Restaurant manager, 8-year-old among Boston bomb victims

17 casualties listed in critical condition; Boston cardinal, visiting Israel, prays for fatalities of marathon tragedy

A jetliner flies over flags flying at half-staff at the Washington Monument in Washington, Tuesday, April 16, 2013, after President Obama ordered flags to be lowered on federal building to honor the loss of life from the explosions at the Boston Marathon. (photo credit: AP/J. David Ake)
A jetliner flies over flags flying at half-staff at the Washington Monument in Washington, Tuesday, April 16, 2013, after President Obama ordered flags to be lowered on federal building to honor the loss of life from the explosions at the Boston Marathon. (photo credit: AP/J. David Ake)

BOSTON (AP) — Eight-year-old Martin Richard had just gotten ice cream and was near the Boston Marathon finish line, eagerly watching for friends to run by. Krystle Campbell was enjoying the race with her best friend, hoping to get a photo of the other woman’s boyfriend after he conquered the last mile.

Then the unthinkable struck. The spirited 8-year-old, pictured on Facebook in his classroom holding a sign that read “No more hurting people,” was dead, along with the outgoing 29-year-old woman and a graduate student from China — victims of twin bombs that turned a scene of celebration into chaos.

The Shenyang Evening News reported Wednesday on its official Twitter-like microblog account that the Chinese victim is named Lu Lingzi. An editor at the newspaper says that Lu’s father confirmed his daughter’s death when reporters visited the family home.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry and Consulate General in New York are not releasing the victim’s name at the request of the family. But on Tuesday, Boston media quoted a Chinese Consulate General official as saying Chinese national Lu Lingzi was missing in the wake of the bombings.

More than 170 others suffered injuries that included severed limbs, shrapnel wounds and abdominal lacerations.

Jeff Bauman Jr., a man pictured in an Associated Press photo being rushed from the scene Monday in a wheelchair, lost both legs. Rescuers took the 27-year-old to Boston Medical Center, where doctors found extensive vascular and bone damage.

“Unfortunately my son was just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” his father, Jeff Bauman, wrote in a Facebook post.

The younger Bauman, who had been at the race to cheer on his girlfriend, had further surgery because of fluid in his abdomen.

“I just can’t explain what’s wrong with people today, to do this to people,” the father wrote. “I’m really starting to lose faith in our country.”

While mourning the dead Tuesday, friends and neighbors tried to focus on positive memories of cherished ones whose deaths still seemed unreal to them.

“I just can’t get a handle on it,” said Jack Cunningham, a longtime friend of little Martin and his family. “In an instant, life changes.”

Cunningham recalled how, as a pint-sized preschooler, the boy had insisted on getting out of his stroller during a 5K race in South Boston. As soon as his mom let him out to run with the rest of the family, Martin took off along the rainy race course.

“He was just having a ball, splashing in every puddle,” Cunningham said.

The boy’s father, Bill Richard, released a statement thanking friends, family and strangers for their support following his son’s death.

Congressman Stephen Lynch, a family friend, said Martin and his family were trying to get over the race barriers and into the street after the first blast, when the second bomb struck.

“They were looking in the crowd as the runners were coming to see if they could identify some of their friends when the bomb hit,” said Lynch, who has known the Richards for 25 years.

Bill Richard, a runner and cycling enthusiast who did not run the race, had to have several ball bearings removed from his leg, Lynch said.

On Tuesday, a candle burned on the stoop of the family’s single-family home in the city’s Dorchester section, and the word “Peace” was written in chalk on the front walkway. A child’s bicycle helmet lay overturned near the front lawn.

At a nearby park, “Pray for Martin” was written in large block letters on the pavement. Mourners later gathered for a candlelight vigil in the neighborhood.

A photo of the three Richard children on Halloween in 2009 showed a smiling Martin dressed as Woody from the “Toy Story” films, complete with cowboy hat and sheriff’s badge. Beside him stood Jane, dressed as the film character Jesse, and Henry, dressed as Harry Potter.

Kevin Andrews, headmaster at the Neighborhood House Charter School, said the school community was heartbroken by the loss of the third-grader, whom he called “a bright, energetic young boy who had big dreams and high hopes for his future.”

Cardinal Sean O’Malley, head of the Roman Catholic Church in Boston, said a Mass on Tuesday in Israel for victims of the bombing, archdiocese officials said. He also called the pastor of St. Ann parish in Dorchester, where the Richards attend church, to say he was praying for them.

Boston University said one of the victims was a graduate student who was watching the race with friends at the finish line, which is not far from the school. The Chinese Consulate in New York said the victim was a Chinese national, though it did not identify the student. A Hong Kong broadcaster reported the student was a woman from Shenyang studying statistics. The official Chinese news agency Xinhua reported her relatives have requested she not be identified.

In nearby Medford, William Campbell described his daughter, Krystle, as the light of his life, “a very caring, very loving person.”

“Daddy’s little girl,” the 56-year-old said.

Her mother, Patty Campbell, her voice breaking into tears, said the couple was “heartbroken at the death of our daughter.”

“She was a wonderful person. Everybody that knew her loved her. … She had a heart of gold. She was always smiling. You couldn’t ask for a better daughter,” the mother said. “This doesn’t make sense.”

This image from a Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Homeland Security joint bulletin issued to law enforcement and obtained by The Associated Press, shows the remains of a pressure cooker that the FBI says was part of one of the bombs that exploded during the Boston Marathon (photo credit: AP/FBI)
This image from a Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Homeland Security joint bulletin issued to law enforcement and obtained by The Associated Press, shows the remains of a pressure cooker that the FBI says was part of one of the bombs that exploded during the Boston Marathon (photo credit: AP/FBI)

Federal agents zeroed in Tuesday on how the bombing was carried out — with kitchen pressure cookers packed with explosives, nails and other lethal shrapnel — but said they still didn’t know who did it and why.

An intelligence bulletin issued to law enforcement and released late Tuesday included a picture of a mangled pressure cooker and a torn black bag the FBI said were part of a bomb.

The FBI and other law enforcement agencies repeatedly pleaded for members of the public to come forward with photos, videos or anything suspicious they might have seen or heard.

“The range of suspects and motives remains wide open,” Richard DesLauriers, FBI agent in charge in Boston, said at a news conference. He vowed to “go to the ends of the Earth to identify the subject or subjects who are responsible for this despicable crime.”

President Barack Obama branded the attack an act of terrorism but said officials don’t know “whether it was planned and executed by a terrorist organization, foreign or domestic, or was the act of a malevolent individual.”

Scores of victims remained in hospitals, many with grievous injuries. A 9-year-old girl and 10-year-old boy were among 17 victims listed in critical condition.

Heightening jitters in Washington, where security already had been tightened after the bombing, a letter addressed to a senator and poisoned with ricin or a similarly toxic substance was intercepted at a mail facility outside the capital, lawmakers said.

There was no immediate indication the episode was related to the Boston attack. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the letter was sent to Republican Sen. Roger Wicker, of Mississippi.

Officials found that the bombs in Boston consisted of explosives put in ordinary 1.6-gallon pressure cookers, one with shards of metal and ball bearings, the other with nails, according to a person close to the investigation who spoke on condition of anonymity because the probe was still going on. The bombs were stuffed into black duffel bags and left on the ground, the person said.

The FBI said it is looking at what Boston television station WHDH said are photos sent by a viewer that show the scene right before and after the bombs went off. The photo shows something next to a mailbox that appears to be a bag, but it’s unclear what the significance is.

“We’re taking a look at hundreds of photos, and that’s one of them,” FBI spokesman Jason Pack said.

Investigators said they haven’t determined what was used to set off the explosives.

Pressure cooker explosives have been used in international terrorism and have been recommended for lone-wolf operatives by al-Qaida’s branch in Yemen.

But information on how to make the bombs is readily found online, and U.S. officials said Americans should not rush to judgment in linking the attack to overseas terrorists.

DesLauriers said there had been no claim of responsibility for the attack.

He urged people to come forward with anything suspicious, such as hearing someone express an interest in explosives or a desire to attack the marathon, seeing someone carrying a dark heavy bag at the race or hearing mysterious explosions recently.

“Someone knows who did this,” the FBI agent said.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

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