The Not-Proven Murder of Sean Collier, at Tsarnaev Trial
by Mary W Maxwell, PhD, LLB

You have to wonder about juries today. The twelve persons in Boston not only managed to miss some pretty essential things about the Marathon bombing, such as the color of the backpack, they must have been in a trance when Sean Collier’s murder was being discussed.

We had heard in the mainstream media that there was a witness, a student cycling by, who saw, or sort of saw, the murder of the MIT cop. Nope, for one thing it was dark.

For another thing he did not pause as he passed by Collier’s cruiser, and how much can you see when you are cycling? He – Nathan Harman -- did not claim to see any action whatsoever, much less to hear noise of gunshots.

Here is a bit of the testimony of this witness:

Q. Mr. Harman, How old are you?
A. Twenty-four.
Q. What do you do?
A. I'm a graduate student at MIT.

MR. WEINREB: Can I have Exhibit 682, please.
Q. And, in fact, do you have an office at MIT?
A. Yeah …
Q. How well lit is the courtyard?
A. Fairly well lit. There's lights all along all of the major walkways….The buildings are always lit at night….
Q. Were you in your office on the night of April 18, 2013?
A. Yes…. I was there working on a problem set that was due the next day.
Q. Approximately what time did you leave?
A. After ten. Maybe 10:20. Once I noticed it was after ten, that's how I knew it was time for me to give it up and go to bed….
MR. WEINREB: It might actually be easier if we pulled up 683. … Can you just, by using your finger, show us the route you took when you left on your bicycle?
A. Sure. I would have come right up here and then up that way (indicating).
Q. Okay. Did you notice anything unusual when you biked through the courtyard?
A. Yes; there was a parked police cruiser, like, right here…
Q. Was there anything unusual about the cruiser that you noticed?
A. When I went by … the front door was open, the driver's side door, and there was someone leaning into the driver's side door.
Q. What do you mean by leaning into it?
A. I mean, they were sort of bent around the waist with their head and sort of the upper part of their torso inside the police car as I was coming up, and then they sort of stood up, startled, when I rode my bike by them.
Q. Okay. So explain that. So you're riding down the path. And how close to the back of that person who you saw did you come?
A. Within five or six feet.
Q. And what happened exactly -- happened exactly as you drove by them?
A. He sort of snapped up, stood up and turned around, and he looked startled, and then I just, you know, didn't think anything of it and rode off.
Q. Did he look at you?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you look at him?
A. Yes. We made eye contact.
Q. Did you get a good look at his face?
A. Pretty good.
Q. What did he look like?
A. I mean, he was young. I just assumed he was an MIT student. Young, normal height, thin. Yeah. He was wearing a dark sweatshirt and a hat. Yeah….
Q. Did he seem skinny, fat?
A. Skinny, yeah. Thin….
Q. Any facial feature that stood out for you?
A. I remember thinking he had a big nose….
Q. Do you see that person in the courtroom today?
A. Yes. [He points to Jahar.]
MR. WEINREB: Can we have Exhibit 725 just for the witness….
Q. Do you recall reviewing a segment of this video ….
A. Yes. … It's been shown to me a few times.
MR. WEINREB: The government offers 725.
MR. WATKINS: No objection….
Q. So I'm playing the video now. Let me just draw your attention to the pathway that leads up to the cruiser. Do you see a figure on a bicycle biking up that path?
A. Yeah. That's me.
Q. So when the figure snapped up and looked you in the eyes and you made eye contact, you didn't stop at that point; you just kept going?
A. No, I just laughed, actually. I thought I just startled him and I kept going.
Q. Did you see a second person by the car?
A. No, I only saw the one person.
Q. Do you recognize the person pictured in … 758 and 761?
A. Yes.
Q. How does that person compare to the person you saw that night?
A. That definitely could have been the person I saw that night.
Q. The design on the front of the sweatshirt, is that consistent with what you saw that night?
A. That's definitely consistent with what I saw.

That was accompanied by the video which all the jurors could watch. It shows the cyclist from a great distance.

But another witness, Mr Isgur, who runs the surveillance cameras at MIT, said there are 1200 cameras. Surely a few of these could have got a closer look.

Why have a camera perched so high that it can’t read licence plates or identify anyone’s face? Isn’t there some fabulous technological equipment in MIT labs against whose theft they would be all geared up?

I don’t think the jurors were entitled to take the video as proof of anything. There are many more problems with the Collier story, too, as pointed out by Josée Lépine at GumshoeNews.com. Below I will link to the “Boston button” at Gumshoe which also contains my latest sermon on “impeaching a judge.”

And here is Dee McLachlan’s take on the TRUE TRUTH of the milk purchase that Jahar made shortly after the crime of a lifetime.

-- Mary W Maxwell looks forward to meeting you at her website ProsecutionForTreason.com

Link to insightful (and fun) articles exposing the Marathon case!