Did Boston Bombing Suspects Visit Exeter?

Were the Boston Marathon bombing suspects in Exeter the day before their deadly attack?

One Exeter resident thinks so.

Mary Alice LaPoint said she was out for a walk Sunday, April 14 at about 5 p.m. when a car with two men pulled over on Holland Way. She said a younger man with a heavy accent was in the passenger seat and asked for directions to the Exeter Sportsman's Club, which is a short distance away on Portsmouth Avenue.

"He was nice and friendly but very nervous and jittery," LaPoint said.

She said it looked like they just got off Route 101 and were driving a plain-looking silver sedan.

"It screamed rental car," she said.

After giving directions, LaPoint said she made an offhand remark by saying, "Why would you guys want to go to a shooting range ... don't you know that guns are dangerous?"

She said the driver got agitated and peeled off.

After she saw a picture of bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in the news, LaPoint said she's "100 percent sure" he was the same person she talked to that Sunday.

"It rattled me," she said.

LaPoint said she spoke with federal agents about the encounter. She said she got the feeling that the agents were trying to determine if Tsarneav and his brother, Tamerlan—the other suspect who was killed in a gunfight with police—tried to purchase weapons in New Hampshire.

The Boston Globe Tuesday reported that Tamerlan purchased fireworks from a Seabrook store in February and may have used them in the bombs that went off at the marathon. Three people were killed and more than 200 were injured in the blasts.

Dzhokhar on Tuesday was in a Boston hospital recovering from gunshots wounds in a firefight with police in Watertown, Mass., authorities said. He has been charged with murder and could face the death penalty.

Joe Kenick, president of the Exeter Sportsman's Club, said his group turned over security camera tapes to federal agents. He said it was unlikely the pair that LaPoint saw gained access to his club, since it's for members only.

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