Investigative Reporter Proves Backpacks Worn By Boston Bombing Suspects Could Not Have Contained Pressure Cooker Bombs

The government's attempt to pin the blame for the Boston Marathon bombings on Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev suffered a major setback after WhoWhatWhy's Dave Lindorff took a much closer look at the images the FBI released purporting to be the two suspects near the site of the bombings taken from video surveillance cameras at a Lord & Taylor store carrying large backpacks. A recreation of a make-shift bomb using a pressure cooker of the same make and model found that the contents would have weighed approximately 30 pounds. The results were very instructive and pose some "odd wrinkles" for the government's case against the Tsarnaev brothers. Lindorff's illustration in photos shows the striking difference in the wrinkle-free coats worn by the Tsarneav brothers compared to the significant wrinkling of the coats worn by the model carrying a backpack of similar size and weight based on the government's claim of the type of bomb used by the bombers:

If you look carefully at the first set of photos, showing the surveillance photo of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and the model wearing a similar pack containing the loaded pot, both packs being slung over the right shoulder using the right strap only, you can see a dramatic difference. There are stress wrinkles under the jacket of the right image on the model, caused by the 30-lb. weight pulling downward, but Dzhokhar’s jacket can be seen to be completely smooth under the strap. His pack is clearly extremely light on his shoulder (which may be why he’s not wearing it slung over both shoulders).  As well, you can see that the weight of the pot, pulling down and outward in the model’s bag on the right, is causing a downward sloping of the top of the backpack, and is also causing many vertical stress lines on the face of the bag itself. Dzhokhar’s bag, however, is flat across the top, indicating no such downward pulling force, and it does not exhibit any downward wrinkles on its side. Whatever he is carrying, it is clearly not a 30-lb., or even a 20-lb. cylinder . . .

Moving to Tamerlan Tsarnaev, check out the model’s slightly larger pack, which like Tamerlan’s is being worn with both straps over the shoulders. Again, the pack on the right, containing the loaded pot, is causing obvious wrinkles on the winter coat where the straps are bearing down on a small section of padded coat. Once again the weight of the straps of the shoulder— this time 15 lbs. per strap—can be seen causing prominent wrinkling on the winter coat worn by the model underneath the straps. The downward sloping of the face of the backpack, and also the vertical stress wrinkles are prominent and clearly visible also. In the video surveillance photo of Tamerlan, however, his coat can be seen to be unwrinkled under the straps, and there are again no vertical stress lines on the face of his pack. Again, it is hard to imagine a 30 or even a 20-lb. weight in the bottom of that pack . . .

That's not all the inconsistencies he found. So who did it? Well, Lindorff found that those backpacks worn by the mysterious uniformed men providing some form of security for the event and also photographed at the scene of the bombing "were both very dark black and large enough and full-enough looking to be containing a loaded pressure kettle." "These men were observed and photographed wearing baseball caps and shirts bearing the uniquely drawn white skull logo of a Houston, TX-based mercenary-for-hire firm called Craft International Security," Lindorff writes.


Read Lindorff's full investigative story at WhoWhatWhy by clicking here. WhyWhatWhy's investigative journalist Russ Baker also has a separate story here discussing many of the mysteries of the bombings that have been completely ignored by the mainstream media. Baker says WhoWhatWhy's investigation of the events in Boston are "just getting started" after most of the media has already written the last chapter of the story. "Why? Because we see a lot of problems with what we’ve been told so far. We’ve been disappointed that the media have failed to demonstrate healthy skepticism while passing along, unchallenged, the (self-serving) assertions of 'the authorities,'" Baker writes.

Again, I ask Sen. Dan Coats, if he is serious about his role as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, why he will not publicly address the issue of the ties of the Boston bombing suspects' uncle, Ruslan Tsarni, to the CIA's Graham Fuller and what, if any role, he played in Tamerlan's trip to Russia prior to the bombings and what led Russian authorities to become suspicious enough about his activities to warn the FBI and CIA long before last month's bombings in Boston.