NBC News is reporting new details that link Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev to a 2011 triple homicide.
From NBC News' Twitter feed:
JUST IN: Boston bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev and man killed by FBI in Orlando responsible for 2011 triple homicide, sources say
— NBC News (@NBCNews) May 22, 2013
MORE: Tsarnaev and Ibragim Todashev murdered three people in drug rip-off in Waltham, Mass. to avoid being identified, sources say
— NBC News (@NBCNews) May 22, 2013
On Sept. 11, 2011, three men were found in a Boston-area apartment with their throats slit and their bodies covered in marijuana.
Tamerlan described one of the murder victims, 25-year-old Brendan Mess, as his best friend. He and Mess were once roommates and boxed together.
The two others who died were 31-year-old Erik Weissman and 37-year-old Raphael Teken, both of Cambridge.
Since the bombings, people have been speculating that Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev — the two brothers suspected of the Boston marathon bombing attack that killed three people and injured about 260 others — were tied to the killings.
Law enforcement officials told ABC News that "mounting" forensic evidence from the murders links Tamerlan and Dzhokhar to the crime. Cell phone records reportedly placed the brothers in the area of the murders on the day they were committed, and some crime scene forensic evidence provided a match to the Tsarnaev brothers.
Investigators are reportedly still looking into whether Dzhokhar, the younger Tsarnaev brother, played a role in the triple homicide. Sources earlier told ABC News that authorities needed to wait for more definitive DNA testing before bringing an indictment against Dzhokhar. Tamerlan was killed in a police shootout shortly after the marathon bombings.
Ibragim Todashev, the man shot and killed during an interview with FBI agents late Tuesday, reportedly confessed to being involved in the murder, investigators told NBC News. Todashev, a 27-year-old Chechen, used to live in the Boston area and was friends with Tamerlan. They knew each other through mixed martial arts fighting.
Todashev reportedly implicated Tamerlan in the triple murder, but attacked an FBI agent before he could sign a written confession.
Law enforcement officials told NBC News that the two men wanted to steal drugs from the victims and decided to kill them so there were no witnesses to the crime.
After the killings, Middlesex District Attorney Gerard Leone released a statement saying "based on the present state of the investigation, it is believed that the victims knew the assailant or assailants, and the attacks were not random." Police also said they believed the murders were drug-related.
An unnamed official told The New York Times that authorities are investigating whether Tsarnaev and Todashev were drug dealers.
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