History of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in Timeline

1986

Dzhokhar Anzorovich Tsarnaev was born on July 22, 1993 to Anzor Tsarnaev, a Chechen, and Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, an Avar. His older brother, Tamerlan, was born on October 21, 1986. In the years following World War II, the Tsarnaev family had been forcibly moved from Chechnya by the Soviet Union to the Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan. Anzor and Zubeidat moved peripatetically across Central Asia during the late 20th century. In 1986, they were married in the Kalmyk Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, and Tamerlan was born there the next day. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was born in either Kyrgyzstan or Dagestan, in the Russian Federation. He has two sisters. The family raised their children as Muslims; after the Boston Marathon bombing, a relative described Anzor Tsarnaev as a "traditional Muslim" who objected to extremism.

July 22, 1993

Dzhokhar Anzorovich Tsarnaev (born July 22, 1993) is an American domestic terrorist and mass murderer of Chechen and Avar descent. Along with his older brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev, he planted pressure cooker bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013. The bombs detonated, killing three people and injuring hundreds of others.

2001

Tsarnaev spent the first years of his life in Kyrgyzstan. In 2001, the family moved to Makhachkala, Dagestan, in the Russian Federation. In April 2002, Tsarnaev and his parents went to the United States on a 90-day tourist visa. Anzor Tsarnaev successfully applied for asylum, citing fears of deadly persecution due to his ties to Chechnya. Tamerlan Tsarnaev had been left in the care of his uncle Ruslan in Kyrgyzstan and arrived in the U.S. about two years later. The parents then filed for asylum for their four children, who received "derivative asylum status". They settled on Norfolk Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

2002

During his early childhood, Tsarnaev lived in Kyrgyzstan and in the Russian Republic of Dagestan. He moved with his parents to the United States in 2002 and later became a U.S. citizen. Tsarnaev and his family settled in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 2011, he graduated from Cambridge Rindge and Latin School and began attending the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. He had a brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, and has two sisters.

March 2007

In March 2007, the Tsarnaev family was granted legal permanent residence. Tsarnaev would become a U.S. citizen while in college. Zubeidat Tsarnaev eventually became a U.S. citizen as well, while Tamerlan Tsarnaev was unable to naturalize because an investigation held up the citizenship process.

2010

After initial interrogations, officials announced that it was clear the attack was religiously motivated, but that so far there was no evidence that the brothers had any ties to Islamic terror organizations. Officials also said that Dzhokhar acknowledged his role in the bombings and told interrogators that he and Tamerlan were motivated by extremist Islamic beliefs and the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to carry out the bombing. Dzhokhar admitted during questioning that he and his brother were planning to detonate explosives in New York City's Times Square. The brothers formed the plan spontaneously during the April 18 carjacking, but things went awry after the vehicle ran low on gas and they forced the driver to stop at a gas station, where he escaped. Dzhokhar says he was inspired by online videos from imam Anwar al-Awlaki, who also inspired Faisal Shahzad, who attempted a car bombing in 2010 in Times Square.

2011

In 2011, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev contacted Brian Glyn Williams, a professor at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, who taught a class about Chechen history, expressing his interest in the topic. Tsarnaev enrolled at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth in September 2011.

2011

Tsarnaev attended Cambridgeport Elementary School and Cambridge Community Charter School's middle school program. At Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, a public high school, he was an avid wrestler and a Greater Boston League winter all-star. He graduated from high school in 2011 and the city of Cambridge awarded him a $2,500 scholarship.

September 11, 2011

Tsarnaev appealed his sentence on the grounds that the trial should not have been held in Boston, that there were errors in jury selection and that the judge improperly excluded evidence that Tamerlan Tsarnaev and another man, Ibragim Todashev, committed a prior triple murder in Waltham on September 11, 2011, arguing that such evidence would suggest that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev acted under the influence of Tamerlan Tsarnaev and was possibly fearful of what would happen to him if he refused.

April 15, 2013

The 117th annual Boston Marathon was run on Patriots' Day, April 15, 2013. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev used pressure cooker bombs to commit the Boston Marathon bombing on that day. One bomb was placed at the Boston Marathon finish line, while the other was placed outside the Forum restaurant. The bombs were detonated at 2:49 pm. The bombing killed three people and injured hundreds of others.

April 18, 2013

At 5:00 p.m. on April 18, 2013, the FBI released images of two Boston Marathon bombing suspects carrying backpacks and requested the public's help in identifying them. The FBI-released images depicted Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Hours after the FBI released photos of the two suspects in the bombing, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev visited their family's apartment in Cambridge. There, they obtained five improvised explosive devices (IEDs), ammunition, a semiautomatic handgun, and a machete. The two brothers then drove to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

April 18, 2013

On April 18, 2013, at 10:25 p.m., the Tsarnaev brothers ambushed Sean A. Collier of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Police Department and shot him six times. Collier died from his injuries and was found in his vehicle later that evening. The shooting occurred as part of a failed attempt to steal Collier's gun. The brothers then traveled to the Boston neighborhood of Allston. There, the brothers carjacked an SUV and robbed its owner, Dun Meng, who said he managed to escape when the Tsarnaevs became momentarily distracted in the process of refueling the car at a cash-only gas station. Meng fled to another nearby gas station and contacted the police. Police were then able to track the location of the SUV through Meng's cellphone and the SUV's anti-theft tracking device.

April 18, 2013

On April 18, 2013, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released images of two men, stated that they were suspects in the bombing, and asked the public for help in identifying them. The images depicted Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Later that evening, the Tsarnaev brothers shot and killed MIT Police Officer Sean Collier and then committed a carjacking. During an ensuing shootout with police, both brothers were injured; Tamerlan Tsarnaev died from his injuries. On the evening of April 19, after thousands of police officers conducted a manhunt in Watertown, Massachusetts, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was found hiding in a boat in the backyard of a resident. He was shot and taken into custody. During an interrogation, Tsarnaev acknowledged his role in the Boston Marathon bombing and added that he and his brother had also intended to detonate explosives in New York City's Times Square.

May 2013

Tsarnaev was the subject of a cover story published in the August 2013 issue of Rolling Stone. The story is entitled "The Bomber: How a Popular, Promising Student Was Failed by His Family, Fell into Radical Islam and Became a Monster." The magazine drew heavy criticism for the photo of Tsarnaev on the issue's cover. According to Boston, "critics believe that the cover glamorizes Tsarnaev, depicting him as a kind of rock 'n roll outlaw rather than a terrorist who has been charged with killing four people and seriously wounding hundreds of others". Boston Mayor Tom Menino wrote that the cover "rewards a terrorist with celebrity treatment." Massachusetts State Police sergeant Sean Murphy said that "glamorizing the face of terror is not just insulting to the family members of those killed in the line of duty; it also could be an incentive to those who may be unstable to do something to get their face on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine". The New York Times used the same photo on their front page in May 2013, but did not draw criticism. Rolling Stone columnist Matt Taibbi criticized those who took offense at the cover, arguing that they associated Rolling Stone with glamour instead of news, stating that The New York Times did not draw the criticism that Rolling Stone did "because everyone knows the Times is a news organization. Not everyone knows that about Rolling Stone ..."

May 16, 2013

During CBS This Morning on May 16, 2013, CBS News senior correspondent John Miller said he had been told that while Tsarnaev was hiding in the boat, he wrote a note claiming responsibility for the April 15 attack during the marathon. The note was scribbled with a pen on one of the inside walls of the cabin and said the bombings were payback for the U.S. military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq, and referred to the Boston victims as collateral damage, the same way Muslims have been in the American-led wars. He continued, "When you attack one Muslim, you attack all Muslims." He also said he did not mourn his brother's death because now Tamerlan was a martyr in paradise and that he (Dzhokhar) expected to join him in paradise. Miller's sources said the wall the note was written on had multiple bullet holes in it from the shots that were fired into the boat by police. According to Miller, the note painted a clear picture of the brothers' motive "consistent with what he told investigators while he was in custody". Photographs of the note were eventually released by prosecutors in March 2015.

June 2013

In June 2013, Tsarnaev was indicted by a federal grand jury on 30 charges. Some of the charges were death-penalty eligible.

July 10, 2013

Tsarnaev's arraignment for 30 charges, including four counts of murder, occurred on July 10, 2013, in federal court in Boston before U.S. magistrate judge Marianne Bowler. It was his first public court appearance. He pleaded not guilty to all 30 counts against him, which included using and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction resulting in death.

August 2013

CVS Pharmacy and other retailers announced that they would no longer sell the August 2013 issue of Rolling Stone.

January 30, 2014

On January 30, 2014, United States Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the federal government would seek the death penalty against Tsarnaev.

January 2015

In January 2015, CNN reported that plea negotiations had failed when the government refused to rule out the possibility of the death penalty.

January 05, 2015

The trial began on January 5, 2015. Tsarnaev was prosecuted by assistant U.S. attorneys William Weinreb and Aloke Chakravarty, of the Anti-Terrorism and National Security Unit of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Boston. His defense team included federal public defender Miriam Conrad, William Fick, and Judy Clarke. Tsarnaev pleaded not guilty to all thirty charges laid against him. Judge George O'Toole presided over the trial. Tsarnaev's attorney, Judy Clarke, admitted in her opening statement that Tsarnaev committed the acts in question but sought to avert the death penalty by asserting that his brother Tamerlan had influenced and manipulated him. Counter-terrorism expert Matthew Levitt gave testimony in March 2015.

April 08, 2015

On April 8, 2015, Tsarnaev was found guilty on all thirty counts of the indictment. The charges of usage of a weapon of mass destruction resulting in death, in addition to aiding and abetting, made Tsarnaev eligible for the death penalty.

May 04, 2015

During the sentencing phase of the proceedings, the jury heard from victims of the bombing and Tsarnaev's friends and relatives. Tsarnaev, who had displayed little emotion throughout his trial, appeared to weep when his relatives testified on his behalf on May 4, 2015. Bill and Denise Richard, parents of Martin Richard (the youngest of the three killed in the bombings and one of the two people killed by Dzhokhar's bomb, the other person being Chinese-exchange student Lingzi Lu), urged against a death sentence for Tsarnaev. They stated that the lengthy appeals period would force them to continually relive that day, and would rather see Tsarnaev spend life in prison without parole (possibility of release), and waive his right to appeal.

May 15, 2015

On May 15, 2015, the jury sentenced Tsarnaev to death by lethal injection on six of 17 capital counts. According to the verdict forms completed by the jurors, three of 12 believed that Tsarnaev had taken part in the attack under his brother's influence; two believed that he had been remorseful for his actions; two believed that Tamerlan, not Dzhokhar, had shot and killed Officer Collier; three believed that his friends still care about him; one believed that Tsarnaev's mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, was to be blamed for the brothers' actions; one believed that Tsarnaev would never be violent again in prison.

June 24, 2015

On June 24, 2015, Tsarnaev faced his living victims in court as his death sentence was formally delivered. Victims and their families presented impact statements to the court. Tsarnaev, who had been silent throughout his month-long trial, admitted to carrying out the bombings along with his brother; he apologized to the injured and the bereaved. The New York Daily News reported that "the mass murderer's mea culpa capped a dramatic day during which 25 people who lost loved ones and limbs took turns verbally slamming Tsarnaev".

June 25, 2015

The following morning, on June 25, 2015, Tsarnaev was transferred from Federal Medical Center, Devens to the United States Penitentiary, Florence High in Colorado. As of July 17, 2015, Tsarnaev had been transferred to United States Penitentiary Florence Administrative Maximum Facility (ADX Florence). A Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) spokesperson stated that "unique security management requirements" caused the agency to place Tsarnaev in Colorado instead of United States Penitentiary, Terre Haute, Indiana, where male death-row inmates are normally held.

June 2016

According to The Guardian, in June 2016, Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri issued a threat to the United States, warning of the "gravest consequences" should Tsarnaev be harmed. Al-Zawahiri has since died, having been killed by the CIA on July 31, 2022.

November 10, 2016

The Department of Justice investigative and prosecution team received the Attorney General’s David Margolis Award for Exceptional Service from Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch on November 10, 2016.

December 12, 2019

The appeal was heard by a three-judge panel of the First Circuit on December 12, 2019. On July 31, 2020, the First Circuit overturned the death sentence and three of the other convictions, agreeing that the judge failed to determine how much the potential jurors had been aware of the event during jury selection, and ordered a retrial with a new jury for the penalty phase of his trial. Tsarnaev remained in prison for multiple life sentences carried by the other uncontested convictions. U.S. Circuit Judge O. Rogeriee Thompson, who wrote the opinion, clarified the ruling of the court. She stated, "Make no mistake: Dzhokhar will spend his remaining days locked up in prison, with the only matter remaining being whether he will die by execution."

July 2020

Tsarnaev was tried and convicted of 30 counts and was sentenced to death. His death sentence was vacated on appeal in July 2020, but the U.S. Supreme Court reversed that decision in March 2022. As of 2025, he is being held on death row at ADX Florence federal supermax prison in Colorado.

March 22, 2021

On March 22, 2021, the Supreme Court agreed to consider an appeal from the Department of Justice, and on October 13, 2021, the Department of Justice presented arguments in favor of reinstating the death penalty for Tsarnaev. On March 4, 2022, in a 6–3 decision penned by Justice Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court held that the First Circuit had improperly vacated Tsarnaev's death sentence. The Court reversed the First Circuit's decision, reinstating the death penalty. The Court ruled that Tsarnaev had received a fair trial, rejecting arguments that "trial judge erred in barring certain questions to prospective jurors, and in blocking evidence of his brother Tamerlan's role in a prior triple murder". U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Rachael Rollins commented, "'Legal rulings don't erase trauma and pain. Our focus today, and always, is on the hundreds of families that were deeply impacted and traumatized by this horrific act of domestic terrorism'".

January 10, 2023

Tsarnaev asked the First Circuit Court of Appeals to consider four constitutional claims that had not been considered by the Supreme Court. On January 10, 2023, the First Circuit heard the matter. Tsarnaev's attorneys argued that jurors in the case had lied about prior discussions of the case on Twitter and Facebook. The jurors, the attorneys say, claimed to have never discussed the case on social media, whereas the attorneys say the jurors actually did participate in discussions showing a strong bias against Tsarnaev. Tsarnaev's attorneys argued this lack of disclosure should have disqualified the jurors from serving. In March 2024, the First Circuit ruled that the trial judge had not adequately investigated the claims of juror bias, and sent the case back to the trial court with instructions for the trial judge to investigate the defense's claims and determine whether Tsarnaev's death sentence should stand. Tsarnaev subsequently requested that District Court Judge George O'Toole should be recused from deciding the juror-bias issue because comments Judge O'Toole made on a podcast allegedly showed bias against Tsarnaev, but in July 2025 a 3-judge panel of the First Circuit Court of Appeals rejected that argument and ruled that Judge O'Toole should stay on the case. In August 2025, Tsarnaev requested that the full Court of Appeals reconsider that decision en banc.

December 2024

In December 2024, when President Joe Biden announced commutations for the death sentences of 37 out of 40 federal death row inmates to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, he excluded Tsarnaev, along with Dylann Roof, who committed the 2015 Charleston church shooting, and Robert Gregory Bowers, who committed the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, because of their convictions for either terrorism or hate-motivated mass murder–related crimes.