With the Boston bombing trial approaching, one professor who ran in the race said it seems at times like it was just yesterday.
“On one hand it seems like it was forever ago, and on the other hand, when they’re talking about all the details it seems like it was just yesterday,” said Melissa McGrath, an assistant professor of speech language pathology.
McGrath was at the 25-mile mark at the 2013 Boston Marathon when a bomb went off at the finish-line. She said marathon officials stopped them from going any further after the bombing.
Now two years later, McGrath said she is happy the trial is finally moving along for the bomber so she, and everyone else involved with it, can move on and close that chapter.
She said she hasn’t been following the trial as much as she did right after the bombing, but she has been keeping updated.
“Right after the marathon when they hadn’t caught them yet, I remember every detail of sitting in my family room watching when the brother was hiding and when they finally caught him,” she said. “We certainly followed it a lot more then.”
Once the trial starts, she said she will try to follow it more.
“I don’t think I’ll be crazy following it every second, but I know he’s up for the death penalty, so I’m definitely curious to see what happens with that,” McGrath said.
McGrath said she was shocked they were trying Tsarnaev in Boston. The courthouse is only a few miles from the finish line of the marathon, according to the Associated Press.
“I think they’re going to have a hard time finding an unbiased jury to begin with,” McGrath said. “I think even if you’re not a runner, even if you’re not from Boston, like I’m not and don’t have any real personal ties to Boston, but everybody was affected.”
McGrath said even coworkers in her office's hallway were affected by the bombing, because they knew she was there.
“I think the way it affected the city and everyone who was there and everybody that knew people who were there is so similar [to 9-11],” she said. “Obviously Boston did take it very personally as an attack on their city.”
Tsarnaev’s lawyer asked to change the location of the trial in Sept. 2013, and U.S. District Court Judge George O’Toole denied the request, according to the Associated Press.
McGrath said for Boston residents, the day of the Boston Marathon is the greatest day in the city.
“The whole city looks forward to that day because it’s also Patriots' day,” she said. “All the kids are off school, so it’s a big day anyway and I think for that attack to happen on that day, it was quite a blow to the city.”
Tsarnaev’s lawyer asked for a delay in the jury selection Wednesday because of the shooting at Charlie Hebdo in Paris, according to the Associated Press.
The media has been drawing comparisons between the two tragedies, and his lawyer argued that while potential jurors have been told to avoid news on the Boston bombing, there was no such restriction on the shooting in Paris.
The judge declined the request.
Tsarnaev pleaded not guilty, and the jury is tasked with deciding whether he is guilty or not guilty; if they deliver a guilty charge, they must decide if his punishment will be a lifetime in prison or the death penalty.
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