The Boston bomber's trial is over. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was found guilty Wednesday on 30 counts related to an attack he and his brother launched on the 2013 Boston Marathon.
A jury of seven women and five men deliberated for a little over 12 hours before reaching a guilty verdict. During the sentencing phase, the prosecution and defense will make their arguments, which could include more emotional testimony — possibly even from Tsarnaev himself — and the same jury will rule on whether he should be put to death.
The Massachusetts jury reached its verdict almost two years to the day after the April 15 bombing that left three people dead and another 250 wounded. Seventeen of the 30 charges Tsarnaev faced carry a sentence of death.
Tsarnaev was 19 when he and his brother Tamerlan, then 26, crafted homemade bombs in pressure cookers and set them at the finish line of the annual race.
Defense attorney Judy Clarke said in her opening statements that Tsarnaev was responsible for the bombing, but she sought to paint a picture of him as an impressionable teenage boy who fell under the sway of a fanatical older sibling.
Prosecutors presented days’ worth of often gruesome testimony and evidence, including photos of the youngest bombing victim, 8-year-old Martin Richard. The Tsarnaev brothers spent days on the run from law enforcement, leading to a massive manhunt and a shootout that left Tamerlan dead. Dzhokhar was found injured and hiding in a boat four days after the bombing.
This is a breaking story that will be updated.
An earlier version of this post incorrectly identified one of the victims as Richard Martin, not Martin Richard.
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