The body of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev was claimed Thursday, an official said.

A funeral home retained by Tsarnaev's family picked up the 26-year-old's remains Thursday, said Terrel Harris, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Department of Public Safety. He had no more information.

The medical examiner determined Tsarnaev's cause of death Monday, but officials said it wouldn't become public until his remains were released and a death certificate was filed. It was unclear Thursday evening whether the death certificate had been filed.

Tsarnaev's widow, Katherine Russell, who has been living in Rhode Island, learned this week that the medical examiner was ready to release his body and wanted it released to his side of the family, her attorney Amato DeLuca said days ago.

Tsarnaev's uncle Ruslan Tsarni, of Maryland, said Tuesday night the family would take the body.

"Of course, family members will take possession of the body," Tsarni said. "We'll do it. We will do it. A family is a family."

Tsarnaev, who after the marathon bombing had appeared in surveillance photos wearing a black cap and identified as Suspect No. 1, died following a gunfight with authorities who had launched a massive manhunt for him.

The April 15 bombing, near the marathon's finish line, killed three people and injured more than 260 others. Authorities said Tsarnaev and his younger brother later killed a Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus police officer and carjacked a driver, who escaped.

Authorities said the Tsarnaev brothers during the gunfight with police set off a pressure cooker bomb and tossed grenades before the older brother ran of ammunition.

Police said they tackled the older brother and began to handcuff him but had to dive out of the way at the last second when the younger brother, 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, drove a stolen car at them. They said the younger brother then ran over his brother's body as he drove away from the scene to escape.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was captured later, wounded and bloody, hiding in a tarp-covered boat in a suburban Boston backyard. He is in a federal prison and faces a charge of using a weapon of mass destruction to kill.

The Tsarnaev brothers' mother insists the allegations against them are lies.