Police reportedly recovered the body missing Brown University student Sunil Tripathi from the Providence River.
Authorities told the Boston Globe that it is "very possible" that the body they found on Tuesday is that of 22-year-old Tripathi, who has been missing since March 16. Tripathi was also in the news last week when Reddit - a social news and entertainment website- misidentified him as one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects. Later on in the week, the two suspects of the bombings were that of the Tsarnaev brothers, the New York Daily News reported.
Tripathi body was found in the river behind Wyndham Garden Providence Hotel at about 6 p.m. by the coach of Brown's rowing team. Hewas last seen near his apartment close to the university's campus. He was wearing blue jeans, an Eastern Mountain Sports ski jacket, glasses, and a Philadelphia Eagles hat. He had left his home without his wallet, cell phone or bicycle.
The medical examiner's office has yet to positively identify the body as Tripathi but Providence police told the newspaper on Tuesday that the man's parents were not yet notified of the body.
"We have apologized privately to the family of missing college student Sunil Tripathi, as have various users and moderators," the Reddit web site's general manager Erik Martin said in a statement after acknowledging that they misidentified Tripathi as a suspect.
"I'd like to extend the deepest apologies to the family of Sunil Tripathi for any part we may have had in relaying what has turned out to be faulty information. We cannot begin to know what you're going through and for that we are truly sorry. Several users, twitter users, and other sources had heard him identified as the suspect and believed it to be confirmed. We were mistaken."
The statement also said that - despite "noble intentions" - they fostered "dangerous speculation which spiraled into very negative consequences for innocent parties."
