Guilty! A jury took 20 minutes rolling out the 32 guilty verdicts against Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev six days shy of the second anniversary of the worst terror attack in America since 9-11.
Four people died, 17 others lost limbs, and 240 more were wounded when the Tsarnaev brothers exploded bombs at the finish line of one of the world’s premier road races, enshrining what should have been Courtney Taleporos’s happiest day in everlasting, painful memories.
On Mon. April 15, 2013, as the Tsaernavs were stalking the jubilant crowd with bombs strapped to their backs, Bay Ridge editor Courtney Taleporos, a Beantown native, was daydreaming happily at her Brooklyn desk about her wedding that Saturday at the Hilton Boston Back Bay Hotel — a block from the bombing site. News of the attacks shattered her world.
“I was horrified and wondered if going forward with the wedding was the right thing to do,” says Taleporos, whose mom convinced her to go ahead with the celebration.
Three days later she stepped off the train into a twilight zone.
“Everywhere I looked, including in front of our wedding venue, there were armored cars and police and soldiers with rifles,” Taleporos says.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s arrest a day before the nuptials was a welcome break.
“The day of the wedding was emotional, but so full of love,” says Taleporos. “My dad started his speech by asking for a moment of silence for the victims and their families.”
There similarly wasn’t a dry eye when she asked the deejay to play “Dirty Water,” an anthem to Boston’s once famously polluted rivers, and everyone sang, “Boston you’re my home.”
The wedding helped lift sagging spirits across town, as pedestrians hollered congratulations and drivers honked when the couple stepped outside for photographs.
“A cop turned his siren on,” says Taleporos. “The city felt alive again, and it made me so happy to be there.”
The next day the newlyweds walked to the finish line and Taleporos left her bouquet at a makeshift memorial. The anniversary remains bittersweet for her.
“I’m excited to be celebrating two years of being happily married, but I also acknowledge that a horrific event of loss, pain, and suffering for so many in a city I truly love is tied to my wedding memories,” she says.
Follow me on Twitter @BritShavana
