Surprise New Marathon Bombing Evidence from Heather Frizzell

by Mary W Maxwell, LLB

One did not expect that anything new could come from FBI’s records of cell phone calls in the Tsarnaev trial. One did not even know there was any reason to go searching. But Heather Frizzell, who has been doing a layperson-investigation for years, had a niggling feeling about it.  I think it niggled her into an important find in the case. Actually, two important finds.

Heather’s blog is boldly named USvTsarnaev.org.  In the past, GumshoeNews  celebrated her efforts to trace the ownership of the gun, the only gun, in the case.  Recall the Ruger P95? She discovered a chain of custody that had a few missing links and/or perjurific associations.

Tamerlan’s Friend

In her October 1, 2018 article, “Unusual Suspects,” Ms Frizzell tells us that there aren’t that many Chechens in Boston (when I say “Boston” I mean Cambridge, but don’t tell Cantabrigians I said that). Thus, if there is a guy around the block with a Chechen-sounding surname, like Vakhabov, you should listen up.

Right now Viskhan Vakhabov is at the top pf Heather’s list of SUSPECTS IN THE MARATHON BOMBING.  I have to be careful not to accuse him, as that is slander in Australia where GumshoeNews is published. But on the other hand, I don’t want to make up a code name like Brer Rabbit or something, as Ms Frizzell is eager to hear from Viskhan. Please ask around and see if he will contact her.

So where does the word “suspect” fit in to the ongoing saga of the unfair conviction of Non-bomber Dzhokhar (Jahar) Tsarnaev? Well I am sorry to say that Heather’s theory is that Tamerlan was guilty (though not Jahar).  And she thinks there was planning for Marathon Day that involved a few contacts between Tamerlan and the Top-o-list Viskhan.

My reason for always assuming that the late Tamerlan was a goodnik, is that I am stuck in the routine of watching the feds make up a terror scenario out of whole cloth and then blame a patsy.  The patsy must subsequently be killed.  Tamerlan was killed. (Please recall the Podstava video and the naked man video.)

For purposes of this article I will not try to spar with Heather about a guilty Tamerlan.  She is full-on about Jahar’s innocence and indeed her Viskhan Vakhabov (hereinafter VV) material can work as a life-saver for our Death Row friend.

Evidence at Trial

VV’s name did come up in the courtroom during Jahar’s lengthy trial, but nobody noticed. The name was also whispered once in the lawyer/judge hallway – on record – and Heather of course caught it like an errant ball at Fenway Park.

The matter had to do with Judge O’Toole’s decision not to use any of the data regarding VV. The reason for the hands-off-VV? Because if called as a witness he may plead the Fifth, and O’Toole would have to allow it.

Hmm. I am not sure what the immunity situation is here.  At the famous Lindt Café inquest, when a New South Wales policeman came in to the coroner’s court as a witness, the plan was for him to admit having shot dead the hostage-taker Man Haron Monis. I recall Judge Michael Barnes offering him a certificate of immunity before he even took the oath.

As in “Tell it like it is, copper. We need your testimony, and, in exchange, we promise you’ll never be charged with…whatever.”  Probably the cop was acing within the rules o engagement anyway but this gave him the all clear and indeed he boasted of having done the needful.

I don’t know if the Boston judge could have brought VV to the stand and certificated him. Heather was curious as to whether VV could have refused to answer questions abut the Marathon on the grounds that it may incriminate him.

Fifth or Sixth – Which is Sronger?

Heather went to the library and found that the Fifth Amendment right of a criminal does trump the Sixth amendment right of a person to interrogate witnesses.

(I suppose she could have saved the trip to the library by asking her lawyer father.  Remember Dad Frizzell from the Ruger P95 matter?)

Anyway she noted from US Supreme Court jurisprudence as recent as 2009 that the VV-type person only gets permission to avoid singing if the court knows that he’d possibly be guilty on a related matter.  I myself, being as innocent as a lamb, cannot say, at a trial “I refuse to answer the question on the grounds that it may incriminate me” just because I like my privacy.

Well this was quite the Aha moment for Heather. She has nailed O’Toole with knowledge that there was some involvement of VV in the Marathon bombing, yet has not called him as a witness.  As I said, thinking back to Monis’s killer in Sydney, it may be that the Boston judge could offer VV a certificate.

Cell Phones, the FBI, and April 10, 2013

Besides my theory that Tamerlan is innocent, another area where I could differ with Heather has to do with her acceptance of FBI-generated data as valid. But I must bow to her on this, as I have nothing with which to knock her research (apart from heaps of instances in which the FBI lies or presents Quantico-manufactured evidence).

It seems that an FBI low-ranking employee named Fitzgerald submitted some records of calls made by Tamerlan’s phone. And boy did he make a boo-boo. The court only wanted to see Tamerlan’s calls starting on April 15, 2013 the very day of the Marathon.

That in itself is a bit suspect, wouldn’t you say? But helpful ol’ Fitzgerald wanted to include a demo – for amateurs — of how to interpret FBI cell phone records. So he grabbed a random date – April 10 – from Tamerlan’s life, and don’t you know it was Paydirt City for our sleuth.

April 10 happened to be the day Tamerlan googled “Boston Marathon” — well anybody can google Boston Marathon — but it was also the day he made a call to VV from a particular location.

If I tell you the location was Copley Square, will you get the joke?  If you have ben reading Gumshoe for a while, and know my Boston Public Library proclivities, you will say “Wow-ee.” On April 10^th Tamerlan was standing, or walking, near the Finish Line.

[All faint.]

If the Knit Cap Doesn’t Fit, You Must Acquit

It is too difficult for me right now to capture Heather Frizzell’s work about the death of Sean Collier.  You may recall her challenging the testimony of Nate Harman a student at MIT who claimed to have ridden his bicycle past Sean Collier’s car. (She drove her own  bike there to check out the particulars.)

She has worked on other aspects of the case, including a missing knit cap and two bloody golf gloves that were found in the accused’s abandoned car (no, not Martin Bryant’s Volvo, but you’re close). To learn the details you will have to go to her website, www.USvTsarneav.org.

But I can at least tell you that her excitement about the new phone call discoveries has something to do with the fact that there was also a cell phone purchased in the name of “Jahar Tsarni” – perhaps never in his control, though.

It had some calls on it on the day of the Marathon – Sunday, April 15 — but it then fell silent while Jahar was back at school at UMass Dartmouth. However, on the famous Thursday April 18 (DesLauriers press conference, carjacking, Collier murder), there was one call made by “Tsarni” to someone.  It was made at 8:17pm.

So what?  Well, that is two hours and seven minutes before the official time given for the shooting of Collier. The call was placed to VV, Viskhan Vakhabov. And hear this:

“It is important to note, [prosecutor] Weinreb gives one inaccurate detail – he states the call happened after Collier’s murder. However, by the prosecution’s own timeline, Sean Collier was shot at 10:24 p.m. on April 18th. With the Vakhabov call coming at 8:17 p.m., I must stress that this is very much before Collier’s murder …. I don’t know whether Weinreb was misspeaking, genuinely mistaken about the time, or being misleading in his statement, but the fact remains: there is no way this call to Vakhabov came after Collier was already dead.”

Excuse me.  Would you agree that it is tum-de-dumdum time for Weinreb? More to the point, would you say it is Bondi Beach time for one Dzhokhar Jahar Tsarnaev after this beaut frame-up?

I’ll have to leave it there. But now, finally, I add this caveat:  when we say A phoned B in the above article, we are saying a call was made from a phone owned by A to a phone owned by B.  The actual caller and callee may have been Harry Holt and Osama bin Laden for all I know.

I want to express thanks to Heather Frizzell and my admiration for her willingness to delve into tedium.  I quote her:

“Unfortunately, I learned cell phone records are both tedious and technically complicated to go through. Everything comprises of a long list of numbers, and without context given in the trial transcript by the government’s cell phone expert, Chad Fitzgerald, I felt hopeless at determining what it all meant.”

Dad’s daughter needs to win the journalism award of the year just for finding the April 10th phone call that occurred near the Finish Line.

Come on, everybody else, get into the act.  And Viskhan, you are lovingly sought by the whole team. Make an appearance, please.  Get a boy out of jail and we will certificate you!

— Mary W Maxwell is presently revising her book Marathon Bombing