BOSTON -- The dispute over where to bury suspected Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev escalated 19 days after his death as a police chief urged someone to step forward with a cemetery plot, saying: "We are not barbarians. We bury the dead."

The plea from Worcester Police Chief Gary Gemme came a day after he said that a deal struck Monday to bury the 26-year-old's remains at a state prison site had dissolved, with state officials no longer offering co-operation. State corrections officials didn't immediately return a phone message Wednesday.

Police said it's costing the department tens of thousands of dollars to provide security at the funeral home that is holding Tsarnaev's body. Gemme said sending the body to Russia, Tsarnaev's homeland, is "not an option."

Boston Mayor Thomas Menino has said through an aide that he didn't want the bombing suspect buried in the city. Worcester funeral home director Peter Stefan has said none of the 120 offers of graves from the U.S. and Canada have worked out because officials in those cities and towns don't want the body either.

Authorities allege Tsarnaev and his brother carried out the April 15 bombings near the marathon's finish line, using pressure cookers packed with explosives, nails, ball bearings and metal shards. The attack killed three and injured more than 260.

Tamerlan died following a gunbattle with police, and authorities captured 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev after a massive manhunt. The younger brother is now in a prison hospital, facing charges that could bring the death penalty.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev's body was released by the state medical examiner May 1 and has been in limbo since then.

An expert in U.S. burial law said the resistance to Tsarnaev's burial is unprecedented in a country that has always found a way to put to rest its notorious killers, from Lee Harvey Oswald, who shot President John F. Kennedy, to Adam Lanza, who gunned down 20 children and six educators at Connecticut school last year.

"It's very unusual that people are so fixated on this," said Tanya Marsh, a Wake University professor. "There are a lot of evil people buried in marked graves in the United States. Traditionally, in the United States, ... when somebody dies, that's the end of their punishment."

In Russia, officials aren't commenting after Tsarnaev's mother said authorities won't allow her son's body into the country so she can bury him in her native Dagestan. The Foreign Ministry in Moscow referred questions to the Russian Embassy in Washington, which referred questions back to the Foreign Ministry.

A solution may be found in Massachusetts law, which requires a community to provide a place to bury someone "dying within its limits."

U.S. law enforcement officials have been trying to determine whether Tamerlan Tsarnaev was indoctrinated or trained by militants during a 2012 visit to Dagestan, a Russian province that has become the centre of a simmering Islamic insurgency.

The U.S. and Russia have been collaborating on a criminal investigation into the brothers.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev's widow hired a criminal lawyer with experience defending terrorism cases as she continued to face questions from federal authorities, attorney Amato DeLuca said Wednesday. He said his client Katherine Russell has added Joshua Dratel to her legal team.

An FBI spokeswoman wouldn't comment when asked whether Russell is co-operating.

DeLuca has said Russell had no reason to suspect her husband and his brother in the bombing.