Dzhohkar Tsarnaev, the suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing, is on the cover of the latest issue of Rolling Stone magazine, along with an accompanying profile of the one-time UMass Dartmouth student who went to high school in Cambridge.
The cover story, "Jahar's World," reveals that Tsaranev played down his Muslim faith in high school, once told a friend that terrorist attacks could be justified, and may have been willing to surrender during a standoff in Watertown on April 19 because of a plea from a former wrestling coach.
Tsarnaev, who went to high school at Cambridge Rindge and Latin, is accused of working his brother, Tamerlan, to explode two bombs near the finish of the Boston Marathon on Boylston Street on April 15. Tamerlan Tsarnaev died after a shootout with police in Cambridge the night of April 18.
The writer of the profile is contributing Rolling Stone editor Janet Reitman. According to an online post about the Tsarnaev profile:
Reitman spent the last two months interviewing dozens of sources – childhood and high school friends, teachers, neighbors and law enforcement agents, many of whom spoke for the first time about the case – to deliver a riveting and heartbreaking account of how a charming kid with a bright future became a monster.