Expenses to Protect Funeral Home Building Up

(NECN): Justin Michaels) - The Massachusetts State Medical Examiner released the body of Tamerlan Tsarnaev on May 1. On the morning of May 9, the body was still in a Worcester funeral home with seemingly no place to go.

Later in the morning, the Worcester police chief said his plea for someone to offer a place to bury the suspect's body was successful, and that the body had already been moved and buried.

But the ordeal of finding a burial site did not come without cost. The city of Worcester was spending about $10,000 a day to protect the funeral home that housed the body.

Catherine Russell, the window of Tamerlan Tsarnaev hired a New York criminal lawyer who has experience defending terrorism cases. This is while she continues to be questioned by federal investigators about whether she had any role in the bombings.

There were some early reports that the Massachusetts Department of Corrections said it had a burial plot for the accused terrorist. It turns out that was not true, as the DOC said its burial grounds are reserved for inmates who die in state custody.

And all of this is while Gov. Deval Patrick stuck to his belief that this is a family matter, not a state or federal issue.

"It's overwhelming that facility and that community and to some extent even the police chief's resources, but that doesn't turn it into something other than a family issue. It is still a family matter. And this family has some decisions they've got to make. And they need to make them soon," Patrick said.

Meantime there was some hope to get some understanding about the bombings from the student records of Dzhokar Tsarnaev, the remaining suspected terrorist.

The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth requested that his student records be released by the Department of Education in Washington. That request was denied citing it would break federal law.

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