It’s not as if the verdict in the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was a surprise.
His own defense team admitted early on in the trial that, yes, he did it — he planted one of the pressure cooker bombs that killed three people and maimed 260 others on Marathon Day nearly two years ago.
This “refugee,” who took all that this country had to ?offer and then turned a beloved patch of Boylston Street into a killing ground, has now been labeled by a jury of his peers the cold-blooded killer that he is.
We learned during the weeks of horrifying testimony, about that day and the subsequent murder of MIT Police Officer Sean Collier, details this community and certainly this jury will never be able to erase from their minds.
They will never be able to “unsee” the tattered jersey of 8-year-old Martin Richard, or the autopsy photos, or “unhear” the words of those ?who held the dying or rushed the injured into the medical tent.
Nor will any of us forget the bravery of those who testified, who appeared in the courtroom day after day, to stare into the face of the man who changed their lives forever, who changed this city forever — who left scars that will ?never heal.
Thirty counts. Thirty guilty verdicts. But that is only the beginning. The toughest part is yet to come — the issue of life or death for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. May this jury show him as little mercy as he showed the victims whose lives he so callously took.
