The body of a young man that was pulled out of Providence River in Rhode Island on Tuesday could be that of missing Brown student Sunil Tripathi, who went missing on March 16th.
Tripathi’s family says he was acting normally during the days leading up to his disappearance, but hinted that he was going through a tough time, although just what that is hasn’t been reported. The 22-year old was falsely accused of being a suspect in the Boston bombings last week, shocking and enraging those who knew him.
“Someone will tweet, then retweet, and completely unsubstantiated things can proliferate so rapidly and destructively,” his sister, Sangeeta Tripathi, said. “Those night hours were horrible.”
The mystery of what happened to Tripathi will likely haunt his family if the body does indeed turn out to be his. They say he left his wallet and phone at his apartment, taking with him only a key and his glasses. After several text conversations with family members on a Friday night–in which he seemed normal–he didn’t respond to messages the next morning. What happened in the intervening hours is crucial, but if the body in the river turns out to be his, it’s likely it will not yield any answers. Officials say it appears to have been in the water for several days, if not weeks. An autopsy has yet to definitively reveal an identity.
Image: WPRI