Outrage greeted the body of accused Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev when it unexpectedly was brought to Dyer-Lake Funeral Home Thursday evening.
The body arrived around 6:30 p.m. in a Dyer-Lake minivan. It was transported from the state Medical Examiner’s Office in Boston.
About four hours later, it was transported to another unnamed funeral home, according to a statement from Dyer-Lake Funeral Director Timothy Nay
But even the short stay prompted anger from residents, before the body left the funeral home amid a chorus of boos and under police escort.
Stunned neighborhood residents gathered in small groups – and they were vocal – when word spread that the corpse of the man accused along with his 19-year-old brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev of planting two bombs near the finish line of the marathon that killed three, maimed dozens and injured more than 260 overall.
“I think it’s horrible,” said Debbie Yarusites of Freeman Street, which is near the funeral home. “I have a heart, but not for people like him. I think it’s disgraceful that he’s here.”
The arrival of Tsarnaev’s body was enough to anger people, but the fact that it arrived as the wake for another person was under way seemed to magnify the vitriol.
People slammed Dyer-Lake.
“It’s totally disrespectful to the family that’s in there,” said another woman who identified herself only as Debbie. “Shame on Dyer-Lake.”
Another man also criticized what is considered one of the premier funeral homes in the area.
“This is a slap in everyone’s face,” said Paul Dufault. “He’s a murderer. How many people did he maim? I’ll never have a funeral here.”
Fran Ransom Canning, who also lives nearby, was angered.
“I’m furious,” she said and also slammed the funeral home. “Anything they sponsor from now on, I’m boycotting.”
A funeral home representative declined to comment to The Sun Chronicle shortly after Tsarnaev’s body was brought in.
Paul Jacques, an Attleboro firefighter and a veteran, came to the funeral home with his son when he heard what was going on.
“It’s disgraceful, absolutely,” he said. “This is a place to pay respects, not show disrespect.”
State Rep. Betty Poirier, R-North Attleboro, also came to the funeral home when she learned of Tsarnaev’s presence.
“I obviously have absolutely no regard for (Tsarnaev),” she said. “I have no idea what he’s doing here. I’m very unhappy he’s in our town.”
Some bystanders said the funeral home should have taken down the two U.S. flags that fly outside the building.
Meanwhile, 18-year-old David Santoes, who lives across the street from Dyer-Lake, held a sign that read: “Justice Served, Boston Strong.”
“It’s just not right,” he said. “Especially with the American flag flying there.”
The sign prompted many motorists to honk their horns.
Others motorists wrote messages on their car windows and circled the block where the funeral home is located.
“No killers allowed,” one moving sign said.
Another, with an U.S. flag flying from the front window said: “Wake up America.”
After the body was taken away, Nay said the funeral home’s role in the saga is done.
“The body that was transported to us, we have transported to another funeral home,” he told The Sun Chronicle around 10:30 p.m. “He is not at our funeral home, and we won’t be handling final arrangements. They only transported the body to our facility temporarily before he could be transported to another facility.”
A Sun Chronicle reporter said the crowd booed as the hearse left with the body under police escort.
After a large contingent of media and onlookers gathered outside the funeral home around 7 p.m., police were summoned to guard both of Dyer-Lake’s driveways.
Terrel Harris, a spokesman for the medical examiner’s office, said the body was picked up at 5:30 p.m.
Local television helicopters followed the hearse to North Attleboro. Residents reported TV helicopters hovering over the town.
Harris would not say whether the family has made any funeral arrangements and would not identify which family members made the arrangements to pick up the body.
He said that the cause of death of the 26-year-old Tsarnaev would be made public once a funeral service provider files a death certificate. The medical examiner determined Tsarnaev’s cause of death Monday.
It was unclear Thursday night whether the death certificate had been filed.
Michael Joubert of Attleboro was at the funeral home attending the wake for his niece, Joy Beland, 39, of New Bedford, who died Sunday of cancer and had lived in Attleboro for many years.
“I didn’t know what was going on,” Joubert said of the media gathering. “I couldn’t believe they would have him shipped during my niece’s funeral.”
“All in all, I thought it was kind of a weird situation,” Joubert said. “I just felt a little nervous going in. It was a big distraction.”
Tsarnaev’s widow, Katherine Russell, who has been living in North Kingstown, R.I., learned this week the medical examiner was ready to release his body and wanted it released to his side of the family, her attorney Amato DeLuca said days ago.
Tsarnaev’s uncle Ruslan Tsarni, of Maryland, said earlier this week the family would take the body.
“Of course, family members will take possession of the body,” Tsarni said. “We’ll do it. We will do it. A family is a family.”
Tsarnaev, who after the marathon bombing had appeared in surveillance photos wearing a black cap and was identified as Suspect No. 1, died two weeks ago following a gunfight with authorities who had launched a massive manhunt for him.
Authorities said Tsarnaev and his younger brother later killed a Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus police officer and carjacked a driver, who escaped.
Authorities said the Tsarnaev brothers during the gunfight with police set off a pressure cooker bomb and tossed grenades before the older brother ran out of ammunition.
Police said they tackled the older brother and began to handcuff him but had to dive out of the way at the last second when the younger brother drove a stolen car at them. They said the younger brother then ran over his brother’s body as he drove away from the scene to escape.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was captured later, wounded and bloody, hiding in a tarp-covered boat in a Watertown backyard. He’s in a federal prison and faces a charge of using a weapon of mass destruction to kill.
The Tsarnaev brothers’ mother insists the allegations against them are lies.
The family initially planned to come to the United States to claim the body.
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