Sunil Tripathi also known as the missing a Brown University student who disappeared last month, and who was misidentified as a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings was finally found dead near Providence, R.I. His family’s statement: “On April 23, our beloved Sunil was discovered in the waters off India Point Park in Providence.”
He’d been missing since March 16th, after taking a leave from Brown and reportedly leaving his apartment without his wallet. When he did not return, his family set about a round-the-clock search, temporarily moving to Providence to work with the police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation in hopes of finding him.
Last Thursday, shortly after the F.B.I. released grainy surveillance photographs of the two men they believed were the Boston bombers, some Internet users began to speculate that Sunil might be one of them. So like all viral rumors, his missing person was raised in awareness as police pursued the suspects. News vans started to stake out the Tripathis’s family home in Bryn Mawr, Pa., and reporters would make dozens of calls to the family’s cellphones.
Lo’ and behold, everybody was wrong and now this grieving family’s only consolation is a buttload of apologies from everyone including Apologies the online forum Reddit, where users had doggedly pursued the rumor. See why rumors are bad? We should learn from this.
