He is the 26-year-old suspect who died last night in a shootout in Watertown, and those women, Laura, have painted a very dark picture. What have you heard?

LAURA SULLIVAN, BYLINE: Well, these women were close friends and roommates of Tamerlan’s girlfriend, Katherine Russell, and they knew him for several years while they were in college. They described Tamerlan as very controlling and very manipulative of their friend. They say he was combative and angry. He would often call her names and insult her. He would call her a slut and a prostitute, and they remember fights that they would get into where he would fly into rages and sometimes throw furniture or throw things.

BLOCK: Have you confirmed that he was, in fact, arrested at one point for assault?

SULLIVAN: He was arrested for domestic assault and battery, but it was of a different woman. They had an on-again, off-again relationship, Katherine Russell and Tamerlan, and that was at a different period in about 2009, but over the years that they knew Tamerlan, and they knew him through Katherine, they say that, you know, he had really changed a lot. That he had started off in 2007 sort of partying with them – he would smoke, and he would drink – and then sometime around 2008, they say he became very religious, and he stopped smoking, and he stopped drinking, and he stopped going out with them. And it was at that point that they say he demanded that Katherine also convert to Islam and cover herself.