Pictures of Sunil Tripathi, missing student
"The last eighteen hours have generated tremendous and painful attention--on social media platforms Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit, as well as from television media inquiries--linking Sunil to the video stills released by the FBI yesterday afternoon," a family statement said.
"Unequivocally, we have known that neither individual suspected as responsible for the incident in Boston was Sunil," said Akhil Tripathi, Sunil's father.
The Tripathi family expressed their sympathies for victims and others affected by the cowardly acts of violence in the Boston community.
Sunil Tripathi went missing from Providence, R.I., 34 days ago. The family had temporarily removed the Facebook page publicizing Sunil Tripathi's disappearance after the Boston accusations arose.
Sunil Tripathi, 22, went missing March 16. Surveillance video shows a man walking south on Brook Street near his apartment on March 16 at about 1:30 a.m., about 20 minutes after his last-recorded computer activity.
The man on the video is tall and skinny and is wearing a black cap, dark jacket and jeans, matching Sunil Tripathi's description.
"It's nothing definitive, unfortunately, but it does provide us a better timeline and direction that he possibly could have gone," said Sunil Tripathi's brother, Ravi.
Sunil Tripathi graduated from Radnor High School. A philosophy major, he had taken a year off to figure out his future. His family says he suffered from depression but seemed fine. A short, cryptic note left in his room didn't provide investigators with any direction.
"He's in contact with multiple family members probably every day so this is incredibly unusual and out of the ordinary. It's not something that we even would have expected. It has taken us all by surprise," said Ravi in late March.
Sunil Tripathi's family traveled to Providence to help police and the FBI with the expanding investigation. Social media had generated widespread attention to the case.
WPVI-TV and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
