The owner of the boat that Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was discovered in wants to set the record straight about the evening he found the bloodied terrorist in his backyard, The Boston Globe reported.
David Henneberry, a retired technician and Watertown resident, said the only reason he suspected something was wrong was because of the blood he saw on the side of his boat.
"If I had seen blood out there, I wouldn't have investigated it," he said in The Boston Globe interview. "I'm not crazy."
On the Friday he found Tsarnaev -- four days after the bombings occurred -- Henneberry noticed from the window that some of the boat's padding fell to the ground, although it was a windy day so it wasn't initially suspicious.
"But it was driving him nuts," said Henneberry's wife, Beth. "He wanted to fix it."
Once officials lifted the lockdown on April 19, he walked outside to repair what he thought was a minor issue. As he began fixing his boat, he found that one of the strap's was loosened.
"I said, 'Hmmm. I'm going to check the boat,'" he said.
After he took off a piece of wrapping that coated the plexiglas door, he found Tsarnaev curled in the fetal position and surrounded by splats of blood.
"I thought, 'Oh my god, he's in there,'" Henneberry said. He quickly jumped down the stepladder and ran inside to his wife.
"He's in the boat! He's in our boat!"
"He was shaken," his wife said. "We were both shaken.''
Henneberry immediately dialed 911, leading to a massive wave of law enforcement and news crews at his doorstep within minutes of his call. After a period of gunfire and stun grenades, officers captured Tsarnaev.
Investigators remained at their home for nine days as the Henneberrys took refuge in a neighbor's home. Authorities also confiscated Henneberry's boat, which will stay in their custody until Tsarnaev's trial is completed.
Although they aren't exactly complaining about the seizing of their boat, hundreds of people have offered their support to the couple in more ways than one.
A Texas man who never knew the couple created an online campaign that raised $50,000 for the Henneberrys to purchase a new boat, which they found on Craigslist.
"It was really wonderful what they did for us," he said. "We can't thank them enough. We've come full circle."
While they were only thrust into the national spotlight intially following the bombings, their local celebrity status has remained strong through curious neighbors, residents, and tourists who even pass their house just to stare.
"It just goes on and on," Beth Henneberry said of the attention. "We just want it to go away."
