Alleged terrorist mastermind Tamerlan Tsarnaev was receiving welfare benefits in the lead up to the deadly attacks at the Boston Marathon.
The Chechen immigrant lived off state aid while his wife, Katherine Russell Tsarnaev, worked as a home healthcare worker, sometimes clocking as many as 80 hours a week while her unemployed husband stayed at home, Massachusetts welfare officials revealed on Wednesday.
Ultimately his wife's income made the couple ineligible for welfare and they stopped receiving state money in 2012.
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Aid: It has now been revealed that Katherine Russell, left, her husband Tamerlan Tsarnaev, right, and their young daughter Zahara relied on Massachusetts welfare benefits
Breadwinner: Lawyers for Katherine Russell (pictured in high school yearbook photos) said the 24-year-old mother worked tirelessly as a home healthcare aid to support her young family. Her husband was unemployed
Sources who knew Tamerlan said that though he sported a flashy appearance, he failed to earn very much money for his family and was essentially a stay-at-home dad.
His younger brother, on the other hand, has been described as more entrepreneurial.
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Dzhokhar, who was a sophomore at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, attended the school on a scholarship and earned petty cash selling marijuana, sources told the Globe.
Investigators are scrutinizing the brothers' source of income, as they probe whether the pair received outside assistance for their attack, either from a radical group or foreign government.
Security experts have noted though that the modus operandi was relatively cheap, estimating that the materials for each of the pressure cooker bombs used at the Boston Marathon attack could have cost a total of $100 each.
Wife: Katherine Tsarnaeva, pictured leaving her lawyer's office in Providence, R.I. on Tuesday, met Tamerlan in 2009 at a nightclub. They married in June 2010, when she was 21-years-old
Family. Katherine Russell Tsarnaev, center at the home of her parents in North Kingstown, R.I. on Sunday, has a 3-year-old daughter, Zahara, with her late husband
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It is not known when Tamerlan and his wife, the mother of the couple's 3-year-old daughter, began receiving the aid.
They 'were not receiving transitional assistance benefits at the time of the [Boston Marathan blasts],' Massachusetts Office of Health and Human Services spokesman Alec Loftus told the Boston Herald.
Both suspects believed to be behind the bombings, Tamerlan and his brother, Dzhokhar, had also received welfare as children.
Their parents, Anzor Tsarnaev and Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, relied on state assistance when they moved to America from the Russian republic of Dagestan.
Tamerlan, 26, died early on April 19 after a shoot-out with police in Watertown, Mass. His 19-year-old brother was captured late on April 19 after an extensive manhunt.
State officials have been reluctant to discuss whether the Tsarnaevs had received state money when they immigrated to the U.S. in the early 2000s.
Ultimately, after pressure from the press the state welfare benefits office divulged the information to the Herald.
Marriage: Tamerlan Tsarnaev, in 2009 at Boston's Wai Kru Mixed Martial Arts center, was unemployed. Friends say he and his wife had a tempestuous relationship and said he would call Katherine a 'slut' and 'prostitute'
Suspects: Tamerlan Tsarnaev, left, was killed after a shootout with police, while his brother Dzhokhar, right, escaped. Dzhokhar was captured by police late on April 19
Officials believe that Tamerlan became heavily influenced by radical Muslim ideology sometime between 2008 and 2009 before he met his future wife.
A lawyer for the 24-year-old said she was a student at Suffolk University in Boston when she was introduced to Tamerlan at a nightclub, believed to be sometime during 2009.
Katherine Russell Tsarnaev converted to Islam to marry the terrorist suspect in June 2010, when she was 21-years-old
Around the same time, Russell became pregnant with Tamerlan's baby. She dropped out of school in her senior year and reportedly began pulling away from her friends and family.
After their marriage, she lived with Tamerlan, 'raising her child and working long hours, caring for people in their homes who are unable to care for themselves,' her lawyers said in a statement.
Her husband reportedly looked after their young child, Zahara.
Tragic: Photos from the Boston Marathon show the brothers, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, center left in white hat, and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, center right in black hat, in the crowd at the race just minutes before the blast
Friends have told the media that the couple had a tempestuous relationship.
Three of Russell's friends told National Public Radio's Laura Sullivan that Tsarnaev would often insult Russell and call her names, such as 'slut' and 'prostitute.'
He was known to fly into into fits of rage where he would throw objects, including furniture, friends said.
Tsarnaev was shot during a dramatic gunbattle with cops in Watertown, Massachusetts on Friday, before police said he was run over by his younger brother Dzhokhar as he tried to escape.
ABC News has reported that so far, neither his wife - Katherine Russell - nor other family members have claimed his body for burial.