Law grad G-man helped FBI identify suspects in Boston Marathon bombing
A law graduate who heads the Boston office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation is among law enforcement officials being hailed as heroes after a suspect in last week’s Boston Marathon bombings was captured alive Friday.
FBI special agent Richard DesLauriers, 53, is good with people, methodical and likes to use social media to get his man, according to Bloomberg and the Boston Globe.
He is credited with making a decision that became a turning point in the investigation—publicly releasing photos of two suspects, since identified as brothers, who have now been brought down. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was killed Friday in a shootout. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, initially escaped but was found in a boat in a suburban Boston resident’s yard, after the man reportedly spotted blood on the vessel. Tsarnaev is alive but hospitalized with a throat wound.
Earlier, DesLauriers also used social media to locate a longtime fugitive in another high-profile case. The Catholic University of America law graduate launched an Internet campaign targeted at women roughly the same age as James “Whitey” Bulger’s girlfriend who watched daytime soap operas.
“We were trying to think outside the box on this one,” DesLauriers told CBS News when Bulger appeared in court following his arrest on June 22, 2011. He said the FBI seeks to “be creative and use the power of the worldwide Internet and social media.”
