An ex-girlfriend of late Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev said the Chechnya native acted like a "bully" in high school but appeared harmless.

Nadine Ascencao, 25, spoke to The Wall Street Journal on Monday about her relationship with one of the men suspected of planting bombs at the Boston Marathon on April 15, which killed three people and injured more than 140. She said Tsarnaev as an adolescent was sometimes eager to come across as intimidating to his peers, but she never would have thought he would be involved in something like the April 15 attacks.

"When I was in high school he wasn't like that at all," said Ascencao, a Brookline, Mass., native who said she dated Tsarnaev, 26. Court records said was also the woman who accused Tsarnaev of slapping her in July of 2009.

Ascencao once lived with Tsarnaev and said he did not appear to be capable of "anything major."

"He was a little tough guy, but I thought that was it," she said. "In high school, everybody acts like that. Like a bully guy, you know? He was just like a normal person that sometimes like wanted to scare kids in high school but that was it.... He was a little tough guy, but I thought that was it."

Ascencao was "disgusted" by Tsarnaev's alleged part in the Boston Marathon bombings and "didn't cry or anything" when she found out he died, Daily Mail reported, citing the Ascencao's interview.

She reportedly refused to speak to the publication about the 2009 slapping incident, but police records show she told authorities that Tsarnaev slapped her during an argument about another woman at his house in Cambridge. Ascencao said she was "beat up by her boyfriend," according to the arrest report. Tsarnaev admitted to slapping hit and was arrested on charges of assault and battery, which were then dismissed before trial.

Eleven months after the slapping incident and filed complaint, Tsarnaev reportedly married Katherine Russell. The now widow has a 3-year-old daughter from Tsarnaev named Zahara.

Tamerlan died late Thursday, April 18, following a shootout with police. The second suspect in the bombing incident, his 19-year-old brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, is being treated at a hospital and was charged Monday.

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