Newsday that Tsarnaev’s mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, called his funeral home and tearfully asked the body be sent to Russia, however officials there are reportedly not willing to allow that.
Meanwhile, a Vermont man wants to put the controversy to rest.
Paul Keane, a Yale Divinity School graduate, took to his blog Monday to offer a burial plot at a cemetery in Hamden, Connecticut – but there is a catch.
“The only condition is that I do it in memory of my mother who taught Sunday School at the Mt. Carmel Congregational Church for forty years and taught me to love thine enemy,” Keane wrote in his blog post, “An offer to the Tsarnaev family.”
“I own the plot. No one can refuse me access.”
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