Tsarnaev guilty in Boston Marathon bombings

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was found guilty on Wednesday of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing that killed three people and injured 264 others. The jury will now decide whether he gets the death penalty.

Tsarnaev, 21, and his older brother, Tamerlan, planted the homemade pressure-cooker bombs that tore through spectators at the race's finish line on April 15, 2013. Tamerlan Tsarnaev later died during a violent showdown with police.

Tsarnaev's lawyers opened the federal trial in Boston a month ago by admitting "it was him" who planted one of the bombs that day, and who three days later shot dead a police officer.

After 11 hours of deliberations over two days, the jury found Tsarnaev guilty on 30 counts. He stood silently, shifting uncomfortably as a US District court official read the verdict.

After the verdict was read, Karen Brassard, whose left leg was badly injured by one of the bombs, said she was glad that Tsarnaev had shown no emotion.

"Personally I wouldn't have bought it if he had," Brassard said. "He has been, to use my word, arrogant walking in and out of the courtroom."

The courtroom was packed with survivors of the attack, including the parents of 8-year-old Martin Richard.

The blasts killed restaurant manager Krystle Campbell, 29; Lingzi Lu, 23, a graduate student at Boston University from China; and Richard. Tsarnaev also was found guilty of killing Massachusetts Institute of Technology Police Officer Sean Collier, 26.

The ordeal involved two other Chinese citizens: Zhou Danling, also a Boston University grad student and friend of Lu, who was injured in the attack; and Dun Meng, a local entrepreneur, who was carjacked by the Tsarnaev brothers.

Katherine Lindstrom, who performed Lu's autopsy, had testified Monday that the victim's thighs were perforated by blast debris. Lindstrom said she found two shards of metal in Lu's legs.

Metal, pellets and small nails were embedded in Lu's body. The gashes were "perforating," meaning they went completely though, Lindstrom said.

The skin from Lu's left thigh was torn, and the femoral artery and vein were severed, causing her to bleed to death on the sidewalk "relatively quickly, from seconds to minutes".

Zhou told jurors she tried to calm Lu although she herself was seriously injured.

"I saw she's yelling. I can't hear, I can only see she's yelling," Zhou said.

The twin pressure-cooker bombs ripped through spectators at the race's finish line, setting off a rush to save the hundreds of wounded.

Three days later, the FBI released images of the Tsarnaev brothers as suspects. That set the stage for 24 hours of chaos as the duo fatally shot Collier in an unsuccessful attempt to steal his gun and went on to carjack Meng before police found them in the suburb Watertown.

The pair fought a desperate gunfight with police, throwing a smaller pressure-cooker bomb as well as smaller pipe bombs. When Tamerlan Tsarnaev ran out of bullets, he charged the officers, who were trying to wrestle him to the ground. Dzhokhar then hopped into the carjacked Mercedes SUV and sped toward the group, running over his brother and dragging him.

After leaving work on April 18, 2013, at approximately 10:30 pm, Meng drove his Mercedes-Benz SUV through Cambridge. After entering Allston, he stopped to answer a text.

A man, whom Meng identified as Tamerlan Tsarnaev, knocked on the passenger-side window. Meng, thinking the man needed directions, lowered the window. Tamerlan got in the car, pulled a gun, and ordered Meng to drive. Eventually they picked up Dzhokhar in Watertown, who sat in the back seat.

The car later stopped at a bank in Watertown. Using Meng's card, Dzhokhar withdrew $800 from an ATM before failing to get another $800 a minute later.

Tamerlan asked Meng at one point if his car "could go out of state Like New York?"

At one point a friend called Meng. "Who is calling you?"Meng said Tamerlan asked him.

Tamerlan pointed his gun at Meng's head, urging him to answer.

"He said if I said anything in Chinese, he would kill me right now," Meng said.

When the car stopped again, for fuel, Meng testified: "It may be my last chance So I count down in my mind. One. Two. Three. Four. It's a really tough decision for me at that moment. Every time when I recall this It's the most difficult decision in my life."

Meng unbuckled his seatbelt, opened the door and ran out of the car, just past the grasp of Tamerlan, he said.

With Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's guilt established, the trial moves into a second phase next week when both sides call more witnesses. The jury will decide whether to sentence him to death or life in prison without parole.

Reuters contributed to this story.