CLEVELAND — Judy Martin recites the names of missing people in Cleveland like a well-memorized poem. She knows names, dates, last-known whereabouts and details about dozens of cases dating to 1997.

Martin, who founded Survivors/Victims of Tragedy, also says she knows how race and economic status play a role in how police treat cases, including those of three women held captive for years in a rundown Cleveland neighborhood.

Martin says cases involving people of color and lower incomes don’t get the same law enforcement resources as others. But the Cleveland Police Department says officers did all they could find Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight, and they investigate missing-persons cases without any biases.

“When it’s somebody of color or someone from in a poorer area, we don’t seem to get the response that other areas of the country get,” said Martin, whose group works with families of victims. “It needs to stop. When a person goes missing, it shouldn’t matter whether they’re white, black, Hispanic, Asian, purple, green or blue.”

Knight, Berry and DeJesus were abducted in separate incidents almost a decade ago and held hostage until May 6 when Berry escaped and alerted police. Police arrested Ariel Castro, who has been charged with kidnapping and rape.

After Berry and DeJesus went missing, Martin, whose son was murdered in 1994, became an advocate for the women’s families, holding rallies and vigils every week and, later, every year. It was her way of reminding the public of the missing girls, who Martin says police dismissed as teenagers who just took off.

It’s a claim the police fiercely deny.

“The Cleveland Police Department doesn’t care about someone’s economic or social status,” Police Commander Keith Sulzer said Friday. “We don’t care what status you’re from; everybody gets the same treatment.”

Sulzer says he’s insulted that somebody would suggest the department’s work would vary based on race or money — especially in the cases of Berry, DeJesus and Knight. For a decade, officers searched hundreds of streets, investigated vacant homes and followed any information that might lead to the women, Sulzer said.

At a community gathering Thursday near the Seymour Avenue home of Ariel Castro, where the women were found, Sulzer told residents that more than 2,900 people were missing in the city of Cleveland and that families of those missing need to work with officers to keep the cases going.

“If you have a missing person, you need to be on us at all times,” he said, adding that if families feel like officers aren’t doing enough they should contact the department.

Still, Martin maintains that when a person of color or lower income goes missing, police assume that the person has simply walked away — that there’s no criminal involvement. She wants a policy that would make it mandatory that officers file a report each time someone says their family member or friend is missing regardless of the person’s past, economic status or race.

The families of the victims of serial killer Anthony Sowell had similar complaints to Martin’s. The bodies of 11 women were found in Sowell’s Cleveland home in late 2009. They were drug addicts or alcoholics, had criminal records or had mental health problems. Prosecutors said Sowell used drugs or alcohol to lure them into his Imperial Avenue home, where he raped and murdered them.

During Sowell’s trial, victims’ relatives said police didn’t take their missing-person reports seriously. One of Sowell’s victims who survived an attack testified that police didn’t believe her when she reported the assault. Sowell was released from jail without charges after the woman’s report.

Journalist and urban planning specialist Angie Schmitt, co-founder of Rust Wire, blogged last month that although the Cleveland Plain Dealer ran “sympathetic” and extensive profiles of Sowell’s victims, the newspaper “never raises the bigger issue. What made these women such easy targets was being black, being women and being from the highly segregated and desperately poor east side of Cleveland.

“This is a story about racism and inequality and sexism and poverty as much, if not more, than it is about drugs and individual lives going astray,” Schmitt wrote. “Nobody was going to tear up the city looking for a few black women from the east side with sketchy pasts.”

On Wednesday, Schmitt added context to her views. “There are a lot of very vulnerable people in this city. I don’t know if I’d point the finger directly at the city, exactly though. A lot of larger forces are at play,” Schmitt says, citing poverty, inequality and significant underfunding for police and city services.

Marcellette Love, 51, of North Olmsted, Ohio, also believes her missing sister’s case isn’t getting the attention it deserves.

Love’s sister Minerva Tripp, 42, went missing on Aug. 28 from her boyfriend’s Cleveland apartment after the two argued.

Love says her sister has battled with drug problems for more than a decade and at times disappeared for a week at a time. Her family realized Tripp was missing in early September and went to police after she missed calling Love on her birthday, something she often did. Tripp also missed calling her nephew on April 29 for the birthday they share. She also missed her daughter’s birthday.

Love claims police are doing little to help her and that the detective on the case isn’t taking the case seriously because of her sister’s past.

“We know the dangerous life Minerva leads, but in our hearts we know her routine,” Love said. “We know that something is wrong. But the police don’t care because she’s black and is known for doing drugs.”

After Love spoke about her concerns at the community meeting Thursday, Sulzer said his office would be following up with her.

A close family friend of Gina DeJesus, Tito DeJesus, said he doesn’t believe race played a role in how police searched for the young women. However, he’s not sure if authorities did enough to find the her, Berry and Knight.

“It’s hard to say what the police were actually doing,” he said. “In this case, it took the kidnappees to break this.”

Meanwhile, how the Cleveland Police Department handled the investigations is only part of the issue, experts say.

Across the country, missing people from diverse backgrounds and lower socioeconomic statuses are more likely to get less resources and attention than affluent white victims, according to Mark Anthony Neal, a professor of African and African-American studies at Duke University.

Authorities also at times assume people of color and lower incomes naturally are exposed to more violence, Neal said. The assumption might lead authorities to miss chances to save people from dangerous situations.

“We live in a society that places an incredible amount of value on whiteness at the expense of those who can’t fit in the box of whiteness,” he said.

Maya Beasley, a sociology and African studies professor at the University of Connecticut, points to the case of Alyssiah Marie Wiley, 20, as an example. A sophomore at Eastern Connecticut State University, the young woman went missing on April 20 after being last seen on her Willimantic, Conn. campus.

“She’s a young black woman from a working class family and that’s just not the type of case people are particularly interested in,” Beasley said, explaining that the case has received little attention.

Despite expert theories and the questions that surround the handling of disappearance of Berry, DeJesus and Knight, a friend of two of the girls says she’s happy they are home safe.

Sarah Rivera, 20, talked to Amanda Berry on Thursday afternoon. “She’s doing better than all of us,” Rivera, an officer manager said. “She just basically wants to get away.”

Contributing: Cathy Lynn Grossman

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

CLEVELAND — Seymour Avenue, now the infamous location of a decades-long house of horrors, had usually been considered a quiet place where neighbors look out for one another, hold block barbecues and nurse a tight-knit community.

Ariel Castro — the suspect police allege to have held captive Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight — fit in with the crowd. A bus driver and local bass player, he was like many of the working-class residents and enjoyed the respect that came with a well-known family name.

“He was a member of this community and I loved him,” said Maria Castro-Montes, Ariel Castro’s cousin, one of the dozens of family members living and working in the neighborhood. “We are just stunned and shocked that anyone in our family had anything to do with this.”

The modest white home where Berry, DeJesus and Knight were held is much like the others that line the cracked concrete road. Seymour Avenues is a place where people have fun, exchange small talk but mind their own business, residents said.

Julio Castro, Ariel Castro’s uncle, came to the United States from Puerto Rico in the 1950s. Back then, the neighborhood was filled with children playing, and each house was home to people trying to make an honest living, he said.

Julio Castro was one of them. He opened Caribe Grocery on Seymour Avenue, across the street from Ariel Castro’s home. Ariel Castro’s father was also an entrepreneur, running a nearby car dealership for years.

With their thriving businesses, the Castro family became known around the neighborhood, Julio Castro said.

Julio Castro bought nephew Ariel Castro his first guitar and encouraged him to be a musician over the years.

“He was a musician and a school bus driver — that told you he loved children,” he said. “We didn’t know he had two personalities.”

Census records show the area is about a quarter Hispanic, which is almost twice the city’s rate, and that Puerto Ricans make up the majority of that population.

Residents started leaving some years ago, but some families remain. Homes were abandoned, and businesses closed, Julio Castro said. Part of the exodus came from people making better money and moving into the suburbs as well as big businesses coming in. Currently, almost a third of the workers are in manufacturing, Census records show.

“This was a great neighborhood,” Julio Castro said. “No doubt, it has changed.”

Those changes may have helped create an environment where Ariel Castro could hide the women, said Cecil King, 43, who grew up coming to the Seymour Avenue area as a youngster.

A mix of apartment buildings, homes and businesses fill the streets surrounding Seymour Avenue. Family restaurants dot busy roads filled with fast food restaurants. A long list of businesses–car repair shops, check cashing stores and beauty supply stores–make up shopping centers where people causally stroll.

Chipped paint covers many of the homes’ porches. Large trees and overgrown shrubs fill the backyards. Sidewalks have larges cracks, and cars navigate around large potholes.

The median income of residents around Seymour Avenue is half that of Cleveland’s median, according to Census. Half of the households earn less than $10,000 a year and almost half the households get food stamps, almost twice the city rate.

“It’s an impoverished neighborhood, and people are forgotten here,” King said. “It’s easy to conceal things because there’s a lack of visibility.”

Even so, King and others say Seymour Avenue is not just a neighborhood, it’s a community.

“We all have everyone’s backs,” said Rick Shear, a retired tow truck driver. “We watch people’s houses and vehicles. We cook out and have barbecues.”

Shear even went to backyard barbecues at Ariel Castro’s home, never entered Castro’s home. Shear says he thought it was a bit suspicious that Ariel Castro kept his blinds constantly, shut but it wasn’t that unusual for people to want their privacy. Many residents along Seymour Avenue keep to themselves, he said.

Ellie Johnson, 81, who has lived in the neighborhood since 1992, agrees. He remembers a time when children played outside and firework shows lighted the skies. That stopped several years ago, he says, as families grew older and people became more isolated.

“It’s a bit rough, but I love it here,” said Johnson, a retired truck driver. “People treat me nice and others don’t bother me.”

Contributing: Paul Overberg

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Amanda Berry, who had been missing for a decade, screamed from inside a home Monday until neighbors heard her.

Neighbor Charles Ramsey said he heard noises and saw another neighbor moving toward the house where Berry was located.

“I heard screaming,” Ramsey told WEWS-TV. “I’m eating my McDonald’s. I come outside. I see this girl going nuts trying to get out of a house.”

Berry said she was being held captive and needed to get out of the house. Ramsey said the door would only open wide enough for a hand to fit through, so they kicked out the bottom and made enough space for her to escape. Berry came out and brought a young girl with her.

Berry identified herself and quickly called 911. “I’m Amanda Berry. … I’ve been kidnapped, and I’ve been missing for 10 years. And I’m here. I’m free now.”

Berry said more women were in the house and police arrived and freed Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight within minutes of Berry’s call.

Police have arrested three suspects in the case: Ariel Castro, 52, the owner of the house, Pedro Castro, 54, and Onil Castro, 50. Ramsey said he knew his neighbor and had eaten barbecue with him in the backyard.

“There was nothing exciting about him — well, until today,” Ramsey told WEWS-TV.

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Prosecutors and defense lawyers in the case against the man charged with murdering Trayvon Martin squared off in a pre-trial hearing Tuesday in Orlando.

Under oath, defendant George Zimmerman waived his right to a self-defense hearing prior to his trial. Zimmerman told Circuit Judge Debra Nelson that he understood Florida’s self-defense laws, that he had talked to his lawyers about the stand-your-ground statute, and that he has decided not to have a pre-trial immunity hearing.

The questioning confirmed that Zimmerman has waived his right to an immunity hearing before the trial but leaves open the option to have a hearing later.

Timeline: The Travyon Martin case

Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer, is facing a second-degree murder charge in the Feb. 26, 2012, shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in a gated Sanford, Fla., community. Trayvon’s family argues the young man was profiled, pursued and murdered. Zimmerman says he shot Trayvon in self-defense after being attacked.

Partly at the center of contention between the legal sides is a motion by Zimmerman’s lawyers to make state prosecutors pay $4,555 in attorney’s fees. State prosecutors delayed depositions by five hours in March because they objected to them being videotaped, said Mark O’Mara, Zimmerman’s lawyer. The court later ruled that the witnesses — including a friend of Trayvon who claims she was on the phone with him the night of the shooting — could be videotaped, he said.

Assistant State Attorney Bernie de la Rionda maintains that no violations occurred and that his office is not liable for any attorney or videographer fees. O’Mara now claims that the wording of de la Rionda’s motion included false statements and misrepresentations and should be grounds for sanctioning him.

In the March 28 motion, de la Rionda wrote O’Mara was “grandstanding” and “courts anything resembling a microphone or camera.” He also added that O’Mara has made misrepresentations to the court, falsely asserted that Zimmerman was indigent, and has attacked several people including the family of Trayvon Martin, the family’s attorney, and members of the news media.

In a motion filed Friday, O’Mara accused de la Rionda of attacking him personally with unfounded “egregious” statements. He asked for sanctions and disciplinary proceedings.

At Tuesday’s hearing, Judge Nelson ruled that state prosecutors must provide Zimmerman attorneys with any new information they receive from Trayvon’s phone. The ruling, currently, means prosecutors have nothing to provide because de la Rionda repeatedly told the judge he has provided O’Mara with all the information he has from the teen’s cellphone.

The judge also ordered both sides to provide cleaned up or enhanced versions of a now critical 911 call where a person is heard screaming help before a gunshot the night Trayvon was killed. De la Rionda said he has not provided Tracy Martin or any member of Trayvon’s family with enhanced versions of the 911 call though he said experts are working with the 911 call and may in the future have such versions. Zimmerman’s defense also has experts who will work with the call.

Meanwhile, in a Friday redacted motion, O’Mara also asked to add witnesses to the case but does not reveal publicly their names or what type of information they might provide.

Zimmerman’s trial is scheduled to begin June 10th.

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Montgomery Village, Md. — When he first came to America eight years ago, Alvi Tsarni lived with his brother, Anzor Tsarnaev, and his family in a small Cambridge, Mass. apartment. It was there he spent the most time with his nephews, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan, who he described as happy young men.

“They were just regular kids,” Alvi Tsarni, 48, said while sitting inside his Montgomery Village, Md. home. “They would go outside and play. They liked music, dancing, playing video games and the internet.”

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was very young and played a lot with the children of another nearby Chechnyan family in Cambridge, Alvi Tsarni, who lived with the family for a year, recalled. The brothers didn’t get into trouble, ate whatever their mother cooked, and lived an ordinary life.

Alvi Tsarni didn’t remember the Tsarnaev brothers and their family as very religious. Alvi Tsarni said he never talked about Islam with the father of the two suspected bombers.

“We were born Muslim but we weren’t practicing,” said Alvi Tsarni, who just started going to a Maryland mosque two years ago. “Their family was not practicing. Nobody used to pray. The younger one didn’t pray, he just partied.”

Instead, the focus of the family was on school and making sure the children got good grades.

“I just told them to learn and study–if not you’ll have to work like me,” said Alvi Tsarni, a construction worker.

When news broke that the brothers allegedly were behind the Boston marathon bombings, Alvi Tsarni said he couldn’t believe it–and he doesn’t believe it now.

“They would never do something like this,” he said. “There’s no proof.”

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev would have to confess in front of the family for Alvi Tsarni to believe that his nephews carried out the pair of bombings, Alvi Tsarni said.

Adding to Alvi Tsarni’s disbelief is his inability to claim the body of Tamerlan Tsarnaev. The uncle said he went to Boston for two days and asked repeatedly to see the body as well as to have it released. But, nothing happened.

Police officers and the FBI have not given him a clear way to claim his nephew, Alivi Tsarni said. Meanwhile, Alvi Tsarni has contacted several mosques in New Jersey, Maryland, and Boston and all have refused to bury Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

Thursday, Alvi Tsarni’s body shook with frustration. He’s been distraught ever since he heard that his nephew was dead. No one in the family has identified the body and now the uncle is stuck trying to figure out what’s next.

“I still don’t know what to do,” Alvi Tsarni said.

Last Thursday, at about 7 p.m., Tamerlan Tsarnaev called Alvi Tsarni. It was just hours before the young man would die in a shootout with police in Watertown, Mass.

The uncle and nephew hadn’t spoken in more than three years because of family issues that Alvi Tsarni declined to go into detail about. In the call last Thursday evening, Tamerlan Tsarnaev said he wanted to make peace with his uncle. Alvi Tsarni was happy to hear from his nephew and didn’t question why he was calling.

“He just called me and asked how are you doing, how is your family, how is everything else,” Alvi Tsarni said. “It was just a conversation and he was happy for me. He said ‘I love you,’ and I said ‘Of course, I love you too.’”

Tamerlan Tsarnaev later called back and asked for Ruslan Tsarni’s number. The young man never called that uncle. Alvi Tsarni said his nephew might have been killed before he was able to call the second uncle.

Now, Alvi Tsarni said he is waiting for evidence that his nephews were in fact the people who carried out the bombings. He said police haven’t shown the public the faces of the brothers planting the bombs and also haven’t shown any video of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev speaking to police.

“I can’t say they did it,” Alvi Tsarni said. “I don’t believe it. I need some kind of proof. If he did this, he deserves to die. If he’s innocent, let him go. But please, investigate, find the truth.”

The brothers’ father is on their way to America. “I am going there to see my son and bury my older one,” Anzor Tsarnaev said in an emotional meeting with journalists. “I have no bad thoughts, I’m not planning any bombings, I don’t want to do anything. I’m not offended by anyone. I want to know the truth, what happened. I want to work it out.”

The suspects’ mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, who was charged with shoplifting in the U.S. last summer, said she has been assured by lawyers that she would not be arrested, but said she was still deciding whether to go to America.

Tsarnaeva, wearing a headscarf and dressed all in black, said she now regrets moving her family to the U.S. and believes they would have been better off in a village in her native Dagestan.

“You know, my kids would be with us, and we would be, like, fine,” she said. “So, yes, I would prefer not to live in America now. Why did I even go there? Why? I thought America is going to, like, protect us, our kids, it’s going to be safe.”

The boy’s other uncle, Ruslan Sarni, also in Montgomery Village, recalls that the Dzhokar and Tamerlan acclimated easily to America, grew up in a close family, and had a happy childhood filled with Chechnyan and American traditions.

Ruslan Tsarni blamed the young men’s shift from typical partying men to radical terrorists on the growing influence of their mother and an Armenian he called “Misha.”

Tsarni, 42, is the brother of the Tsarnaevs’ father and defended his brother in an hour-long interview with USA

But long before their faces were shown by the FBI as suspects one and two, Tsarni remembers two young boys who came to America and loved every moment of their experience. Neither ever talked about being homesick or leaving America. Instead, they reveled in their homeland and took in all the things other immigrant children love, including McDonald’s.TODAY as a hardworking man who tried to stop his wife from inviting a radical “Misha” into their home.

“Dzhokhar was all ears and he loved french fries,” Tsarni, a business consultant, said outside his home Thursday afternoon. “He was so skinny.They were nice American kids while I was privy to their family.”

Dzhokhar looked up to his older brother and the two were very close as youngsters, Tsarni said. Tamerlan enjoyed having a little brother and took special care to watch over him. The family expected the older brother to keep Dzhokhar out of trouble and would look to Tamerlan if there was ever any childhood mishaps.

“Dzhokhar would literally follow his brother around the house,” he said, explaining that Tamerlan would always walk in front of Dzhokhar. “They loved each other.”

That relationship is also why Tsarni now believes Tamerlan was the leader of the bombing plot and pulled in his younger brother.

The Tsarnaev parents and Dzhokhar came to America in 2002, and Tamerlan, whose paperwork needed to be processed, followed in 2003.

Both boys loved school, music, and sports, their uncle recalled. Tamerlan Tsarnaev got into boxing while Dzhokhar played wrestling and soccer.

“They weren’t deprived of anything,” Tsarni said. “I was very close to them. These were happy, cheerful kids.”

Tsarni described Dzhokhar, the youngest of four kids, as quiet, nice, and happy. He said it was easy for him to be overlooked in the family. Tamerlan was the oldest and his mother doted on him, Tsarni said. There were also two daughters and then Dzhokhar.

Despite their family being several generations muslim, Tsarni said neither he nor the Tsarnaev family went to mosque or prayers together. He couldn’t remember a time where the family read the Quran together. Instead, the family talked about school and making sure children in their family achieved success.

“It’s not about going to mosque, it’s about how you live your life,” Tsarni said. “We didn’t accept C’s. We had a code of behavior: listen to elders and show respect.”

Tsarni added that he wouldn’t even drink in front of his nephews because the family wanted to set a good example.

Both brothers met to the family’s expectation including Dzhokhar who would voluntarily make tea for his uncle when he visited, Tsarni recalled.

Tsarni fondly recalled Tamerlan in 2006 walking down Boston’s Massachusetts Avenue drinking Starbucks and greeting friends and several people in the neighborhood. Tamerlan was also partying at night clubs, drinking, and writing music.

“He was a happy person,” he said. “I don’t know what happened.”

In 2007, Tsarni had a falling out with the Tsarnaev brothers and their mother, to whom the brothers had grown very attached. Tsarni wouldn’t go into detail about the incident saying it was unrelated to the bombings or the possible motive behind it. He did, however, say after an email and phone call with Tamerlan Tsarnaev in 2007, the uncle and nephew became distant.

During that time, Tsarni says his brother told him an Armenian man named “Misha,” began visiting the family’s small Cambridge, Mass. apartment. The man would stay past midnight and talk to the family about Islam. When the Tsarnaev father would object, the wife would brush him off, Tsarni said.

“Misha,” described as a man in his 30s, told Tamerlan sports, music, and school were unimportant and instead stressed a radical version of Islam, Tsarni said.

“A person came inside their house and a parent supported it,” Tsarni said of the radicalization of this nephews. “My brother would just leave the house and come back 20 hours later. He was a mechanic and worked hard. He loved America.”

Tsarni said the father was too occupied with paying bills and supporting a wife that never worked to stop what was going on in his home. “His wife learned English and went in this path,” he said. The parents moved back to Russia in the past year, he added.

Tsarni last spoke with Tamerlan Tsarnaev in 2009. Gone was the hard partying, outgoing person he once knew. In his place was a completely different young man who dodged questions about whether he was working or in school and instead talked about spirituality.

“He would just say he was on a path to God,” Tsarni said of Tamerlan.

Tsarni didn’t take the talk seriously and never told authorities. Thursday, he blamed the mother of the Tsarnaev brothers and the mosque where Tamerlan Tsarnaev disrupted a sermon for not going to police. He called such behavior “a serious signal.”

Now, Tsarni said he can’t grieve for his dead nephew or Dzhokhar who remains hospitalized. “It’s hard when you have a dead body in your family and you can’t mourn,” he said. “Last Monday, they were just unjustifiably evil.”

Contributing: Associated Press

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

DARTMOUTH, Mass. — Friends and classmates of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev can’t grasp how the pot-smoking, party boy they knew is the same young man now accused of carrying out a terrorist attack.

Tsarnaev was funny, sarcastic, liked to party and frequently reeked of marijuana, said students in Pine Dale Hall, a sophomore residence at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth where the alleged bomber lived.

Several students on Tuesday described a shared shock and disbelief as classmates discovered that Tsarnaev faces federal charges of using and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction.

“It’s like finding out your best friend is a serial killer,” said Jennifer Mendez, who met Tsarnaev last year in their freshmen dorm. “He was really social and hilarious. He was one of those people who would crack one joke and make your night.”

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, and his older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, carried out two coordinated explosions that rocked the Boston Marathon last Monday, federal officials say. The bombs left three people dead and more than 170 others injured.

Last Thursday, the two allegedly gunned down Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer Sean Collier as they were being sought by authorities. The older Tsarnaev was killed in a confrontation with police last Friday morning. The younger Tsarnaev brother now faces criminal charges that carry a possible death sentence.

Mendez, 20, grew close with Dzhokar Tsarnaev. Both moved into Pine Dale Hall to start their sophomore year.

Sunday, the FBI searched Tsarnaev’s dorm room in that building and seized BBs, a large pyrotechnic, and “a black jacket and a white hat of the same general appearance as those worn by Bomber Two at the Boston marathon on April 15.”

Mendez can’t imagine the motives behind Tsarnaev’s alleged actions. Like many in Pine Dale Hall, she didn’t connect the blurry picture of suspect two to their classmate.

In the years she knew him, Tsarnaev just enjoyed playing soccer, talked about his years wrestling, and mulled over the demands of college life—professors, classes, and homework, Mendez said. Partying and drinking filled their days, she said, and Tsarnaev did not show signs that he was becoming radical or changing in any way.

Her best memories are of the two sitting outside Maple Ridge Hall, the freshmen dorm they shared, talking about school and the excitement of being in college.

Mendez, a biology and chemistry double major, last partied with Tsarnaev last semester. The demands of her studies slowed her partying down this semester, but Tsarnaev seemed normal when she sat in politics class with him or when she passed him on the way to his third-floor dorm.

Tsarnaev shared that third-floor dorm room with another student, said Patrick Yaghoobian, 20, who lived next door to the pair all school year.

“He smoked a lot of pot,” Yaghoobian said of Tsarnaev Tuesday afternoon. “He smelled like it every day.”

A strong smell of marijuana emanated from the room throughout the school year while Tsarnaev, himself, reeked of the drug, Yaghoobian said. The smell was absent last Monday when the bombing took place. But,it was back on Tuesday though Yaghoobian said he hadn’t seen Tsarnaev for several days before or after the bombings.

He said Tsarnaev was a quiet kid who walked around with the same blank , emotionless expression seen in many of the photos released by the FBI, Yaghoobian said.

The Millbury, Mass. native added that there were no signs of radicalism.

“I’ve looked into his room a few times and there was nothing religious or nothing that screamed out he was Muslim,” Yaghoobian said

Yaghoobian got chills when he realized officials had found BBs and a large pyrotechnic just next door. “It’s surreal,” he said.

Randy Sweet, 20, agreed and said he too remembered Tsarnaev mainly for his marijuana smoking and seemingly quiet demeanor.

“He would smoke with my friends,” he said. “I would never look at him and think he was a radical.”

Tuesday, Tsarnaev’s room, 7341, was not marked with any numbers and no one answered a knock at the locked door.

It sits at the end of long hallway and borders Yaghoobian’s room, a common room with couches and large windows looking out over trees. While many doors on the floor had pictures of frogs and puzzle pieces with students’ names, Tsarnaev’s wooden door was bare.

Across Pine Dale Hall, many students said they remembered seeing Tsarnaev around but that he didn’t stick out.

His good friend, Mendez, last saw Tsarnaev a week before the bombings in the lobby of Pine Dale Hall. The teen was his regular self, smiling and saying he had been to the politics class she dropped.

Now, she’s left wondering what could have led him to carry out such a heinous crime.

“He was completely normal,” Mendez said. “That’s not the Dzhokhar I knew.”

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

BOSTON – Lu Lingzi, a 23-year-old graduate student from China who was killed in the Boston Marathon bombings, was remembered at a Boston University memorial service Monday as a smart, energetic girl who loved statistics, her dog and blueberry pancakes.

Held in the George Sherman Union Metcalf Hall, the hour-long event was a touching tribute in a large hall attended by several hundred people. While some cried, others looked straight ahead staring two large projectors showing photos of Lingzi as a baby looking innocently into the camera.

Around the room, flowers were placed in remembrance of the young woman who had just finished taking exams but who did not live long enough to learn that she had passed all her tests with high marks.

Lingzi was an only child who friends say adjusted to life in America and speaking English, her second language.

Friends remembered her smile as infectious and her character as outgoing, confident and enthusiastic. She was also kind, treating friends to lunch as a thank you for help during exams and calling cousins and friends pet names.

She was also very smart and impressed Eric Kolczyk, the director of Boston University’s statistics department.

“She struggled and ultimately overcame the considerable challenge of living a new life here,” he said. “She was doing very well.”

Lingzi loved green tea ice cream, read romance novels, and dreamed of having a stable job and a husband.

Just before the bombs, she worked on a research paper, was searching for an internship and was looking forward to restaurant week, friends said.

“She was full of life and full of promise,” Boston University President Robert A. Brown said. “Nothing can be as it was before, the grief is too immense.”

At the end of the service, Lingzi’s father, Lu Jun, delivered his daughter’s eulogy, describing her as the family’s source of entertainment and joy.

“She was the family’s Shirley Temple,” he said, explaining that his daughter would perform for her parents and loved playing several instruments, including the piano. “She was naturally open hearted and gentle and communicable.”

He also said his daughter set her life goals early and worked hard to get scholarships to a Chinese university. She also studied English day and night and became an expert on how to obtain an education abroad.

“She was relentless,” he said.

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