Heidi Williams

FBI agent Heidi Williams testified for the prosecution on Day 39, reading already-admitted text messages from a Sony VAIO laptop and entries from an FBI report of selected Internet activity. Messages attributed to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev addressed politics, education, justice for his people, Jannah, and an unspecified plan. Another correspondent expressly discussed jihad; Williams confirmed that the January correspondent was not Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

Williams acknowledged that she had not extracted the messages, had not really researched the surrounding conversations, and was not a computer-forensics expert. The court overruled an objection to her characterization of the excerpts' subject matter. She also read laptop-report entries concerning Marathon bombing coverage, including descriptions of photographs, rather than testifying as an eyewitness to those events. She corrected a word she had misread from the display.

On cross-examination, William W. Fick explored conversation omitted from Exhibit 1387. After reviewing additional messages, Williams declined to identify Tima as Tamerlan and corrected counsel's description of Tsarnaev's response, identifying wording about Tima having some talent. The court sustained the government's scope objection to further questions about her investigation. When Fick offered the additional conversation, the government objected, and the court had it marked as Defense Exhibit 1387A for identification, leaving admissibility for review.