Sources: New Clues to 'Frustrated' Boston Suspect

Glenn DePriest/Getty Images(MOSCOW) -- Just over a month after Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed during a standoff with police, investigators said they have begun to piece together a picture of what he did during a six-month visit last year to Dagestan, a volatile region in southern Russia that is home to Tsarneav's parents as well as a violent struggle with Islamist insurgency.

American investigators believe Tsarnaev traveled to Dagestan seeking to make contact with militant groups, but for reasons that remain unclear, he was either unable or unwilling to join their ranks.

As they peel back the layers of the man accused of working with his younger brother to set off a pair of bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon April 15, investigators said they are finding a frustrated young man who felt out of place in the United States.

They said Tsarnaev appears to have been largely self-radicalized before arriving in Dagestan in search of a lifestyle that may not have met his expectations either, according to U.S. officials close to or briefed on the investigation. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The officials described Tsarnaev as a typical lone wolf.

While Tsarnaev's radicalization appears to have deepened during his time in Dagestan, investigators have not found a particular contact there or a "manifesto" on his computer or elsewhere that would explain why he and his younger brother Dzhokhar allegedly placed bombs at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, the officials said. Hours after Tamerlan was killed in the police shootout, Dzhokhar was apprehended and remains in custody.

While officials stressed the investigation is still ongoing, they have also found no signs that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was affiliated with an international terror organization like al Qaeda. Similarly, they have found no evidence to suggest he was directed to strike the U.S. by anyone he met in Dagestan. They have not found any signs of suspicious contacts during Tsarnaev's trips to visit his father's family in Chechnya, which has also battled an Islamist insurgency, and probes into Tsarnaev's father's rumored ties to Chechen security officials have also not revealed anything of concern, the officials said.

Tsarnev's closest known militant contact in Dagestan appears to have been a young man named Mahmud Mansur Nidal, officials said. The two were often seen together leaving a Salafist mosque, popular with fighters, in Makhachkala.

But while Nidal eventually went off to join a militant group -- what locals call going "into the forest" -- investigators say they have uncovered no evidence that Tsarnaev joined him. Nidal would eventually be killed in a police raid after returning to visit family.

Tsarnaev had also been in touch over the internet with a Russian-Canadian convert to Islam and suspected militant named William Plotnikov, but officials say they have no evidence to suggest the two ever met in person. Contrary to previous reporting, investigators say they do not believe Tsarnaev dropped off the map after Plotnikov was killed by police in July, shortly before Tsarnaev left Russia to return to the United States.

Investigators have also taken a hard look at Magomed Kartashov, Tsarnaev's distant cousin and the founder and leader of a Islamist group called the Union of the Just. The group is anti-American and campaigns for the application of Sharia, or Islamic law.

The cousins met several times during Tsarnaev's stay in Dagestan. Kartashov's lawyer, Patimat Abdullaeva, told ABC News by phone that the two did discuss religion, but she insisted Tsarnaev was the one with extremist views. Kartashov is in prison for an unrelated matter -- waving an Islamist flag during a wedding procession -- but his lawyer says Russian investigators have interviewed him there about his interactions with Tsarnaev.

Magomed Magomedov, another member of Union for the Just, told ABC News he also saw Tsarnaev several times last year, at the mosque and around Makhachkala, but could not remember their discussions about religion. He described Tsarnaev as being aloof and out of place in Dagestan.

"He was sticking out, it was obvious he is not local. He liked to draw attention with his expensive and fancy clothes. His haircut was something no one has seen before," he said.

That description matches the picture that investigators are painting of Tsarnaev. They said when Tsarnaev arrived in Dagestan, his flashy appearance and demeanor immediately set him apart.

He also apparently drew attention to himself by claiming to know more about Islam than he really did. According to investigators, Tsarnaev would often recite things he had read or seen on the Internet, often confusing those he was trying to impress.

"He was driving people crazy," one official said.

The officials said he was not as strict a practitioner of Islam as he claimed to be.

While his younger brother and alleged co-conspirator Dzhokhar has been described as the family pothead, one official said Tamerlan was also fond of marijuana, spending hours high on the couch in Massachusetts where he did not have a steady job.

The FBI has met with Tsarnaev's parents at least once. Officials said they are still planning to meet with nine or 10 other individuals, including with Tsarnaev's extended family, childhood friends, and contacts at the mosque. Those meetings were described as "tying up loose ends" rather than suspicious leads.

The American officials praised the unusual level of cooperation they've received from their Russian counterparts.

Often that relationship is plagued by lingering Cold War-era mistrust, but officials described how both sides have poured over linkage maps together, with the Russians sharing their knowledge and analysis, even suggesting individuals that the American side may want to interview. That, they say, is different from the past when the Russians offered little more than terse responses to American requests for information.

Indeed, that mistrust may have hindered early attempts to investigate Tsarnaev in 2011, when Russia asked the United States to look into what it suspected were Tsarnaev's plans to join extremist groups abroad. The FBI found nothing to support those claims, but said Russia did not follow up when the bureau asked for more information. That communication gap has become a target for a group of American lawmakers who plan to visit Russia next week to investigate the bombing.

"If there was a distrust, or lack of cooperation because of that distrust, between the Russian intelligence and the FBI, then that needs to be fixed and we will be talking about that," Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), the chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs' Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia and Emerging Threats who is leading the Congressional delegation, told ABC News by telephone.

While the officials described their cooperation with the Russians as "unprecedented," they grumbled privately that they have been unable to do a methodical step-by-step investigation like they are used to doing in the U.S., or even in other countries where they have long-standing cooperation. American investigators from the FBI have been unable to travel to Dagestan without permission from the Russian authorities.

Still, they insist they have been able to confirm much of what they have been told by Russian government officials from what one official vaguely described as "other channels."

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

Families, Colleagues Honor Fallen Special Ops Soldiers

iStockphoto/Thinkstock(FORT BRAGG, N.C.) -- Nineteen new names were chiseled into the black granite face of the U.S. Army Special Operations Command Fallen Soldiers Memorial at Fort Bragg, N.C. Thursday.

A squall washed over dozens of “Gold Star” relatives -- so named for the small banners that adorn windows of homes where a loved one perished fighting overseas -- who lined up to lay a red rose at the base of the wall in memory of those lost over the past year.

The most recent fallen, who mostly died in counter-terrorism operations, join a union of 1,151 other Army special operations forces soldiers killed in missions over the past 60 years.

It is an annual ritual at the Army’s home of the elite soldiers who increasingly are bearing the brunt of combat casualties as surge troops withdraw from Afghanistan ahead of 2014.

“We will remember through children named after fallen friends, stones laid in their honor, building and street names, books written, tattoos inked, and ribbons and pins worn,” Army Lt. Gen. Charles Cleveland, the command’s top officer, told hundreds gathered in the rain.

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

Missing University of Rhode Island Student Found in North Carolina

Pennsylvania State Police(PHILADELPHIA) -- Missing University of Rhode Island student Matthew Royer has been located unharmed in North Carolina, according to authorities and his family, but how he got there remains a mystery.

Royer, 21, had been last seen on May 16 on the University of Rhode Island campus. The college junior had moved out of his apartment and returned the keys, according to ABC News' Philadelphia station WPVI.

Royer was on his way home to Skippack Township, Pa., for the summer where his family was waiting for him. He was supposed to report for work at a golf course the day after he returned home, but when he did not show up, his family reported him missing.

Royer was located on Thursday but details about what took him to North Carolina have not been released.

"The family requests that the media not contact them nor reveal his location as they wish to consider this a private and closed matter," Pennsylvania State Police said in a statement.

Royer was reunited with family members at an undisclosed location, according to ABC station WPVI.

"I had figured someone took him prisoner or something," Royer's grandfather Thomas Scully told ABC News Friday. "We were searching for him. We were afraid."

Scully, 91, said he did not know why Royer went to North Carolina or how he got there, but called his grandson a "bright kid."

"His mother knows where he is and he's alright," a relieved Scully said. "We don't know what he's doing now. He's making his own world."

After Royer was reported missing, authorities determined that he made it within about 30 miles of his Pennsylvania home before falling off the grid.

Royer sent a text message to his mother, Janet Royer, at around 6 p.m. on Thursday to say that he had overslept and was "about to leave."

From there, surveillance footage, debit card use and cell phone tower pings showed Royer stopping at a gas station in Rhode Island at 6:30 p.m., and near Allentown, Pa., at 2 a.m. on Friday and stopping at a gas station about 35 miles from his home a short time later, according to his family and authorities.

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

Three Injured After I-5 Bridge Collapse Sends Cars into Water

Stephen Brashear/Getty Images(MOUNT VERNON, Wash.) -- Three people were sent to the hospital after a portion of an Interstate 5 highway bridge in Mount Vernon, Wash., collapsed Thursday, dumping two vehicles and a travel trailer into the icy water, authorities said.

The three people were rescued from the Skagit River by first responders and taken to local hospitals with non-life-threatening injuries.

Officials located a semi-truck believed to have hit several girders on the four-lane bridge just before the collapse. The driver remained on the scene and was cooperating with investigators, Washington State Patrol Chief John Batiste said at a press conference early Friday morning.

"We're looking at the cause being an oversized, over-height vehicle, striking critical portions of this bridge, causing it to collapse," said Travis Phelps of the Washington State Department of Transportation and Washington State Patrol.

The National Transportation Safety Board will arrive Friday to investigate the collapse.

The collapse occurred on the portion of Interstate 5 over the Skagit River, about 60 miles north of Seattle.

The vehicles plunged about 40 feet from the bridge into the river, which set off a massive rescue operation.

Helicopter footage from ABC News affiliate KOMO-TV showed several rescue boats in the Skagit River with several ambulances waiting on the shore.

The bridge, built in 1955, was not considered structurally deficient, but was listed as "functionally obsolete" -- a category indicating an outdated design, such as having narrow shoulders and low clearance underneath, according to a database compiled by the Federal Highway Administration.

Federal records show it had a sufficiency rating of 57 out of 100, meaning it's in need of repairs. The bridge was inspected twice last year, most recently in November, and repairs were made, according to Washington Transportation Secretary Lynn Peterson

Clean-up efforts will take several days to weeks, according to Phelps. The bridge sees 77,000 cars per day, and Phelps said they were expecting significant congestion until the bridge is fixed.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee told reporters that one in five bridges in Washington have a rating of "functional obsolescence," which he described as "troubling." Inslee acknowledged the bridge collapse is going to cause a headache for tens of thousands of drivers.

"This is the aorta, the arterial of commerce for western Washington and we will ask all Washingtonians to help us avoid traffic problems," he said.

I-5 is the longest interstate highway on the West Coast, running from the Mexican border all the way north to Canada.

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

Jodi Arias Jury Foreman: '18 Days of Testimony Hurt Her'

ABC News(PHOENIX) -- The man in charge of the jury that convicted Jodi Arias of murder, but could not reach agreement on whether her life should be spared, described the process as "gut-wrenching" and said he and his fellow jurors struggled to contain their emotions.

"We couldn't allow ourselves to be emotional on the stand," jury foreman William Zervakos said Friday on ABC’s Good Morning America. "We couldn't allow ourselves to show emotion [but] it was a different story when we got back into the jury room."

Some of the most emotional moments during the five-month trial came over the 18 days when Arias, 32, took the stand and described her relationship with Travis Alexander, the ex-boyfriend whom she was convicted last week of stabbing and shooting to death in 2008.

Arias pled for her life also during the sentencing phase of the trial, but Zervakos says her long stint on the stand didn't help her case, especially when she was cross-examined by the prosecutor.

"I think 18 days hurt her. I think she was not a good witness...I think the way the prosecutor was with her, he's known for an aggressive style. I think it'd be difficult for anybody," Zervakos said. "I don't think I want to sit on the stand for 18 days."

"We're charged with going in presuming innocence, right, but she was on the stand for so long. I don't think it did her any good," Zervakos added. "There were so many contradicting stories."

Arias had been branded a liar by the prosecution because she initially denied killing Alexander, then claimed two years later that she killed him in self-defense, citing Alexander's physical and emotional abuse.

Zervakos, for one, believed Arias' story that she was abused in the relationship, but not that she killed Alexander in self-defense.

"I'm very sure in my own mind that she was mentally and verbally abused," he said. "Now is that an excuse? Of course not. Does it factor into the decisions that we make? It has to."

Arias' appearance -- from her blonde bombshell look while she was dating Alexander, to the more subdued look she presented in the courtroom with glasses, bangs and dark hair -- that captivated the media and the public throughout the trial, seemed to captivate the jurors inside the courtroom as well.

"When I looked in the courtroom for the first time and looked who the defendant was, it's hard to put that in perspective when you look at a young woman and think of the crime and then think of the brutality of the crime," Zervakos said. "It just doesn't wash so it's very difficult to divest yourself from the personal, from the emotional part of it."

After the jury's hung verdict was read Thursday, leaving the case still open, one juror mouthed, "I'm so sorry," toward Alexander's family and prosecutors.

Zervakos says he and other jurors struggled greatly with seeing Alexander's family every day in the courtroom.

"Until you're face-to-face with people that have gone through something like that, it's something you really can't put into words," he said on GMA. "I'm six feet away from somebody talking about a horrendous loss. If you can't feel that, then you have no emotion, no soul."

Arias' fate is now left up to the prosecutor, who will decide whether to retry the penalty phase. If he decides to try again for the death penalty, a new jury will be selected and both the prosecution and defense will present evidence and arguments over what sentence Arias should receive.

The retrial, in which Arias can either be sentenced to death or to life in prison, with or without the possibility of parole, would begin July 18.

The prosecutor's office has not yet decided what it plans to do.

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

DOD: Ft. Hood Massacre Likely 'Criminal Act of Single Individual,' Not International Terror

U.S. Government Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences via Getty Images(FORT HOOD, Texas) -- More than three years since a deadly domestic assault on American troops -- the 2009 Fort Hood massacre that claimed 13 lives, including that of a pregnant soldier -- a top Army attorney maintains that incident was likely a "criminal act of a single individual."

"...[T]he available evidence in this case does not, at this time, support a finding that the shooting at Fort Hood was an act of international terrorism," Lt. Gen. Dana Chipman said this week in a letter to Rep. Thomas Rooney (R-Fla.) on behalf of Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel.

The letter, obtained by ABC News, was apparently written in response to an inquiry from Rooney, Rep. Chaka Fatta (D-Penn.), and Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Virg.) sent to Hagel on May 6, which questioned whether concerns of "political correctness" informed the Army's decision to refer to the Fort Hood attack as an act of "workplace violence." Victims of the shooting have long maintained that calling the attack "workplace violence" instead of "combat related" or an act of terrorism has had a massive impact on the benefits and treatment they've received.

In the Fort Hood attack, Maj. Nidal Hasan stands accused of gunning down 13 soldiers and injuring 32 others in November 2009. After the assault, investigators uncovered evidence that Hasan was in communication with al Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki prior to the attack. Al-Awlaki was apparently such a threat that he has been the only American citizen ever targeted for a drone strike -- though three others have been collateral damage, according to President Obama.

Witnesses reportedly said Hasan shouted "Allahu Akbar," "God is Great" in Arabic, amid the chaos.

As reflected in Chipman's letter, the Department of Defense has consistently said that in addition to a supposed lack of evidence, it would be irresponsible to call the Fort Hood attack "terrorism" because it "may have a negative impact on the ongoing judicial process" for Hasan.

The letter also denied that the Defense Department had made a decision to classify the attack as "workplace violence" and said, "[N]o benefit has been denied to any of the victims based on any such classification" -- two claims to which the survivors object stringently.

Kimberly Munley, a police officer who was hailed as a hero for her role in stopping the alleged Fort Hood shooter, told ABC News Chipman's letter is "disgraceful" and "another direct slap in the face." Attorneys for Munley and most of the other Fort Hood victims called the letter's claims "counterfactual" and an "insult."

An attorney for several of the victims, Reed Rubinstein, said the Army's new letter is "worse than word games."

"The 'workplace violence' classification has been out there for years, and [the Army] has never walked it back," he said.

In 2010, part of then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates' response to the shooting was to "strengthen [the department's] policies, programs and procedures in... workplace violence." In October 2011, the Defense Department said it was reviewing the attack "in the context of a broader threat of workplace violence."

Rubinstein and his partner, Neil Sher, also said calling the attack "an alleged criminal act by a single individual" "rewrites history, consigning the government's admissions of Hasan's al-Qaeda ties… down a bureaucratic memory hole."

Munley said, "It is clear that the Army and the government will continue to not take responsibility for allowing a known terrorist to slip through the ranks while having multiple associations with the now-deceased Anwar al-Awlaki and has complete disregard for those injured on that horrifying day."

In Chipman's letter, she said the Army is willing to reconsider their classification of the event should "new, relevant evidence" arise.

"The Army's decision, in no way, diminishes the common goal of ensuring the victims are treated and cared for promptly and compassionately," the letter says. "Although we cannot undo the outcome of that day, taking care of those affected by the Fort Hood shooting... remains one of the Army's top priorities."

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

Paula Broadwell Apologizes for Affair with David Petraeus

ISAF via Getty Images(CHARLOTTE, N.C.) -- The woman at the center of the sex scandal that led to David Petraeus' resignation from the CIA has spoken publicly for the first time about the affair and apologized for the "harm" she caused to the families involved.

"I have remorse for the harm that this has caused, the sadness this has caused in my family and other families," Paula Broadwell said in her first interview with ABC News' affiliate WSOC in Charlotte, N.C., since news of the extramarital affair broke last November.

Broadwell met Petraeus, 60, while she was a graduate student at Harvard University and working on a dissertation about Petraeus. Broadwell wrote the biography on Petraeus titled All In: The Education of General David Petraeus. As Petraeus' personal biographer, she enjoyed tremendous access to the decorated war hero and former four-star general.

"I 'm the first to admit I've made mistakes, and I'm regretful for the pain I've caused, but at some point again you pick yourself up face forward and keep moving," Broadwell said.

Broadwell said it was support from loved ones that got her through the public scrutiny she faced in the aftermath of the affair. Broadwell, who lives in Charlotte with her husband and two kids, spends her time supporting veterans and wounded warriors.

"I'm blessed with family, community. That's been a great part of my rehabilitation ... and wonderful organizations that realize that even if you've made mistakes in life you can still contribute and pick up, dust off and move on," she said.

The extramarital affair was uncovered when Florida socialite Jill Kelley told an FBI agent that she received harassing emails from an unknown source. The emails eventually traced back to Broadwell and ultimately uncovered evidence of her affair with Petraeus.

Broadwell was stripped of her military security clearance after a federal probe alleged she was storing classified military material at her home.

"I'm not focused on the past," Broadwell said. "It was a devastating period for our family. We still have some healing to do. We're very focused on how can we continue to contribute and use this for the greater good to do something good in the next chapter."

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? Your Neighborhood Bear

iStockphoto/Thinkstock(DUARTE, Clif.) -- April showers may bring May flowers, but in the foothills of Southern California, you can also expect bears.

From May 1 to June 21, as grills fire up and tasty smells waft through the neighborhood, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife considers it "second bear season."

The department spokesman, Andrew Hughan, told ABC News that he expects to spot at least one bear a week for the next month.

So far, the bears have already been living up to his predictions. All around Southern California, news reports have shown bears climbing fences, spooking horses and roaming streets all in search of their next meal.

One woman in Duarte, Calif., came downstairs thinking there was a burglar in her home. Instead, she found a cub halfway through her kitchen window.

"You must have had something that smelled good in that kitchen," the 911 operator told the woman, who had barricaded herself in her bedroom bathroom, according to the 911 recording obtained by ABC News.

And that's the problem.

As bears eat more human food or garbage, or even the fish out of the koi pond, they become habituated to a human food source and less frightened of people, according to the California Department of Fish and Wild Life website. This could lead to a more tenacious and even aggressive bear.

"Once a bear's habituated, they cannot unlearn," Hughan told ABC News. "It's a death sentence."

That's because bears that stubbornly return time and again to scour the same neighborhood can be put down, according to the "black bear depredation policy" in California.

"We've moved bears 100 miles away and they'll come back... following the scent trails." Hughan said.
He added that one bear even came back to the very same trash can.

A bear's sense of smell is 100 times better than a bloodhound's and 1,000 times better than a human's. So residents need to be smart.

Bottom line: If we don't set the plate, bears will not come. Don't leave food outside, secure your trash bins, and even clean barbecue grills.

There are ways to live with the bear population that is both safe for us and safe for them. Perhaps it could even evolve into a mutually beneficial relationship.

The Living With Wildlife Foundation (LWWF) in Montana works with bears at the Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center wildlife park that can no longer live in the wild because they were orphaned young or habituated.

Patti Sowka, director of the LWWF, told ABC News that the bears can assist companies by testing "bear-proof" products filled with anything from huckleberry jam to muskrat castor oil to see if the items can live up to the product guarantee -- a real-world take on quality control.

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

List of Top New Species Includes Glow-in-the-Dark Cockroach, New Monkey

intl. Inst. for Species Exploration at Arizona State Univ.(PHOENIX) -- What's new in animal species? Plenty, according to the sixth annual Top 10 list by the Institute at Arizona State University that includes everything from a glow-in-the-dark cockroach to an "Old World" monkey with a bright blue buttocks.

"Through the top 10, we are really just trying to raise awareness about how many species there are on the planet," Quentin Wheeler, founding director of the International Institute for Species Exploration (IISE), told ABC News. "On average, 18,000 species a year are discovered. That sounds like a lot, but it really isn't."

Wheeler said there are an estimated 10 to 12 million living species, but only about 2 million have been discovered. This year's top 10 list was whittled down from more than 140 nominees.

While the institute simply compiles a list, "These discoveries are actually made by professionals and amateurs around the world," he said.

The 2013 release by the IISE showcases, among many impressive things, the discovery of the world's smallest vertebrate -- a tiny, 7 millimeter frog found in Papua, New Guinea. An image released by the institute shows the frog taking up about a third of the space on the face of a U.S. dime. The largest known vertebrate in the world is the blue whale, measuring 85 feet long.

A new type of luminescent (or glow-in-the-dark) cockroach specimen was discovered in Ecuador. Though the species may have already been extinct for some time, Wheeler said it's believed that the cockroach would mimic the toxic luminescent clicking beetle to ward off predators. This cockroach is one of more than a dozen species of luminescent cockroaches discovered since 1999.

Another fascinating finding was a new species of monkey, the lesula, only the second new species of monkey to be discovered in Africa in the last 28 years. The IISE said the lesula has been known to the people of Congo, where it was discovered by scientists, but the species was never recorded. This species of monkey has eyes that observers say look human, with brown coloring, and males have large, bare patches of skin on the buttocks and testicles that is a brilliant blue.

But the most interesting discovery may be that of the Semachrysa jade -- a green lacewing. What is believed to be the first ever photo of the insect was taken by Malaysian photographer Hock Ping Guek, though unbeknownst to him at the time. A California scientist happened upon the image of the lacewing on Guek's Flickr and asked him to mail the specimen to London's Natural History Museum where it was eventually identified registered as a new species.

Wheeler explained to ABC News that some scientists are predicting half of the world's species could be gone by the end of the century (a type of extinction that last happened at the time of the dinosaurs), so furthering these discoveries and spreading interest through the yearly top 10 list is important.

In a statement attached to this year's list of species, Wheeler pressed the urgency of exploring now: "We are calling for a NASA-like mission to discover 10 million species in the next 50 years. This would lead to discovering countless options for a more sustainable future while securing evidence of the origins of the biosphere."

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

Teen Wins ‘Doodle 4 Google’ Contest with Heartfelt Reunion Drawing

Sabrina Brady/Google(NEW YORK) -- The instructions were plain and simple: Draw your “best day ever.” Sabrina Brady did just that and it’s landed her quite literally front and center in all of Google’s glory.

Brady, 17,  was crowned the national champion of the site’s fourth ever Doodle 4 Google contest on Wednesday.  Students in grades K-12 from all over the country submit their artwork to the competition, hoping to see their masterpiece intertwined with Google’s iconic homepage logo.

Brady, a senior at Wisconsin’s Sparta High School, scored the top prize for her work titled “Coming Home.” The illustration shows her racing into her dad’s arms upon his return from an 18-month deployment in Iraq.

After reviewing thousands of entries submitted over a two-month period, Google selected finalists from every state in the country and asked users to vote for their favorite.

“Her creative use of the Google letters to illustrate this heartfelt moment clearly resonated with voters across the country and all of us at Google,” Doodle team leader Ryan Germick wrote in a blog post after announcing Brady the winner.

Brady doesn’t just get to showcase her masterpiece on Google’s homepage display; she also won a $30,000 college scholarship, a Chromebook computer and a $50,000 technology grant for her school, according to the tech giant. Google says Brady will attend the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in the fall.

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio