Sunil Tripathi Not Boston Marathon Bombing Suspect
Sunil Tripathi was reported by some as Boston bombing suspect number two on Thursday night. Tripathi is a 22-year-old Brown University student who went missing mysteriously on March 16.
Tripathi, of Indian origin, was first suggested as a suspect for Monday’s Boston Marathon bombings on Reddit and then later by the Twitter account of Kami Mattioli, who knew the college student when he was in high school.
But the reports of Tripathi’s involvement in the bombings, which killed three people and wounded more than 160 more, are false. Instead, the Associated Press reported on Friday morning that the suspects are actually two brothers from Russia who have been inside the United States for about one year.
The FBI released photographs of both bombing suspects on Thursday afternoon in a plea for the public’s help to identify them. The suspects were later spotted in a robbery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. From there, the two men, who are reportedly brothers from a region near Chechnya, shot and killed a MIT campus police officer.
The two suspects led police on a chase through the city of Watertown, Massachusetts. Suspect number one, incorrectly identified as Michael Mulugeta by multiple sources, was shot and also received injuries that could have been from a bomb or IED. The man was rushed to Beth Israel Hospital in Boston where he was pronounced dead early Friday morning.
But, despite rumors that Sunil Tripathi was a Boston Bombing suspect, the 22-year-old from Providence, Rhode Island, remains missing. The search has been difficult and even involved the FBI. But despite pooling resources, Providence Police Detective Mark Sacco commented that they have no leads.
The former Brown student had been working through personal problems and was temporarily kicked out of Brown. He left his apartment in the city without his cellphone, credit card, ID, and other personal effects. The effort to find Sunil Tripathi has involved social media including his Twitter account, @findingsunny.
