By News staff
BOSTON (AP) -- The body of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev was claimed Thursday.
Department of Public Safety spokesman Terrel Harris said a funeral home retained by Tsarnaev's family picked up the 26-year-old's remains. He had no more information.
The medical examiner determined Tsarnaev's cause of death Monday, but officials said it wouldn't become public until his remains were released and a death certificate was filed. It was unclear Thursday evening whether the death certificate had been filed.
Tsarnaev's widow, Katherine Russell, who has been living in North Kingstown, R.I., learned this week that 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 Tuesday night the family would take the body.
Tsarnaev died following a gunfight with authorities who had launched a massive manhunt for him.
The April 15 bombing, near the marathon's finish line, killed three people and injured more than 260 others. Authorities said Tsarnaev and his younger brother later killed a Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus police officer and carjacked a driver, who escaped.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was captured later, wounded and bloody, hiding in a tarp-covered boat in a suburban Boston backyard. He is in a federal prison and faces a charge of using a weapon of mass destruction to kill.
This post was initially published at 6:12 p.m. and updated at 8:31 p.m.
