Tamerlan Tsarnaev, left, in 2010, and his brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
Credit: Reuters
Federal investigators want to question the wife of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, according to the woman’s lawyer.
Amato DeLuca told the Associated Press that Katherine Russell Tsarnaev has been staying at her parents’ home in North Kingstown, R.I., since Friday, but that she did not speak to federal officials who came to the house Sunday night.
“I spoke to them, and that’s all I can say right now,” DeLuca said. “We’re deciding what we want to do and how we want to approach this.”
DeLuca said his client had no reason to suspect that her husband was responsible for the bombings, which killed three people and injured nearly 200.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, and his brother Dzhokhar, 19, also allegedly killed an MIT police officer Thursday night before leading police on a violent pursuit to Watertown.
The older brother was killed that night but the younger suspect escaped, prompting a nearly 24-hour manhunt that caused a lockdown of the Boston area. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was eventually arrested Friday night and was being guarded by police at a Boston hospital Monday.
DeLuca said Katherine Russell Tsarnaev worked up to 80 hours a week as a home health care aide, while Tamerlan took care of their 3-year-old daughter.
The 24-year-old woman last saw her husband Thursday as she left for work, according to DeLuca, and learned from news reports that he was a suspect in the bombings.
“When this allegedly was going on, she was working, and had been working all week to support her family,” DeLuca told the AP.
The couple met through friends when she was a Suffolk University student and married within the last few years, DeLuca said. The wife was raised Christian but converted to Islam after meeting Tsarnaev.
The woman’s mother, Judith Russell, issued a statement to reporters on Friday, according to the Providence Journal.
“We cannot begin to comprehend how this horrible tragedy occurred,” the statement read. “In the aftermath of the Patriots’ Day horror, we know that we never really knew Tamerlane [sic] Tsarnaev. Our hearts are sickened by the knowledge of the horror he has inflicted.”
The Russells put their home up for sale Friday.
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