If they had just dialed 911…

FBI Agent Rick DesLauriers knew within hours of the Boston bombings what would break the case.

“Somebody out there knows these individuals as friends, neighbors, coworkers,” said DesLauriers. “Though, it may be difficult, the nation is counting on those with information to come forward and provide it to us.”

Apparently, it was too difficult for the three young men now under arrest for trying to protect their friend.

The FBI says it was at 8:43 p.m. on April 18, three hours and 43 minutes after the pictures of Suspects 1 and 2 were released, that one of the three sent Dzhokhar Tsarnaev a text saying it looks like you. Just joking around of course.

But when the three went to Dzhokhar’s dorm room to watch a movie – they saw the backpack, with seven red tubular fireworks inside, and no one was laughing.

By the time they got back to their own apartment, Dzhokhar’s name was all over the news. And that’s when according to the FBI, two of them decided to put the backpack, the fireworks, and Dzhokhar’s laptop into a black trash bag with their own garbage, and dump it.

As it turned out, they didn’t get all the evidence. Not even close. The FBI didn’t need the evidence they tried to hide. When agents searched Tsarnaev’s dorm room three days later, they found BB’s, more fireworks, and what appeared to be the same jacket and white hat he’d been seen wearing the day of the bombings.

And now the lives of these three 19-year-olds are upside down when all they had to do was call 911.