Image Captured Boston Marathon Bombing Victim’s Last Panicked Moments

BOSTON— -- Just before she was struck down by the second explosion at the 2013 Boston Marathon, 23-year-old Lingzi Lu’s terror-stricken face was captured in a photograph shown in court today, a friend of Lu’s testified. Lu was reacting to the first blast in the approximately 10-second interval between deadly explosions.

“The first bomb just happened and she’s looking panic,” Danling Zhou, Lu’s friend, told the court of the grainy image, which has not been released to the public. Zhou said she tried to tell Lu to keep moving away from the first blast, but never got the chance.

When the second bomb exploded it threw Zhou to the ground. She recalled seeing “smoke everywhere” and “blood all over the ground.” A man in front of her suddenly didn’t have a leg where one was just moments before.

Shrapnel had hit Zhou in the stomach and she said she was afraid “her insides would come out.” Eventually she was taken to the hospital, where she would learn Lu had succumbed to her own severe injuries.

Lu was one of three people to have been killed in the April 15, 2013 attack. Martin Richard, 8, and Krystle Campbell, 29, also lost their lives. Like Zhou, 260 people were injured.

Today began the second week of the trial for accused bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 21, whose defense team already admitted that he and his older brother, the late Tamerlan Tsarnaev, were responsible for the death and destruction. Last week, 8-year-old Martin’s father took the stand and described the moment he knew his boy was not going to make it.

The jury today also saw never-before-seen visual evidence, compiled by an FBI analyst, who stitched together the path both bombing suspects Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev took in the minutes before the explosions.

The jurors actually saw a man identified as Dzhokhar on camera apparently picking his spot and dipping to the right when the bag is slipped off his shoulder and placed at his feet. He lingers at the spot. The jury has already been introduced to some of the soon-to-be victims around him, including Martin Richard. In the videos, runners go by, spectators cheer, oblivious to the carnage about to erupt.

Prior to the FBI analyst’s testimony, the jury heard from Jessica Kensky, a newlywed who, along with her new husband, was injured in the attack. Kensky said that immediately after the blast a man told her, “Ma’am, you’re on fire,” and then pushed her to the ground to extinguish the flames.

Kensky rolled to the witness stand in a wheelchair, having lost both legs as a result of the attack, though one was amputated just last month. Her husband, Patrick Downes, lost a leg as well.

Tsarnaev maintained his flat, seemingly disinterested demeanor as Kensky testified, just as he had for most of the hearings last week.