Then there was the opposite theory, or perhaps the same theory but with a different cast of characters. A number of people, many of them far outside the usual-suspect circles of conspiracy theorists, became convinced that the FBI was behind the bombings. The FBI certainly had greater opportunity to commit the crime than did the FSB. The FBI had access to Tamerlan, it had had Tamerlan on its radar at least since the FSB alerted it to his existence in early 2011, and the FBI has been known to engage people in elaborate imaginary terrorist plots in order to identify potential attackers. But what would have been the FBI’s motive? This is the weak part of the theory: most of the proponents to whom I have spoken suggest that the FBI enticed Tamerlan Tsarnaev to bomb the Boston Marathon in order to test the agency’s ability to impose martial law in America.
Part of what has kept people engaged with the FBI-conspiracy theory, and has even kept new adherents streaming in, is the impressive list of inconsistencies a slew of self-styled investigators have identified in the law enforcement narrative of the bombing. Many of the criticisms of the FBI story are nitpicky and hardly bear repeating, and some are imaginary, but a few seem significant enough to consider. Any conspiracy theorist, for example, will tell you about the backpack: in the available photographs of Jahar taken at the marathon, he is seen walking in the crowd, carrying a gray backpack easily on one shoulder. Another set of pictures shows a backpack that has been ripped apart by the device that exploded inside it. The backpack in the second set of photos is black. Of course, the most likely explanation for the discrepancy is that there were two backpacks, a gray one carried by Jahar and a black one carried by Tamerlan. But the indictment in Jahar’s case says that both bombs were concealed inside black backpacks. And the conspiracy theorists also have pictures of a third person—someone whose general demeanor and outfit make the theorists believe he is an officer of some sort of military or militarized organization—with just that kind of black backpack with a white square on its handle that can also be seen in the second set of photographs. (In the available photos of Tamerlan, he is carrying a black backpack, but one without a white square on the handle.)
There may be a variety of explanations for this—two people at the giant event could have had the same backpack, or any or all of the photographs may be inauthentic—but the conspiracy theorists point to other holes in the story: Danny, the owner of the hijacked SUV, made contradictory statements about the timing and sequence of events; police officers’ accounts of the manhunt and the shoot-out are full of incredible assertions—cars turning around on a dime on narrow streets; individual cops being in three places at once, or on what appear to be thirty-six-hour shifts, or both—and the explosive device that was supposedly thrown by one of the brothers in the middle of a tiny residential street harmed no one and damaged nothing.
The inconsistencies in stories told by police officers are likely to have logical explanations, paramount among them the fact that the police were sleep-deprived, scared, and genuinely confused by the disarray in the ranks of law enforcement. The general human tendency to misremember details would have been exacerbated. If any of them had things to conceal, these probably concerned matters peripheral to the question of whether the brothers were guilty of the bombing. But they serve as a reminder to consider what evidence was available when American public opinion convicted the brothers, long before any proof was presented in a court of law.
Members of the investigative team originally picked out Jahar and Tamerlan on surveillance videos because their behavior appeared different from that of the rest of the marathon spectators. When the first blast sounded, the two did not panic or run. By all accounts, before the FBI released the surveillance photos and asked for help identifying the suspects, the brothers acted normal, showing no signs of distress or intention to escape—until they became the objects of a manhunt. At that point the very fact that they were running away served as affirmation of their guilt.
Later, other evidence was said to emerge. A few days after Jahar was captured, Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick and several media outlets citing sources in law enforcement said that there existed another video, in which Jahar could be seen setting his backpack down on the ground at the spot where the second explosion occurred. Then, according to these sources, he could be seen walking away—and acting calm when the first explosion sounded. The video was not released to the public.
While Jahar was hiding in the boat, he scrawled a note on its interior wall. It was quoted in the grand jury indictment, and later a larger portion was included in one of the prosecution’s filings in the case:
I’m jealous of my brother who ha[s] [re]ceived the reward of jannutul Firdaus[1] (inshallah) before me. I do not mourn because his soul is very much alive. God has a plan for each person. Mine was to hide in this boat and shed some light on our actions. I ask Allah to make me a shahied (iA)[2] to allow me to return to him and be among all the righteous people in the highest levels of heaven. He who Allah guides no one can misguide. A[llah Ak]bar!
The US Government is killing our innocent civilians but most of you already know that. As a [illegible] I can’t stand to see such evil go unpunished, we Muslims are one body, you hurt one you hurt us all. Well at least that’s how muhhammad (pbuh[3]) wanted it to be [for]ever, the ummah[4] is beginning to rise/[illegible] has awoken the mujahideen, know you are fighting men who look into the barrel of your gun and see heaven, now how can you compete with that. We are promised victory and we will surely get it. Now I don’t like killing innocent people it is forbidden in Islam but due to said [illegible] it is allowed. All credit goes [illegible].
Stop killing our innocent people and we will stop.
At some point someone managed to snap a picture of the note—or a picture was leaked by law enforcement—and ABC News published it. It appears to show that the quoted version in the filing omits the following sentences: “I bear witness that there is no God but Allah and that Muhammad is his messenger. [bullet hole] actions come with a [me]ssage and that is [bullet hole], in’shallah.”
This note, which the media often called a confession, certainly makes it seem that the brothers were the marathon bombers, but it does not say it—at least the portion known to the public does not. It contains no information on where, when, or how the brothers made the pressure-cooker bombs and whether anyone helped them, how and when they transported them to Boylston Street in Boston, where and when they planted them, and who detonated them. In other words, it contains none of the kinds of specific information that generally constitutes a confession. If the court of public opinion could be held to the standard of reasonable doubt, then someone would have to ask its jury this question: Is it conceivable that the Tsarnaev brothers were not the marathon bombers but, once they knew they were the suspects, they decided to run? The answer would have to be, Yes, it is conceivable. The evidence available to the public before the trial began in January 2015 included nothing that directly linked the Tsarnaev brothers to the bombing or explained its mechanics or the brothers’ motivation.
THIS BOOK is not an impartial jury. Like the American public, it assumes from the start that Tamerlan and Jahar Tsarnaev are the Boston Marathon bombers. The difficulty with making sense of their story occurs sometime before Jahar’s non-confession confession and has only a little to do with the lack of a clear picture of the steps they took to manufacture and plant the bombs. What is truly lacking from the story is a clear and accessible explanation for how two young men who appear to be very much like hundreds of thousands of other young men came to cause carnage in the center of their own city.