The widow of one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects is on the hot seat – as authorities investigate whether she helped her murderous husband buy pressure cookers used in the blasts.
Katherine Russell, 25, who was married to Tamerlan Tsarnaev, is being investigated in connection with the terror attack and could face charges, law enforcement officials told ABC News.
Russell is suspected of accompanying Tsarnaev on a shopping spree to a Macy’s store in Boston to buy five pressure cookers a couple of months before the April 2013 attack. Two of them were allegedly used in the bombing at the race’s finish line.
The FBI and Russell’s lawyers declined to answer questions, but authorities said no decision has been made on whether to charge her.
Russell could face charges of misprision of a felony – or failing to notify authorities of an imminent crime, a senior law enforcement official told ABC News.
“To live in a small apartment and buy five pressure cookers and have all those explosives obviously just does not make sense – something other than cooking was going on,” said former FBI agent and ABC News consultant Brad Garrett.
Tsarnaev also bought 48 mortar shells, which also were used in the explosive devices, at a fireworks store in New Hampshire. He spent about $200 for the “biggest and loudest” fireworks, court documents said.
Tsarnaev was killed in a shootout with cops three days after he and his brother, Dzhokhar, allegedly set off the explosives, killing three people and injuring about 260 others.
“As a mother, a sister, a daughter, a wife, Katie deeply mourns the pain and loss to innocent victims, students, law enforcement officers, families and our community,” her lawyer, Miriam Weizenbaum, said after the bombing.
Russell moved to New Jersey to live with Tsarnaev’s two sisters and was last seen in transitional housing for the homeless in New Jersey, ABC News reported.
Opening statements in Dzhokhar’s murder trial are set to begin Wednesday.