Officials Confirm: Man Shot by FBI Was Waltham Murder Suspect

News

A Chechen immigrant who was shot Tuesday night in Orlando by the Federal Bureau of Investigation was a suspect, along with slain Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, in an unsolved 2011 triple murder in Waltham, Massachusetts.

Ibragim Todashev, 27, was shot after he attacked FBI agents with a knife. Authorities had questioned Todashev about the September 2011 murders of Brendan Mess, 25, Raphael Tekken, 37, and Eric Weissman, 31. The Boston Globe quoted a law enforcement official: “Both Tsarnaev and Todashev were suspects in the murders.”

Boston CBS affiliate WBZ-TV reported that “after Todashev implicated himself and Tsarnaev [in the Waltham murders], he became angered when authorities pressed him for a full confession.” ABC News reported that Todashev was “about to sign a statement” confessing his role in the triple homicide when he “just went crazy.”

Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed in a shootout with police three days after the Boston Marathon bombings, which killed three people and wounded more than 170. Tamerlan’s younger brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been charged with the federal crime of using a weapon of mass destruction.

Mess, Tekken and Weissman were killed in their apartment on the 10th anniversary of the 2001 9/11 attacks. Mess knew Tamerlan Tsarnaev through their mutual interest in mixed martial arts, which was also how Todashev knew the older Tsarnaev brother.

NBC News reported that “Todashev had some connections with radical Chechen rebels.” Todashev reportedly had purchased a plane ticket to leave the United States before the Tuesday night incident in which he was shot dead.

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