Police: Body recovered from Genesee River was missing UR professor
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The body recovered from the Genesee River on Tuesday has been identified as missing University of Rochester professor Heikki Rantakari, Rochester police said Wednesday afternoon.
In a news release, the Rochester Police Department said that the investigation into Rantakari's death did not indicate any signs of criminal activity.
The Monroe County Medical Examiner's Office has not determined his cause of death, said Capt. Greg Bello of the Rochester Police Department.
Rantakari, 44, was reported missing last week after he failed to show up for a class he taught at the University of Rochester Simon School of Business on Oct. 21. Family and colleagues described him as reliable and hard-working and said his disappearance was out of character.
On Friday, police announced that they believed Rantakari fell into the river from a pedestrian bridge at the end of Bragdon Place early on Oct. 21. RPD's scuba team searched the river for two days but did not locate him.
University of Rochester said in a statement that Rantakari is "presumed to have accidentally drowned" as a result from the fall.
Who was Heikki Rantakari?
Rantakari was an associate professor of economics and management at UR's Simon Business School, according to the university website. He lived in the Boston-area, but commuted to Rochester regularly. He worked at UR since 2015, according to university officials.
In Boston, he was also a visiting associate professor (in applied economics) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he also attended university, according to MIT's website.
Rantakari arrived at his rental on Exchange Street on the evening of Oct. 20 and was last seen there that evening, according to his family and police.
The pedestrian bridge at Bragdon Place is about two miles from the rental where Rantakari stayed. His body was recovered from the river, near the Inner Loop on Tuesday.
Police continue to investigate the incident.
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Heikki Rantakari body recovered from Genesee River in Rochester NY
