Stephen Silva, the man linked to a gun used to kill a police officer days after the Boston Marathon bombing, was arrested Monday on charges of heroin trafficking and possession of a handgun with an obliterated serial number. The same gun was used to kill MIT police Officer Sean Collier during a manhunt for the bombing suspects, according to two people with knowledge of the case who spoke to The Associated Press.
Silva, 21, was a high school classmate and a close friend of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a suspect in the April 2013 Boston Marathon bombings that killed three people and injured more than 260. Collier, 26, was ambushed several days later and shot multiple times in his car. Silva was arrested at a subway station in Dorchester in November on marijuana charges. According to court documents, when transit police found marijuana in Silva's pocket, he allegedly said, "I smoke a lot of weed every day because my best friend was the bomber."
According to the indictment, Silva received the gun in or around February 2013. It said the gun "had the importer's and manufacturer's serial number removed, obliterated, and altered and had previously been shipped and transported in interstate and foreign commerce."
IN-DEPTH
- Boston Marathon Bombing: Tsarnaev Gun Mystery Solved, Say Officials
- Friend of Tsarnaev Guilty of Obstruction of Justice for Hiding Evidence
