Katherine Russell, the widow of Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, is living in New Jersey and has moved on with a new man and a new life, The Daily Mail can exclusively reveal.
Russell, 36, was spotted out with her new partner, Ahmad Alarabi, a Jordanian-born entrepreneur who founded a company that repairs and unlocks cell phones.
They were spotted together in the suburbs 12 years after the extremist brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev carried out the largest terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11.
On April 15, 2013 of the Boston Marathon, they killed three people and injured 260 more after detonating pressure cooker bombs near the finish line as thousands cheered on the runners.
Tamerlan was killed in a standoff with police later that night – after killing cop Sean Collier – while Dzhokhar was found hiding in a boat during a manhunt and is now on federal death row at America’s supermax prison, ADX Florence in Colorado.
Russell appeared stony faced while running errands at her rented home in Lyndhurst, New Jersey.
Katherine Russell, the widow of Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, is living in New Jersey and has moved on with a new man and a new life, The Daily Mail can exclusively reveal
The doctor’s daughter only broke a smile while playing with her youngest child outside the front of the property before whisking them away to her SUV.
When approached by a Daily Mail reporter, Russell declined to discuss her new life, but family members say she has moved past the horrific bombing — and still insists that she knew nothing about the terrorist plans.
‘She’s a very different person today than she was back then,’ says a relative of Russell’s.
‘I think she’s pretty happy and content being a wife and mother to a normal guy, not someone who was controlling and radical.’
The relative tells the Daily Mail that Russell has ‘deep sadness’ when she thinks of the attack that killed three – eight-year-old Martin Richard, 29-year-old Krystle Campbell and 23-year-old graduate student Lingzi Lu – and maimed hundreds.
‘She always has said that she didn’t know, but she still feels terrible,’ says the relative, who has ‘sporadic’ contact with Russell.
‘She was young and in an controlling marriage where she worked 80 hours a week to support him.
‘Then the bombing happened and everyone said she was involved. Tamerlan ruined her life.’
Russell was under a dark cloud of suspicion after the bombing, leaving authorities — and the general public — wondering what she knew of the attack that was executed by Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his younger brother, Dzhokhar.
Investigators said the pressure cooker bombs that Tsarnaev detonated were at least partially made on the kitchen table of the tiny apartment couple shared.
Russell appeared stony faced while running errands at her rented home in Lyndhurst, New Jersey
Russell, 36, was spotted out with her new partner, Ahmad Alarabi, a Jordanian-born entrepreneur who founded a company that repairs and unlocks cell phones
Russell’s attorney argued that she was working 80 hours a week as a home health care aide and had no idea with the Tsarnaev brothers were up to — and that she didn’t learn about the bombing and her husband’s death on the news.
Russell, then 24, was never charged in connection with the bombings, and her attorney insisted that she was cooperating with authorities — although they claimed that she eventually stopped talking to them and did not testify against her former brother-in-law in court.
Russell and Alarabi pictured together. Sources close to Tsarnaev’s family say the relationship has them cutting off contact
She did, however, show signs of her husband’s radicalization.
As a girl growing up in Rhode Island Katherine was known to her friends as Katie.
In 2013, a friend of Russell told The Daily Mail that she was an ‘all-American girl’ in high school and had been ‘brainwashed’ by her extremist husband.
At high school her personal motto was ‘Do something about it or stop complaining’. She dreamed of going to college and joining the Peace Corps.
But her life completely transformed when she met Tsarnaev, disenfranchised man who came to America from his troubled homeland of Chechnya.
During the trial of her brother-in-law, a computer forensics expert testified that Russell’s computer showed multiple Google searches about the eternal rewards of dying as a martyr’s spouse.
After the bombing, Russell found herself a widowed mother of two-year-old Zahara Tsarnaev.
With nowhere to go, she moved in into her parents’ Rhode Island home
There, she lived with her father, Warren, and her mother, Judith. She had regular contact with her younger sisters, Anna and Rebecca.
Ultimately, the religious differences between the Russell family and their Muslim daughter caused her to leave their home after less than a year.
She has settled into a quiet suburban life with her new husband in their nondescript white house, around 10 miles outside of Manhattan and less than six miles from where she previously lived with her sister’s in law, Ailina and Bella.
Property records show that the home was sold to a rental company in 2022 for $375,000, and listed for rent at $3,000 a month in early 2023.
Toddlers’ bikes and toys litter the backyard of the well maintained three-bedroom, one bathroom property.
A green wreath adorned the door of the home, with Russell’s new husband often leaving separately from his wife throughout the day.
There was no sign of Zahara, now 14, keeping her mother or step-father company while her two younger half-siblings were piled into the car.
Brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev planted and detonated pressure cooker bombs they made in the kitchen of their Massachusetts home at the Boston Marathon finish line on April 15, 2013
While Russell’s family refer to Ahmad Alarabi (above) as her husband, it is not clear if they are legally married
Russell’s family says she has ‘deep sadness’ when she thinks of the attack that killed three and injured hundreds of others
Russell was under a cloud of suspicion during the investigation into the biggest terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11, but has insisted she had no idea her husband was plotting the bombing
Alarabi walks to a car outside Russell’s rented home in New Jersey, where the widow of Tamerlan Tsarnaev has tried to start a new life
In 2013, a friend of Russell told The Daily Mail that she was an ‘all-American girl’ in high school and had been ‘brainwashed’ by her extremist husband
(Left to right) Eight-year-old Martin Richard, 29-year-old Krystle Campbell and 23-year-old graduate student Lingzi Lu were killed in the attack
When approached outside the home, Russell quickly rushed inside her home, clutching a bag of ice, and curtly declined to speak to The Daily Mail.
Russell in a mugshot in 2007 after she was arrested for shoplifting $67 of Old Navy merchandise at 18. The charges were later dropped after she paid a fine.
The mother’s appearance has not changed much since she was last spotted in public, still wearing a hijab to cover her modesty.
But according to a Tsarnaev family member, the relationship soured when Russell began seeing Alarabi.
‘She doesn’t have anything to do with us,’ says a Tsarnaev family source.
‘She is now with someone else and there is nothing more to really say. We don’t talk.’
The family source adds that the relationship between Russell and the Tsarnaevs seems to be permanently broken.
‘It didn’t end well,’ says the Tsarnaev source.
‘She found a new husband and that was it, she can go be with him.’
Alarabi, who graduated from Al-Balqaʼ Applied University is a government-supported university located in Salt, Jordan, emigrated to the U.S. several years ago, says the Russell family member
While Russell’s relatives refer to Alarabi as Russell’s husband, it’s unclear if they have been legally married in New Jersey.
The Daily Mail has been unable to locate a marriage license for the couple.
Alarabi, who graduated from Al-Balqaʼ Applied University is a government-supported university located in Salt, Jordan, emigrated to the U.S. several years ago, says the Russell family member.
‘He’s a lot more permissive than Tamerlan was,’ says the Russell relative. ‘I think she’s much happier now than she was before. She survived a lot and is now living quietly and peacefully.’
Dzhokhar, who was 19 during the bombings, was charged with use of a weapon of mass destruction resulting in death and conspiracy, along with 29 additional terrorism-related charges.
He was found guilty of all 30 charges and sentenced to death.
