The Daily Mail is reporting on the increasing number of questions surrounding Katherine "Katie" Russell, who dropped out of Suffolk University in Boston to marry Tsarnaev, who was killed in a gun battle with police on April 19. She is the mother of his daughter, Zhaha, now age three.
"She was just this All-American girl who was brainwashed by her super-religious husband. Nobody understands what happened to her," said one friend who declined to be identified.
"None of us would have dreamed that she would marry so young or drop out of college and have a baby or convert or be part of any of what’s happened. She’s just not the same person at all."
How much she knew about Tsarnaev's plan to bomb the marathon and possibly other sites, is the subject of an intense investigation by federal authorities.
Although she had been living with her parents in Rhode Island, she was known to have shared a home with her husband in Cambridge, Massachusetts during the time when he was under investigation by the FBI for suspected ties to terrorist groups.
This makes her a key witness in the case that left three people dead and scores maimed for life when Tsarnaev and his younger brother, Dzhokhar, 19, who is now in police custody, detonated two bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on April 15.
According to family attorney, Amato DeLuca, the Russell family is engaged in "talks" with authorities who have been seen coming and going from the family home during the past few days.
"We’re doing our best to deal with a very difficult situation," he told the media this weekend. "The family’s going through a lot. That’s the best I can do at the moment."
So what happened to this all-American girl from New England who was an honor student who once aspired to join the Peace Corps
According to the Mail, Katherine was the eldest of three daughters born to an emergency-room physician Dr. Warren Russell and his wife Judith, a nurse. She attended Daisyville Middle School in North Kingstown and was in the sixth grade when the terrorist attacks of 2001 took place. She attended North Kingstown High and was a member of both the Dance Team and the Art Club.
"The thing that’s so shocking is that there was nothing at all that made Katherine different," said one former classmate. "Her parents are nice people, her sisters are great girls. But she met this guy, I guess, and everything changed."
This fateful event occurred while she was studying at Suffolk University in Boston when she met and fell in love with Tsarnaev, an attractive and promising young boxer and athlete. It was during this time that she converted to Islam.
In 2009, Tsarnaev was arrested for violently assaulting her, but police records show that Katherine told police that her husband was "a very nice man."
She abruptly dropped out of college in 2010.
No one seems to know what exactly happened to Katherine Russell. If her parents know, they are not talking about it publicly.
Thus far, they have made only one public statement in which they condemned the bombings committed by their now deceased son-in-law.
"We cannot begin to comprehend how this horrible tragedy occurred,'' said Judith Russell in a prepared statement shortly after the bombing. "In the aftermath of the Patriots' Day horror, we know that we never really knew Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Our hearts are sickened by the knowledge of the horror he has inflicted.''
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