Boston stories: the cowboy hat hero, the chilling child killing

He had gone to the marathon to honor his dead sons. By the end of the day, Carlos Arredondo was a hero -- the guy in the cowboy hat pictured helping a man in a wheelchair whose legs had been blown off.

Here’s how Michael Daly of The Daily Beast described the situation:

“Arredondo remained at the scene, still wearing buttons bearing photos of his two sons that he had affixed to the chest of his sweatshirt before coming to the race. The older one, Alexander, had been just 20 when he was killed serving with the Marines in Iraq. The younger son, Brian, subsequently hanged himself.

“The marathon is on Patriots’ Day, and Arredondo had come to hand out American flags in the memory of his sons and the others who have lost their lives as result of the war on terror that was supposed to help keep us safe. ‘I hand out 200!’ he reported.

“He had only one flag left when the bombs went off, and it had become soaked in blood as he helped the young man. ‘Look at the flag, all bleeding,’ Arredondo said.”

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The death of 8-year-old Martin Richard is made all the more tragic by the details.

He came to watch his father run the marathon and waited on the sidelines. As Boston Globe columnist Kevin Cullen describes the scene: “He had gone out to hug his dad after he crossed the finish line. The dad walked on; the boy went back to the sidewalk to join his mom and his little sister. And then the bomb went off. The boy was killed. His sister’s leg was blown off. His mother was badly injured. 
"That’s just one ­family, one story.”