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BOSTON — The explosives used to kill three people and injure 176 at the Boston Marathon on Monday were most likely some kind of “pressure-cooker” devices that sent sharp bits of shrapnel flying into victims in the vicinity of the blast, several law enforcement officials said Tuesday.
BOSTON — The explosives that killed three people and injured more than 170 during the Boston Marathon on Monday were most likely rudimentary devices made from ordinary kitchen pressure cookers, except they were rigged to shoot sharp bits of shrapnel into anyone within reach of their blast and maim them severely, law enforcement officials said Tuesday.
Surgeons at several Boston hospitals told televised news conferences on Tuesday that the explosive devices had apparently been packed with small pellets and sharp “nail-like” objects that were designed to maim their victims.
The pressure cookers were filled with nails, ball bearings and black powder, and the devices were triggered by “kitchen-type” egg timers, one official said.
The new details about the explosives emerged as President Obama announced at the White House that the F.B.I. was investigating the attack as “an act of terrorism,” but said that it was unclear if it had been carried out by an individual or a group, foreign or domestic.
The resulting explosions sent metal tearing through skin and muscle, destroying the lower limbs of some victims who had only shreds of tissue holding parts of their legs together when they arrived at the emergency room of Massachusetts General Hospital, doctors there said.
Two of the three people who were killed in the bombing were identified by relatives on Tuesday: Martin Richard, an 8-year-old from Dorchester, and Krystle Campbell, 29, of the Boston suburb of Arlington.
Law enforcement officials said the devices were probably hidden inside dark nylon duffel bags or backpacks and left on the street or sidewalk near the finish line. Forensic experts said the design and components of the homemade devices were generic but that the marking “6L,” indicating a six-liter container, could help identify a brand and manufacturer and possibly lead to information on a purchase.
Boston University officials Tuesday afternoon said the third victim was a graduate student there but the university did not release the name of the student because it said it is waiting for permission from the family. The student was watching the race close to the finish line, the university said in a post on its news Web site, BU Today.
New details about the explosives emerged as President Obama announced that the F.B.I. was investigating the attack as “an act of terrorism,” and made plans to come to Boston on Thursday for an interfaith service at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross.
Representative Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican who heads the House Homeland Security Committee, said the authorities believe that the explosives were similar to improvised explosive devices that have been used against American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Mr. McCaul, a former federal prosecutor who received briefings Tuesday morning from Federal Bureau of Investigation and Homeland Security officials, also said that the authorities still did not know whether the attack was a foreign or domestic plot.
But officials said they still had no suspects in custody and did not give the impression that they were close to making an arrest as they repeatedly noted that the investigation was in its infancy.
Richard DesLauriers, the special agent in charge of the F.B.I.'s Boston division, said Tuesday evening that investigators officially began recovering forensic evidence from the blast site on Tuesday morning.
“The range of suspects and motives remains wide open,” Richard DesLauriers, the special agent in charge of the F.B.I.’s Boston office, said at a televised briefing on Tuesday afternoon. And no one has claimed responsibility.
“Among items partially recovered are pieces of black nylon, which could be from a backpack, and what appear to be fragments of BBs and nails, possibly contained in pressure cooker device,'’ he said at a news conference, adding that they would be sent to the bureau’s laboratory in Quantico, Va. “In addition, this morning it was determined that both of the explosives were placed in a dark-colored nylon bag or backpack. The bag would have been heavy because of the components believed to be in it.”
At this stage of an investigation, officials said it was not unusual for there to be no suspects. But with the paucity of leads, Mr. DesLauriers and others pleaded with members of the public to submit any photographs or video that they may have taken at the blast site to help in the investigation. At the briefing, Mr. DesLauriers said that someone somewhere almost certainly heard someone mention something about the marathon or the date of April 15.
Mr. DesLauriers said that the investigation was “in its infancy,” and that there had been no claims of responsibility, leaving the range of possible suspects and motives “wide open.”
“Someone knows who did this,” he said. “Cooperation from the community will play a crucial role.” Officials said that as of Tuesday afternoon, they had received more than 2,000 tips from around the world. As marathoners left through Logan Airport on Tuesday, security personnel reminded them of the importance of sharing their pictures with the F.B.I.
“This is a very complicated investigation,'’ he said. “It is going to be pursued methodically, carefully, diligently, but with a sense of urgency. We are barely 24 hours on into this investigation, so I would say that this is still in its early, early stages, and that’s the best way I can characterize it right now.”
Counterterrorism specialists said that the authorities would aim to match the faces of any possible suspects, using facial recognition software, against an array of databases for visas, passports and drivers’ licenses. “It’s our intention to go through every frame of every video that we have to determine exactly who was in the area,” Edward Davis, the Boston police commissioner, said at the news briefing. “This was probably one of the most well-photographed areas in the country yesterday.”
A law enforcement official said at least one and probably both of the bombs were pressure cookers filled with nails and ball bearings and black powder that were detonated with rudimentary “kitchen-type” timers. The official said investigators believe the bombs were hidden inside bags or backpacks and left on the street or sidewalk near the finish line.
Boston was deserted on Tuesday morning, not only because many of the runners and spectators were leaving town, but also because yellow police tape and metal barriers still marked off a nearly mile-long area encompassing the two explosion sites, one that the police described as the most complex crime scene they had ever seen.
A senior government official who had spoken with intelligence and law enforcement officials said Tuesday that there had been “no pre-attack chatter” detected by the government from members of Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups. In two intelligence briefings the official said he had received in recent weeks, “nothing was offered on this” type of attack.
At the morning rush hour, the city’s subway system was uncharacteristically quiet, watched over by the police and SWAT teams. Stores on Newbury Street, Boston’s busy retail thoroughfare, were closed, and tables on the patio at Stephanie’s, a restaurant there, were still covered in dishes left there on Monday.
The official said that the intelligence agencies had begun to go back and examine communications they intercepted in recent weeks to determine whether they had missed anything. “Before the 2009 Christmas Day bombing attempt, they thought there was no pre-attack chatter,” said the official. “But there had been, but it had not been interpreted. Everything is now being looked at.”
Among the three dead was an 8-year-old boy, Martin Richard of Dorchester. The boy had been watching near the finish line and then moved back into the crowd; the blast killed him and severely injured his mother and his sister.
Along with having few investigative leads, the official said that the investigation had been hampered, in part, by the fact that no terrorist group had claimed responsibility for the attack. Such a claim of responsibility, the official said, would help investigators as they try and weed out suspects.
Another spectator, Krystle Campbell, 29, of Arlington, Mass., also died Monday from injuries she suffered while watching the marathon, her grandmother Lillian Campbell said Tuesday.
Rudimentary explosive devices made from pressure cookers have been widely used in attacks in Afghanistan, India, Nepal and Pakistan, all countries where the cooking device is common, according to a Department of Homeland Security warning notice issued in 2010. But they have occasionally turned up in attacks in the United States as well: Faisal Shahzad, an American citizen who tried a car-bomb attack on Times Square in 2010, included a pressure cooker loaded with 120 firecrackers in the collection of jury-rigged explosives in his vehicle. The devices smoked but never exploded.
The third person who died was identified by Boston University officials as a graduate student there, and the Chinese Consulate in New York said that she was a Chinese national. The university is waiting for permission from the family before releasing her name. The young woman was watching the race close to the finish line, said Robert Brown, president of the university, in an e-mail to the university community.
Law enforcement officials urged the public on Tuesday to share any video or photographs they had taken of the marathon or the blast.
Given the force of the blasts, doctors at area hospitals said that the death toll could have been much higher but that the triage teams at the blast site had done a good job of parceling out the victims according to the capacity of each hospital to handle them.
F.B.I. agents, Boston police detectives, the state police and investigators from other agencies assigned to Boston’s Joint Terrorist Task Force were being assisted by an F.B.I. Evidence Recovery Team from New York and F.B.I. specialists from the bureau’s laboratory in Quantico, Va., who are expert in the handling of videos and photographs, a law enforcement official said.
“The distribution worked wonderfully,” said Dr. Stephen K. Epstein, attending emergency physician at Beth Israel Deaconess. “It was very easy to match the number of patients to the resources available at each at of the hospitals.”
“There is a tremendous volume of images that are being evaluated,” the official said.
Boston is home to some of the most renowned medical institutions in the country. Doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital said that none of the hospitals were overwhelmed, allowing victims to be attended to in rapid order and saving lives in the process. Some victims were wounded so badly that even a delay of a few minutes could have meant they would have died, doctors said.
Martin Richard, the 8-year-old, died while watching the marathon with his family, according to Conor Yunits, a family spokesman; his mother and a sister were badly injured.
The scale of the attack and the crude nature of the explosives, coupled with the lack of anyone claiming to have been the perpetrator, suggested to experts that the attacker could be an individual or a small group rather than an established terrorist organization.
Bill Richard, Martin’s father, released a statement on Tuesday in which he thanked people for their prayers and asked for privacy to grieve.
“This could have been a one-person job,” said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism specialist at Georgetown University. “That makes it much harder to track. When we catch terrorists, it’s usually because they’re part of a conspiracy and they’re communicating with one another.”
“My dear son Martin has died from injuries sustained in the attack on Boston,” he said in the statement. “My wife and daughter are both recovering from serious injuries. We thank our family and friends, those we know and those we have never met, for their thoughts and prayers. I ask that you continue to pray for my family as we remember Martin.”
Nonetheless, a senior law enforcement official said that authorities were also looking into connections between pressure cookers and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the Qaeda franchise in Yemen, largely because the design of the explosive device was described in a 2010 issue of the group’s online English magazine, “Inspire.”
Ms. Campbell, the other victim identified Tuesday afternoon, loved to watch the marathon and went to see the race most years, her grandmother, Lillian Campbell, said.
“The pressurized cooker is the most effective method,” the article said. “Glue the shrapnel to the inside of the pressurized cooker.” The article was titled “Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom.”
“Everything was nice about Krystle,” Lillian Campbell said. “She’s outspoken and she’s friendly. She was always smiling. She always dressed nice and had her hair done. And she never used much makeup. She was just Krystle.”
Pressure cookers are designed to contain high pressure in order to cook food faster. Pressure cooker bombs work when explosive powder is set off inside the pot, and the resulting pressure builds until it exceeds the ability of the pot to contain it, creating a blast of tremendous force. Rudimentary explosive devices made from pressure cookers have been widely used in attacks in Afghanistan, India, Nepal and Pakistan, all countries where the cooking device is common, according to a Department of Homeland Security warning notice issued in 2010.
Lillian Campbell said Ms. Campbell worked at Jimmy’s Steer House, a restaurant in Arlington. She had previously been a manager at Summer Shack, a popular seafood restaurant in the neighboring city of Cambridge.
But they have occasionally turned up in attacks in the United States as well: Faisal Shahzad, an American citizen who attempted a car-bomb attack on Times Square in May 2010, included a pressure cooker loaded with 120 firecrackers in the collective of improvised explosives in his S.U.V. The devices smoked but never exploded.
Lillian Campbell said her granddaughter called several times a week and came to see her most weeks. A few years ago, after she had surgery, her granddaughter came to live with her for 18 months to take care of her.
Instructions for assembling them can be found in many places on the Web, including in terrorism “cookbooks” popular among domestic extremists, and the Qaeda magazine is easily available on the Internet. So the design did not necessarily point to a foreign connection.
She said that she last saw her granddaughter on Thursday. Ms. Campbell often stopped by on her days off work. Lillian Campbell said they had a cup of tea and “lots of laughs about foolish things.”
A law enforcement official said that the pressure cooker in Boston “was badly damaged,” adding, “you can barely tell what it was.” But enough of it remained intact to identify it, the official said.
“Every time she comes in the house to see anybody it’s a hug and a kiss, and that’s how she left,” Lillian Campbell said.
One brand of pressure cooker with “6L” etched on the bottom is made by the Spanish company Fagor, which, according to its Web site, is the fifth largest appliance manufacturer in Europe with factories in six countries, including Spain, China and Morocco, and subsidiaries in nearly a dozen more.
“'Love you, Nana,’ that’s what she said.”
The company sells about 50,000 of the six-liter pots in the United States every year, according to Sara de la Hera, the vice president of sales and marketing at Fagor’s United States subsidiary.
Late Monday night, law enforcement officials descended on an apartment building in the suburb of Revere, about five miles north of Copley Square, linked to a man the police took into custody near the scene of the bombings. But on Tuesday morning, one law enforcement official said investigators had determined that the man, who was hurt in a blast and was questioned at the hospital, was not involved in the attack.
Ms. De la Hera said she was unaware of whether the company had been contacted by investigators. It could not be immediately determined whether any other brand of pressure cooker also has “6L” etched on the bottom.
Law enforcement officials pleaded at a briefing Tuesday morning for anyone who took pictures or video of the finish line at the time of the blast to submit them to boston@ic.fbi.gov or to call 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800-225-5324).
“It will have to go through a many tests to see what they can glean further and identify where it was produced and sold, and then look at it forensically,” the official added. Officials said on Tuesday that evidence from the scene was being shipped to labs in Quantico, Va.
Police Commissioner Edward Davis said Tuesday morning that officials were gradually reducing the size of the crime scene, which on Tuesday stretched for 12 blocks in Copley Square, down from 15 blocks on Monday. He said it was the most complex crime scene in the history of the department.
Steven Bartholomew, a spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said that the blast was powerful enough to toss debris on top of buildings.
Among the 17 critical injuries reported by the police on Tuesday morning were at least two children. Boston Children’s Hospital on Tuesday said doctors were caring for a 10-year-old boy and a 9-year-old girl, both of whom were in critical condition with leg injuries. The hospital also had a 2-year-old boy with a head injury, who they said was in good condition. Children’s said it had already discharged seven other patients with injuries from the marathon, including one pregnant woman who was transferred to Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
"Some of that debris got projected on top of buildings, and embedded in buildings in that finish line area, so that tells us we have a lot of work to do,” Mr. Bartholomew said.
Some colleges and universities in Boston counted their own students among the injured; many universities here convene their own teams for the Boston Marathon, whose members train and do fund-raising together.
In Boston, as Tuesday wore on, many runners, clad in blue and gold jackets, made pilgrimages to the police blockade on Boylston Street, pausing to take pictures with their cellphones. Others came wearing jackets from previous marathons — a symbol of accomplishment that in Boston turned into a sign of solidarity.
Emerson College, in downtown Boston, was closed on Tuesday, and its president, Lee Pelton, said seven students there were hospitalized with injuries, but all had returned to campus by Tuesday. Tufts University, in Medford, said it had three students with non-life-threatening injuries. One students from Boston University was reported injured, but in stable condition.
Bonnie Yesian was among many visitors still marooned in the city, because her hotel — and her luggage and identification — are inside the crime scene.
City streets that normally would be clogged at rush hour were largely deserted on Tuesday except for a cold wind and a few runners out for a morning jog. “It’s very surreal,” said Mary Ollinger, 32, who works at Wentworth Institute of Technology. “The streets are empty and the Common is filled with media trucks.”
“I can’t fly, so I’m stuck,” said Ms. Yesian, who added that strangers and marathon volunteers had offered her guest rooms and supplies in the meantime.
At the morning rush hour, the city’s subway system was uncharacteristically quiet, watched over by a heightened police presence and SWAT team members. Parts of the city seemed to have ground to a halt: Stores on Newbury Street, Boston’s busy retail thoroughfare, were closed, and tables on the patio at Stephanie’s, a restaurant there, were still covered in dishes left there on Monday.
Lauren Field, an auctioneer who now lives in Hampstead, N.H., was running in the race but was stopped blocks from the finish line. “It’s heartbreaking to not cross the finish line, you train so hard for this,” she said. “It’s sad, but I’m safe.”
Metal barriers and more police officers guarded the crime scene, forming something of a black hole in a busy retail and business district in this city. Inside, the streets were still littered in the detritus of the marathon — runners’ blankets, water bottles, even a pile of bananas.
Katharine
Q. Seelye reported from Boston, and Scott Shane and Eric Schmitt from Washington. Reporting was contributed by John Eligon, Richard A. Oppel Jr. and Jess Bidgood from Boston, Michael Cooper and William K. Rashbaum from New York, and Mark Landler, Michael S. Schmidt from Washington.
Hundreds, if not thousands, of office workers avoided the city on Tuesday because of the closures.
But many runners, clad in the blue and gold jackets given to this year’s marathoners, made pilgrimages to the blockade on Boylston Street, pausing to take pictures with their cellphones. Others came wearing jacket from previous marathons — the symbol of accomplishment had, apparently, turned into a sign of solidarity.
Alison Gardner, a runner from Austin, Tex., who completed the race on Monday about 10 minutes before the blasts, left a potted hydrangea and tucked a bunch of tulips into the metal barrier.
“It’s supposed to be a day of celebration today, and it’s a day of sadness,” Ms. Gardner said.
Her companion, Bonnie Yesian, is among many visitors still marooned in the city, because her hotel — and her luggage and identification — is inside the crime scene.
“I can’t fly, so I’m stuck,” said Ms. Yesian, who said strangers and marathon volunteers had offered her guest rooms and supplies in the meantime.
Marathon officials had set up an ad hoc site adjacent to the crime scene, where runners who had been stopped before the finish line could pick up their medals and bright yellow bags of belongings that they had left at the start. What would ordinarily be a moment to bask in accomplishment was a grim occasion, as runners — many with tears in their eyes — wondered what to make of a medal for a marathon they had been unable to complete.
“It’s heartbreaking to not cross the finish line, you train so hard for this,” said Lauren Field, an auctioneer who now lives in Hampstead, N.H., who was stopped blocks from the finish line. “It’s sad, but I’m safe.”
Caroline Burkhart protested gently as a volunteer handed her a medal. “I didn’t finish,” she said, explaining that she had stopped at mile 25.2. She took off the medal and examined it. “Memories,” she said, with a shudder. “Next year, I’ll wear it.”
In Dorchester, the street outside the home of Martin Richard, the 8-year-old victim, a large two-story gray Victorian with a basketball hoop and a hockey goal in the driveway, was filled with reporters and television cameras on Tuesday. Mourners stopped to leave flowers in the front yard. A neighbor, Jane Sherman, 64, described the Richard children as “very active, very normal American kids.” Ms. Sherman, a real estate agent, said she would often see the children outside the house playing. “They’re very happy-go-lucky kids,” she said. “All of Dorchester is devastated.”
White House officials said that President Obama received updates overnight about the investigation from Lisa Monaco, his chief counterterrorism and homeland security adviser. “The president made clear that he expects to be kept up to date on any developments and directed his team to make sure that all federal resources that can support these efforts, including the investigation being led by the F.B.I., be made available,” a White House official said.
On Tuesday morning officials said that the only explosive devices found were the ones that exploded at the marathon — clarifying conflicting statements that were given Monday in the chaotic aftermath of the blast, when some law enforcement officials had said that other devices were found. “There were no unexploded devices found,” Gov. Deval Patrick said Tuesday morning.
Katharine Q. Seelye reported from Boston, and Michael Cooper from New York. Reporting was contributed by John Eligon and Jess Bidgood from Boston, Steve Eder, Ashley Parker, William K. Rashbaum and Mary Pilon from New York, and Mark Landler, and Michael S. Schmidt, Eric Schmitt and Abby Goodnough from Washington.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: April 16, 2013
Correction: April 16, 2013
An earlier version of this article referred incorrectly to marathon jackets worn by some participants. They were available for purchase, they were not given to runners.
An earlier version of this article referred incorrectly to marathon jackets worn by some participants. They were available for purchase, they were not given to runners.
