Tamerlan Tsarnaev's Friend Told Police They Participated In Waltham Triple Homicide, New Documents Show

A now-deceased friend of Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev confessed to police in 2013 that he and Tsarnaev robbed and killed three men in Waltham in 2011, according to a new partially unsealed search warrant.

Ibragim Todashev allegedly told law enforcement agents about a month after the marathon bombing that he and Tsarnaev initially planned to rob Brandon Mess, Raphael Teken and Erik Weissman, who they knew sold marijuana. But then, according to the search warrant affidavit, Tsarnaev said "they should eliminate any witnesses," and bound the men.

Mess, Teken and Weissman were found inside the apartment with their throats slit and bodies sprinkled with marijuana.

Todashev and Tsarnaev split "several thousand dollars" taken from the scene, the affidavit said, which detailed that Todashev also said the pair spent more than an hour cleaning up blood and attempting to remove their fingerprints from the scene.

Todashev allegedly made the confession in May of 2013. The next day, under more questioning from law enforcement at his Orlando, Fla., home, he was shot by an FBI agent from Boston.

The search warrant was for Tsarnaev's 1999 Honda CRV, which law enforcement said Todashev and Tsarnaev drove to and from Mess' house on Harding Avenue.

It was unsealed at the request of appellate lawyers for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Tamerlan Tsarnaev's younger brother, who was convicted in the marathon bombings. Tamerlan Tsarnaev died in a shootout with police during the manhunt for the brothers days after the attack.

The search warrant affidavit released Wednesday is heavily redacted, with 21 of the 27 pages wholly or partially blacked out.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is appealing his death sentence. Oral arguments in the case are expected next month.