NJ Sister of Boston Bombing Suspects: “No Idea What's Gotten into Them”

FBI investigators and other law enforcement officers on Friday searched the West New York, N.J. home of a woman identified as a sister of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects, hours before the surviving suspect was caught. 

The FBI removed a computer from the woman's home inside a three-story brick building on Buchanan Place. 

Before authorities swarmed the home at 11 a.m., the woman, who lives with her husband and two young children, told reporters from behind her apartment door she was "hurt for everyone that's been hurt." 

"I'm sorry for the families that lost their loved ones, the same way I lost my loved ones," she said.

"I'm not OK, just like everybody else is not OK," she said. "No one is OK. It's very shocking."

The woman said her older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the 26-year-old suspect killed during the chase overnight in the Boston area, was a "great person, a kind and loving man." She described her younger brother, 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was hunted for hours before being captured Friday night, as "an amazing child."

"They are smart," she said. "My older brother was smart. I have no idea what's gotten into them." 

She said she was sure her father was "very hurt." 

The father, Anzor Tsarnaev, spoke with the Associated Press by telephone in the southern Russian republic of Dagestan Friday. He said his younger son was "an intelligent boy" who was studying medicine.

He ended the call angrily, saying, "Leave me alone, my son's been killed." 

The sister said she had not seen her brothers in years. Her husband said he never met the two men in the year and a half he has been with her. 

Michael Indri, the police director of West New York, said the woman was cooperating with authorities, according to The Star-Ledger

A neighbor who lives on the third floor above the woman saw some of the police activity inside the building and overheard some of the conversation from the apartment. 

"Nothing crazy going on, cops going in and out," Jose Roca told NBC 4 New York. 

Roca said the couple, whom he described as "normal people," was being cooperative with police.

Elsewhere Friday, the suspects' uncle, Ruslan Tsarni, told reporters from outside his home in Montgomery Village, Md., "We're ashamed. They're children of my brother, who had little influence on them."

"He put a shame on our surname's family. He put a shame on the entire Chechen ethnicity." 

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