Post date: May 06, 2013 12:31:57 AM
A funeral home owner says he can't find a cemetery that will accept the body ofTamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the Boston marathon bombing suspects who was later killed in a police shootout. Tsarnaev's uncle says his nephew should be buried inCambridge because he lived there for 10 years.
WORCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS, UNITED STATES (MAY 5, 2013) (NBC) - A Massachusetts funeral home owner said Sunday (May 5) he is struggling to find a graveyard willing to accept the body of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, killed in a shootout with police four days after an attack that left three dead and 264 injured.
Peter Stefan, owner of the Graham, Putnam and Mahoney Funeral Parlors inWorcester, Massachusetts, said he would turn to government officials for help if he cannot find a resting place for Tsarnaev soon."The thing is we have to bury this guy, whatever it is, whoever it is. In this country, we bury people. I don't care who it is. That's what I do, and I don't have circumstances to deal with. I can't separate sin from sinners. I can't pick and choose. This is what we do," Stefan told journalists on Sunday.
Tamerlan and his brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, are suspected of planting and detonating two pressure-cooker bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on April 15, killing three people and injuring 264. Ten people lost limbs.
The bombing was the worst attack on U.S. soil since the September 11, 2001, attacks.
Outside Stefan's funeral, protesters demanded that Tsarnaev's body be sent toRussia instead of being buried in Worcester.
"Nobody else wanted him. We shouldn't have took him either. What he did was not right, and he shouldn't even be in America. They should send him back home where he came from. (Reporter saying "How long are you going to stay out here") As long as it takes", said protester and Worcester resident Herbert Robbins.
Tsarnaev's uncle's Ruslan Tsarni argued that his nephew grew up in America and that his home, for the last 10 years, was Cambridge, Massachusetts.
"Tamerlan Tsarnaev has no other place to be buried, and there is no other place who would accept his body. And reasoning to it would be that he lived in America. He grew up here, and last 10 years he resided here in Cambridge. Therefore, any contemplation that his body should have been taken to his home country - they do not really - the reality is a home country was indeed Cambridge, Massachusetts- the last 10 years," Tsarni said.
Tamerlan's wife, Katherine Russell, declined to pick up Tsarnaev's body from theMassachusetts Medical Examiner's office, allowing his relatives to claim the remains and arrange for a funeral. His body, released on Thursday (May 2), was initially taken to another funeral home.