Hunting the Boston Marathon bombers: ‘Are you gonna kill me tonight?’

nypost.com:

that claimed three lives and wounded more than 280 more on April 15, 2013, left law enforcement officials scrambling for answers — and fighting over whether or not to make public the identities of the radicalized bomber brothers, a new Netflix docuseries reveals. “American Manhunt: The Boston Marathon Bombing,” out Wednesday, walks viewers step by step through the chaos that characterized those first, frightening hours, and spotlights both forgotten and fresh new details about the nearly weeklong, dramatic efforts to catch the perpetrators.With security footage from the catastrophic moment at the marathon finish line coming up empty, authorities wound up catching their first big break when an innocuous tip from a shutterbug snapping pictures at the finish line turned into a major lead.“We got a phone call from a member of the public who said ‘I was across the street and I have a couple of still shots that you may want’ … and the still shot showed a bag on the ground,” FBI agent Kevin Swindon remembered.

The seemingly small reveal proved to be a loose thread that helped to unravel an entire terrorist plot — one that was supposed to culminate in the bombing of Times Square.

Thanks to that one photograph, it took just 24 hours for authorities to learn the identity of bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev — a 19-year-old Bostonian and former high school wrestling all-star, who had dropped the explosive filled backpack.Authorities were able to pinpoint the exact location of the bag by matching it with surveillance footage.