(JTA) — There is “mounting evidence” that the Boston Marathon bombers were involved in the unsolved murder of three men in suburban Boston.
Police officials said that some crime scene forensic evidence was a match to Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the two brothers who are alleged to have set off two explosions at the finish line of the Boston Marathon last month, ABC News reported over the weekend.
The officials also said records of cell phones used by the brothers put them in the area of the murders on that date.
Three men — Brendan Mess, Rafael Teken and Erik Weissman — were found dead in September 2011 in an apartment several miles from the campus of Brandeis University in the Boston suburb of Waltham.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev knew Mess well but did not attend his funeral despite once referring to him as his “best friend,” and participating in boxing and martial arts training together.
The bodies of the three men were discovered with their throats slit and about seven pounds of marijuana dumped on the bodies, as well as $5,000 in cash left behind.
Two of the victims, Weissman and Teken, were Jewish.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed in a shootout with police several days after the bombing. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was charged with using a “weapon of mass destruction” — a charge that could bring the death penalty.
The brothers were identified as suspects after authorities reviewed photos and video taken on the afternoon of the marathon on April 15, when two bombs killed three people and wounded more than 170.
