With one Boston Marathon bombing suspect dead and the other captured by police after a tense standoff, portraits of the two young brothers have slowly emerged.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, who was killed in a shootout with police Thursday night, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, captured Friday evening, are accused of planting two bombs that killed three people and injured more than 180 near the marathon finish line on Monday.
The brothers are of Chechen heritage and at least one of them was born in Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet republic, according to family members.
Chechnya, in Russia's Caucasus region, is a predominantly Muslim republic where separatist rebels have been clashing with Russian forces since 1994.
The brothers emigrated with their family to the United States in 2002 and most recently lived together in Cambridge, Mass., just outside of Boston. They reportedly have two sisters.
Fragments of their lives since their arrival to America can be pieced together from their posts and interactions on social media and a years-old photo essay that focused on Tamerlan’s amateur boxing career.
That photo essay has since been taken down, but Tamerlan told the photographer at the time that he didn’t have “a single American friend.”
Still, he expressed hope that he would someday represent the U.S. in a boxing tournament on the world stage. He told the photographer he was “very religious,” and didn’t smoke or drink.
In 2009, he was arrested for allegedly assaulting a girlfriend.
An aunt who lives in the Toronto area, Maret Tsarnaeva, said Tamerlan was married with a daughter.
She also said Tamerlan had dropped out of college, disappointing his family.
Dzhokhar, a college student, was on the wrestling team in high school, and had many friends who expressed shock at seeing his photo in FBI’s “wanted” posters.
On his profile on Russia’s version of Facebook, Dzhokhar described his worldview as “Islam” and listed his life goals as “career and money.”
He also posted YouTube clips of Russian rap videos and listed a verse from the Qur’an: “Do good because Allah loves those who do good.”
On what is likely his Twitter account, Dzhokhar posted messages in the days since Monday’s twin marathon bombings.
On the day of the tragedy, he wrote: “Ain’t no love in the heart of the city, stay safe people” – a song lyric.
The next day he wrote: “There are people that know the truth but stay silent & there are people that speak the truth but we don't hear them cuz they're the minority.”
Although Dzhokhar was said to be a student at a local college in the Boston area, his father told the Associated Press his son was in medical school.
Speaking from the city of Makhachkala in the Russian province of Dagestan, Anzor Tsarnaev called Dzhokhar a “true angel” and said both of his sons were “set up.”
"They were set up, they were set up!" he said. "I saw it on television; they killed my older son Tamerlan."
Tsarnaeva, the suspects’ aunt, told reporters Friday that she hasn’t seen any convincing evidence to suggest her nephews are linked to the Boston bombings.
Tsarnaeva said the family fled Dagestan, which neighbours Chechnya, for Kyrgyzstan in the early ’90s.
Dzhokhar came to the U.S. as a child with his parents in 2002 and the family applied for refugee status, she said. They left behind Tamerlan and his two sisters in Russia. After the family received refugee status, the rest of the children joined them in the U.S.
“They are normal young men, athletic,” Tsarnaeva said of her nephews, adding that Tamarlan “seemingly did not find himself yet in America, because it’s not easy.”
