'After thousands of pages of legal briefs and nearly two years of hearings, a lawyer for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev stood in federal court Wednesday, the first day of the long-awaited Marathon bombing trial, and made a startling simple declaration: “It was him.”
Yes, she said, it was Tsarnaev who dropped a backpack containing a bomb on the ground, killing a young boy and a graduate student. And it was Tsarnaev who, along with his brother, went on a violent spree that ended in bloodshed in Watertown.

“There’s little that occurred the week of April the 15th . . . that we dispute,” attorney Judy Clarke told jurors.
In just over 20 minutes, Clarke provided a detailed account of Tsarnaev’s role in the horrific attacks, though she ultimately sought to portray the now-21-year-old defendant as a reluctant participant in the bombings, coerced by a dominating older brother who was the mastermind. He was less culpable, she said, and therefore should be spared the death penalty.
Prosecutors gave their own vivid narrative of the bombings, providing new details in the moments leading up to the explosions and their aftermath, including Tsarnaev’s trip to a grocery store 20 minutes later to shop for a gallon of milk



The opening statements were a sweeping — and at times heart-wrenching — attempt at justice on the same day that several survivors recounted frightening ordeals to the jury.
“I started screaming out for somebody to help us,” said Karen Rand McWatters, who lost a leg. She recalled that after the explosion she leaned toward her friend, Krystle Marie Campbell, who softly said that her legs hurt. “Her hand went limp in mine, and she never spoke again after that,” McWatters testified.
“I remember thinking, this is it, I’m going to die, I’m not going to make it,” said Sydney Corcoran, who was 17 when she and her mother were injured in the bombings. “I just felt so cold.”
The long-awaited trial officially began Wednesday after two months of jury selection and nearly two years of legal challenges. Tsarnaev’s lawyers have repeatedly and unsuccessfully sought to have the trial moved outside Boston.
Scores of spectators passed through security at the John Joseph Moakley US Courthouse in South Boston Wednesday to view the proceedings, as did several survivors and family members of the victims.
Those killed in the bombings were Campbell, a 29-year-old from Medford who died from the first blast; Martin Richard, an 8-year-old from Dorchester; and Lingzi Lu, a 23-year-old Boston University graduate student from China. Lu and Richard were killed by the second bomb, the one planted by Tsarnaev.
Assistant US Attorney William Weinreb told jurors that Tsarnaev stood with his backpack outside the Forum restaurant on Boylston Street for nearly four minutes, while several children played in front of him, before he slipped off the bag and walked away.
“He pretended to be a spectator, but he had murder in his heart,” Weinreb said.
He provided graphic details of the victims’ last moments, saying Richard “bled to death on the sidewalk,” Lu had the “inside of her stomach pouring out,” and Campbell was left with “gaping holes” in her body.
He later detailed Tsarnaev’s actions less than a half-hour after the bombing: He was at a Whole Foods store in Cambridge, shopping for milk.
“The defendant pretended nothing had happened,” Weinreb said.'
My wife and I heard the blast as we prepared to eat lunch Legal Seafood in the Lord and Taylor mall on Boylston Street. Terror surrounded us, but we were never in danger. It was one of the worst days of my life, but, for hundreds of innocent spectators, their lives will never be the same thanks to the cold-hearted, calculated actions of these two animals.

I'm sorry, but all of us have free-will. Plotting and creating devices designed to kill and maim innocent human beings, in my estimation calls for the death penalty. This young man knew exactly what he was doing, and showed no remorse after doing it. 

Nothing can bring three dead people, one of them a child, back to life. Shattered and amputated limbs, perforated eardrums, burns and scars can never fully be restored, but justice must prevail.

I think a jury in Boston will get it right.

                 Marathon bombing victim Rebekah Gregory arrived at court