The trail of the Boston bombing gun
According to a Los Angeles Times story Tuesday, the gun used by suspected Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev was first purchased in November 2011 from Cabela's in Scarborough by a man who then passed it on to a suspected drug dealer in Portland. It's not clear how the gun ended up with Tsarnaev, who apparently used it to kill a security officer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and wound a Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority officer in the days after the Boston bombing.
Cabela's
A black Ruger P95 9-mm semiautomatic gun was purchased at Cabela's in Scarborough as part of a "multiple handgun sale" by Danny Sun Jr.
Danny Sun Jr.
Sun, who came to Maine from Los Angeles, purchased the guns at Cabela's. Sun was arrested May 1, 2013, on a traffic court warrant for failure to appear in Westbrook. While being questioned at the Cumberland County Jail, he told police he passed the gun to Biniam "Icy" Tsegai, who has an extensive police record.
Biniam "Icy" Tsegai
Tsegai has been the subject of an FBI drug investigation that included wiretaps on phones used by Tsegai and another suspected drug dealer, Hamadi Hassan, with whom Tsegai was alleged to be working. He has not said anything about the Ruger, including where he got it and what he did with it. Tsegai remains in Cumberland County Jail awaiting trial on drug charges.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev
It's not clear how the gun got from Tsegai to Tsarnaev, whether the gun was stolen, part of a drugs-for-guns trade, or whether Tsarnaev obtained it through other parties. He is suspected of using it to wound an MBTA officer and kill an MIT officer four days after the Boston Marathon bombings.
Boston
Tsarnaev allegedly had the gun with him after the bombings and used it to kill Sean Collier, 27, the MIT officer, and wound Richard Donohue, the MBTA officer, during a shootout with police. Data by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms show that between 2006 and 2011, an average of 8.3 percent of the guns traced in Massachusetts originated in Maine.
SOURCE: staff reports
INTERACTIVE: T.E.D. Andrick