Boston's trauma to be dissected as marathon bomber appeals death sentence

Boston Marathon bombing witness Carlos Arredondo holds a "Boston Strong" banner after blessing the runners during services at Old South Church on the 5th anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombings in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S., April 15, 2018. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

BOSTON (Reuters) - This city's deepest wound - the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings that killed three and injured hundreds more - will be re-examined Thursday when lawyers for bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev seek to have his death sentence lifted because the jury pool was too traumatized to render a fair verdict.

The then-19-year old Tsarnaev and his 26-year-old brother Tamerlan sparked five days of panic in Boston that began April 15, 2013, when they detonated a pair of homemade pressure cooker bombs at the race's packed finish line. The pair eluded capture for days, punctuated by a gunbattle with police in Watertown that killed Tamerlan and led to a daylong lockdown of Boston and most of its suburbs while heavily armed officers and troops conducted a house-to-house search for Dzhokhar.