Friend Of Marathon Bombing Suspect Killed In Orlando

ORLANDO (CBSMiami) – A friend of one of the two brothers suspected in the Boston Marathon bombings was shot to death early Wednesday morning in Orlando.

The shooting happened just after midnight in an apartment complex just north of the Universal Studios theme park when FBI agents went to the apartment of the man, Ibrahim Todashev, to question him, according to former FBI assistant director and CBS News correspondent John Miller.

"I heard somebody scream and say get away from me or something like that," said Cristina Carvahlo.

Carvalho said she heard gunfire which sounded like it came from the direction of Todashev's apartment.

"I just heard like a pop and then about a minute later another pop. I thought maybe fireworks or something of it. I didn't think much of it," said neighbor Gary Campagne.

Sources told CBS4 that Todashev was killed after lunged at an FBI agent with a knife. This reportedly happened while he was being questioned by the FBI and the Massachusetts state police. Originally, the FBI said an agent fired the deadly shot when Todashev started a violent confrontation. Later they backed off that statement and would not confirm who fired the deadly shot.

According to Todashev's roommate, Khusen Tamarov, the FBI wanted to know about how he knew about Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarneav.

"Back when he used to live in Boston, they used to hang out, not hang out, he knew him, like he met a few times, because he was an MMA fighter, the other guy (Tsarnaev) was a boxer, they just knew each other," said Tamarov.

Tamarov said Todashev and Tsarnaev talked several times on the phone.

"He (Todashev) had been interviewed along with a number of other people in the apartment complex, but the interest in him was higher because of a couple of factors: He was in contact with Tamerlan Tsarnaev. He had been to Boston to visit him, and he was planning a trip to Chechnya," Miller said.

Tamarov said the FBI had been following both of them after Tsarnaev and his brother Dzhokhar were indentified as the bombing suspects.

"The FBI started following him, started asking him questions 'Why you guys, what kind of connection do you have with them'. They try to like make a connection between them, but there's no connection, no connection, I know for sure," said Tamarov.

Todashev's neighbor said he noticed that someone was scoping out the parking lot recently, he just didn't know why and was shocked to hear his neighbor was the target.

"We would see things like unmarked vehicles, we'd see people we had never seen before just sitting in parking spaces, kind of an uncomfortable surveillance look to them," said Jason Hays.

In addition to questions about Tsarnaev, investigators reportedly wanted to know what Todashev knew about a triple murder in Waltham, near Boston, in 2011. Federal investigators say Tamerlan Tsarnaev knew one of the men who died – all had their throats slit.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed in a shootout with police in the days after the marathon bombings.

His younger brother, Dzhokhar, remains in federal custody awaiting trial for the bombing, which killed three people and injured more than 260 others.

CBS News contributed to this report.