Dzhokar Tsarnaev deleted his Instagram account before April 15, 2013, the day he and his brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev, planted the bomb that exploded at the Boston Marathon, killing three people and injuring hundreds.

Sources close to Dzhokar Tsarnaev confirmed to CNN that the deleted Instagram account was the bombing suspect’s. It has the username, “jmaister1,” and it no longer exists. Many of Tsarnaev’s friend said that the account was deleted only recently. A spokesman from Instagram, which is now owned by Facebook, declined to comment on the account or disclose when the account was deleted.

CNN’s National Security Analyst Juliette Kayyem said that the deleted Instagram account could be significant.

She said, "If I were an investigator right now, obviously the platform he deleted matters the most."

Traces of the deleted jmaister1 account were still visible this week in Google’s Web cache and on other sites that archive internet data. Digital sleuths and cyber investigators use such sites to find glimpses of deleted material.

Tech entrepreneur and programmer Sam Altman explained to CNN the nature of such sites. "It's exactly like an archive. So no matter what changes were made to the page today, on the current server, Google has this sort of imprint from a couple of weeks ago."

Tsarnaev’s complete account could not be recovered by such tools, since Google’s cache stores pages it indexes for different lengths of time – sometimes it will store cached data for days, sometimes for weeks.

The digital traces that remain show Tsarnaev added a “like” on several photos pertaining to Chechnya that were posted by other Instagram users. One reveals Chechen warlord Shamil Basayaev, a onetime government official who later masterminded terrorist attack against Russia. The warlord was killed in 2006.

Another image that Tsarnaev liked was a pro-Chechnya image that carries a numerous hashtags including #FreeChechenia #Jihad #Jannah #ALLAH #Jesus and #God. An expert on Chechnya consulted by CNN said that the images illustrated a familiarity with Chechen politics and iconography.

Dzhokar Tsarnaev’s now deleted Instagram account wasn’t widely known. A number of friends that CNN interviewed regarding the matter said that they were unaware of the account’s existence. Two of Tsarnaev’s high-school classmates, however, confirmed that he uses the account to keep in touch with a close-knit group of friends.

Since Tsarnaev’s Instagram account was deleted, little of what his activities on the web application remains publicly visible. Kayyem expects investigators to take a closer look at what they can reconstruct from whatever data available.

According to Instagram’s term of service, it will turn its records over to law enforcement officials, provided it receives a subpoena or search warrant.