The Other McCain

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Was Chechen Man Shot by FBI in Florida a Suspect in 2011 Waltham Triple Murder?

Posted on | May 22, 2013 | 5 Comments

The news that Ibragim Todashev was shot to death by an FBI agent in Orlando last night has gotten widespread attention because of the connection between Todashev, a Chechen immigrant, and Boston marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev:

The FBI spent three hours Tuesday interviewing both Todashev and a friend, Khusen Taramov, who told Orlando’s WESH-TV that agents had taken Todashev to be interviewed separately. Taramov said: “They were talking to us, both of us, right? And they said they need him for a little more, for a couple more hours, and I left, and they told me they’re going to bring him back. They never brought him back. . . . I told him, ‘Everything is going to be fine, don’t worry about it.’ He said, ‘I have a really bad feeling.’”
The shooting occurred in an apartment complex off Peregrine Avenue in Orlando, according to Central Florida News 13, which also interviewed Taramov, who said FBI agents “started following us, watching us” after Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his brother Dzhokar were identified as suspects in the April 15 bombing of the Boston Marathon, which killed three people and wounded more than 170 others.
Todashev had reportedly been planning Tuesday to fly back to Chechnya, Taramov said: “He cancelled the tickets because, the FBI had been like, I don’t know, they’ve been pushing him, you know what I’m saying. They’ve been pushing him they say ‘don’t leave, don’t leave’ so he decided to stay.”

You can read the rest at Viral Read, but what caught my eye was the report by NBC News that Todashev was being questioned by the FBI in connection with a 2011 triple homicide in Waltham, Massachusetts, in which Tamerlan Tsarnaev was reportedly also a suspect.

What do we know about that crime? And how was the possible involvement of Tsarnaev and Todashev significant?

On Sept. 12, 2011, police found the bodies of three men — Brendan Mess, 25, Erik Weissman, 31, and Raphael Teken, 37 —  in a second-floor apartment on a dead-end street in Waltham.

All three men had been stabbed in the neck, and their bodies were reportedly “covered in marijuana.” Neighbors reported that one of the victims drove a Mercedes and there were frequent comings and goings from the apartment, which would lead to the obvious suspicion that the murders were drug-related. And police said from the start that they believed the victims knew their killer or killers. Two weeks ago, Michele McPhee of ABC News reported:

Massachusetts investigators have developed what they call “mounting evidence,” bolstered by “forensic hits,” that point to the possible involvement of both Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his younger brother Dzhokhar in a gruesome, unsolved triple homicide in 2011 . . .
In the wake of the Marathon bombings, Middlesex County began to probe a link between the elder Tsarnaev and Brendan Mess, one of the three men killed in the gruesome slaying on Sept. 11, 2011.  . . . Tamerlan and Mess were once roommates and did boxing and martial arts training together. . . .
Now law enforcement officials tell ABC News that some crime scene forensic evidence provided a match to the two Tsarnaev brothers. The officials also said records of cell phones used by the Tsarnaevs appears to put them in the area of the murders on that date. . . .
Roughly seven pounds of marijuana was dumped on the bodies and $5,000 in cash was left behind. Neighbors said they did not hear any signs of trouble – even with open windows – and there was no forced entry. In a 2011 interview, Leone said investigators theorized there had been more than one person at the scene of the murders based on “many factors,” but no suspects were identified.
From there the case went cold, until photos of the Boston Marathon suspects were released and family and friends of the Waltham victims recognized them and remembered Tamerlan’s strange behavior after the murders. He did not attend his friend’s funeral and vanished from the martial arts gyms where the men had sparred together.

If the killers left behind seven pounds of marijuana and $5,000, obviously the motive for the crime was not robbery.

So the question quite naturally arises, what inspired this triple murder on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks?

We have reports of Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s “strange behavior” after the Waltham murders, we have his involvement in the Boston Marathon bombings, we have reports of forensic evidence connecting the Tsarnaev brothers to the murders, and now we have the report of Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s Chechen buddy who had bought a ticket on a flight out of the country and who was shot after attacking an FBI agent during an interrogation.

Yeah, the 2011 Waltham murder case now looks very significant.

“Keep an eye on this one,” says Michelle Malkin.

UPDATE: Ed Morrissey catches something I missed:

The officials say Todashev had some connections with radical Chechen rebels, but they say it’s not clear whether he had any role in radicalizing Tsarnaev.

A month ago, Michael Rezendes of the Boston Globe reported:

Previously, investigators had said that Brendan Mess, 25, along with Erik Weissman, 25, and Raphael Teken, 37, were killed on Sept. 12, 2011 . . .
But the relative interviewed by the Globe said the murders took place the evening before, on Sept. 11, the 10th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The relative said he knew this because he was texting one of the victims about a Sunday night football game between the New York Jets and Dallas Cowboys when communication with the victims suddenly stopped at about 8:15 that evening.
“The three of them were definitely killed on Sept. 11,” the relative said. “They all stopped using their cellphones at about eight o’clock that night.”

The puzzle pieces seem to be forming a pattern. But if phone records of the victims showed they were killed on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, why did investigators tell the public otherwise?

 

Category: Crime, Terrorism

Comments

5 Responses to “Was Chechen Man Shot by FBI in Florida a Suspect in 2011 Waltham Triple Murder?”

  1. Laree Lee
    May 22nd, 2013 @ 11:42 am

    Laree Lee liked this on Facebook.

  2. Chechen Ibragim Todashev killed by FBI during questioning re Boston Bombings, friendship with Tamerlan Dzharnov – They Don't Fool ME!
    May 22nd, 2013 @ 12:03 pm

    […] Todashev was being questioned about the 9-11-2011 triple homocide in Waltham, Massachusetts, in which Tamerlan was a suspect. One of the murder victims in that triple homicide was another mixed martial arts fighter and friend of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, Brendan Mess. […]

  3. K-Bob
    May 22nd, 2013 @ 6:46 pm

    The tinfoilers are all over this. Howie Carr was filling in for Mark Levin the other day and took a call by some woman claiming that “Speedbump” was actually killed by the FBI, and not by Gilligan, and that the Boston bomb was really a test to see how Americans will do under martial law.

    Man wherever they crank this stuff out, they must have some fantastic drugs.

  4. Charles
    May 22nd, 2013 @ 10:00 pm

    I think they needed 3 people for the triple murder, the two brothers and this guy would meet the minimum.

    This puts the radicalization before the trip to Russia, so blame Russia for not better warning us is starting to look like blame the video.

    My theory is that they killed these guys because they were Jews who they thought had ratted them to the FBI, when it was really the Russians tapping the mother.

  5. Scribe of Slog (McGehee)
    May 23rd, 2013 @ 11:18 am

    it was really the Russians tapping the mother.

    Those Russians sure aren’t picky, are they?

    […]

    Oh, you meant they were wiretapping her.