Sean Collier (ZUMAPRESS.com)
FAREWELL: Mourners weep yesterday at the funeral of slain MIT cop Sean Collier. (AP; ZUMAPRESS.com)
Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev vowed, “Now we’re going to New York!” as he and his fellow-terrorist brother, Dzhokhar, carjacked a man in a desperate bid to elude capture, it was revealed yesterday.
“We just killed a cop. We blew up the marathon,” Tsarnaev snarled as he and Dzhokhar, 19, pointed guns at the terrified carjack victim after gunning down MIT Police Officer Sean Collier, according to a new report.
“And now, we’re going to New York! Don’t f–k with us!” Tsarnaev, 26, barked at the victim after midnight Friday, police sources told the Boston Globe.
That claim now has authorities investigating whether the Tsarnaevs had contacts in the Big Apple who could have potentially helped them flee.
Tamerlan was killed after he and Dzhokhar engaged in a predawn firefight with authorities in Watertown, Mass., early Friday. Dzhokhar was nabbed 20 hours later, after he was discovered hiding, bloody and prone, in a dry-docked boat in a Watertown yard.
In other developments yesterday:
* Under interrogation from his hospital bed, Dzhokhar confessed that he and Tamerlan planted the marathon bombs and murdered the 26-year-old MIT cop, sources said.
* He also told investigators that he and his brother assembled their homemade bombs by following instructions they found on “Inspire” — al Qaeda’s online magazine, sources said.
* Investigators now believe the Tsarnaevs acted alone in plotting and carrying out the April 15 double bombing, which killed three people and injured at least 170, after examinations of the brothers’ cellphones and computers turned up no evidence of an accomplice, sources said.
* It emerged that Russia warned the FBI not once but “multiple’’ times about the fanatical Tamerlan, but in the end, nothing came of it, US senators said after being briefed on the investigation. It was also revealed that Tamerlan had been on the US’s TIDE database of potential terrorists, but because it was so extensive he wasn’t being tracked.
* David Henneberry, the man who discovered Dzhokhar hiding in his boat, spoke publicly for the first time, telling Boston’s Channel 5-ABC that he was “just glad” to have stumbled upon the fugitive in his yard. “I am lucky I am alive. These other people were killed. Sometimes, I just sit and say, ‘Wow,’ ” he said.
* A funeral was held for 8-year-old bombing victim Martin Richard, whose parents released a statement saying, “The outpouring of love and support over the last week has been tremendous.”
* A funeral was also held for Collier. The MIT officer may simply have been executed because the two terrorists needed a second gun, sources told CBS.
After they carjacked the Mercedes SUV, the Tsarnaevs drove their hostage to multiple ATMs, telling him they needed to fund their trip to New York, the Globe reported.
The killers got $800 before the man managed to flee when they stopped for gas.
Cops were able to track the stolen vehicle by tracing the victim’s cellphone, which he had left in it.
Officers cornered the SUV, but the perps started tossing out explosives. One of the cops then put his cruiser in gear, got out and let it slowly roll toward the suspects with no one inside, hoping to draw them out.
The move worked — Tamerlan fired and quickly ran out of bullets and was tackled. His brother drove over him, likely killing him, as he fled.
Meanwhile, amid the manhunt for Dzhokhar, the feds zeroed in on a young woman from Long Island, who said she was a “close friend’’ of his, a report said.
Britney Smith, 23, who now lives in Miami, yesterday said FBI agents came to her parents’ home in Ridge, LI, to question her while she was there for a funeral.
The FBI “knew we knew each other, and they thought he might be coming here,’’ Smith told Newsday.
Smith had met Dzhokhar in 2004 through his sisters, whom she knew from mutual friends. She said she told the feds about a trip Dzhokhar had taken to Manhattan last year.
“He told me he went to hang out in Times Square, went to a hookah lounge and was having a lot of fun,” Smith said. “He said, ‘I love it out here.’ ”
Dzhokhar told investigators yesterday that he and Tamerlan acted alone, motivated to plant the bombs by US wars against their fellow Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Investigators believe the explosive used may have come from fireworks that Tamerlan bought Feb. 6.
He paid $400 for two reloadable mortar kits at the Phantom Fireworks shop in Seabrook, NH, Phantom President Bruce Zoldan told The Post.
“He asked [the clerk], ‘What is your most powerful item? What gives the most bang for your buck?’ ” Zoldan said.
In 2010, would-be Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad bought fireworks he used for his car bomb at a Phantom outlet in Pennsylvania.Additional reporting by Gerry Shields, Josh Margolin, Jamie Schram and Dan MacLeod