Boston Bombing Investigation ‘In Its Infancy … Wide Open,’ FBI Declares at Press Conference

In a Tuesday afternoon press conference in Boston, the FBI agent leading the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) investigating the Boston Marathon bombing said they are “wide open” in terms of seeking suspects and motives for the crime that killed three people and injured more than 170.

The task force has no “definitive” information on who perpetrated the attack, FBI Special Agent in Charge Richard Deslauriers said during a press conference at Boston’s Westin Copley Plaza Hotel. “The investigation is still in its infancy.”

Deslauriers’s remarks contradicted earlier press accounts that the investigation had focused on a Saudi Arabian student who was seen fleeing the scene of the bombing near the finish line of the annual race at Boston’s Copley Square. The JTTF leader said that forensic evidence indicated that the bomb was a “pressure cooker device” that had been inside a black nylon duffle bag or backpack.

In response to a question, Deslauriers declined to say whether the attack was the work of a lone individual or multiple bombers. “It could be a person. It could be persons,” he said.

It was the second press conference of the day for Deslauriers and other officials investigating the bombing. At a morning press conference, Deslauriers declared: “We will go to the ends of the Earth to identify the subject or subjects who are responsible for this despicable crime, and we will do everything we can to bring them to justice.”

UPDATE: Two of the victims killed by Monday’s blast — Martin Richard, 8, and Krystle Campbell, 29 — had previously been identified. A third victim, not yet named, was a graduate student at Boston University, a Boston TV station reported.

UPDATE II: NBC News reports:

The FBI’s lead investigator into the Boston Marathon bombings on Tuesday made a passionate plea for information from the public, saying the “range of suspects and motives remains wide open” as the probe into who might be responsible for the attacks begins.
“Someone knows who did this,” said Richard DesLauriers, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston office. “Importantly, the person who did this is someone’s friend, neighbor, coworker or relative. We are asking anyone who may have hears someone speak about the marathon or the date of April 15 of any way that he or she may have targeted this event to call us.” …
Investigators have found fragments of black nylon, which were possibly from a bag or backpack that contained the bombs. In addition, pieces of what is believed to have been a pressure cooker used in making the bomb have been discovered.
Those pieces of evidence, along with others, are being sent to the FBI’s lab in Quantico, Va., for testing to determine if they were indeed part of the bomb. …
One of the three devices that was to be used in an attempted bomb attack in Times Square in 2010 was a pressure cooker. Earlier that year, terrorists used a pressure cooker bomb in an attack in Pakistan. And in 2006, more than 130 people were killed on the transit system of Mumbai, India, when pressure cookers loaded with explosives were placed on trains.

READ MORE:

Will You Survive 'The Purge'?

It's just another awesome day in America.  Unemployment is at 1%, and crime is at an all-time low.  However, there's a catch.  The reason why everything is so tranquil is that for [...]