Person of interest named in disappearance of Pitt student in Dominican Republic

Authorities have named a person of interest in their investigation of the disappearance of University of Pittsburgh student Sudiksha Konanki in the Dominican Republic.

Joshua Riibe, a U.S. citizen who was vacationing in Punta Cana at the same time Konanki was visiting on spring break, “may have been the last one to have seen her, so is of particular interest,” Chad Quinn, a spokesman for the sheriff’s office in Loudon County, Va., where Konanki resides, told TribLive.

Konanki, 20, was last seen Thursday morning at the Hotel Riu Republica.

About 4:15 a.m., surveillance cameras captured Konanki, five other women and two men heading to the nearby beach, the Dominican Republic National Police said in a statement to CNN. Cameras captured five women and one man — but not Konanki — leaving the beach just before 5 a.m., CNN said, citing two sources close to the investigation.

The search for Konanki continued Thursday. Authorities have used drones, helicopters and detection dogs to scour the waters off the island’s east coast where she supposedly was last seen, Civil Defense spokesman Jensen Sánchez told the Associated Press.

Quinn said the probe into Konanki’s disappearance is not considered a criminal investigation, and Riibe has not been deemed a suspect. Riibe is being termed a person of interest by the sheriff’s office in collaboration with the FBI, according to Quinn.

“A number of people have been interviewed by the Dominican National Police with the assistance of the FBI, and this is continuing,” Quinn told TribLive on Wednesday. “Our office will have a presence on the ground today, too.”

Dominican police have said they were reinterviewing people who had been with Konanki and employees of the hotel where they were staying.

Here is the latest on the investigation:

Drowning, other scenarios considered

While some officials have speculated Konanki might have drowned, her father, Subbarayudu Konanki, told WTOP-FM, a radio station serving the Washington, D.C., area, that he has asked investigators to look into other possibilities, such as kidnapping or abduction.

“Nothing has been eliminated” concerning the possible circumstances of the student’s disappearance, according to Thomas Julia, director of communications for the sheriff’s office.

He said the area she was visiting has seen drownings as well as assaults and kidnappings.

There was a red flag warning posted for the water in that area at the time of her disappearance, according to Julia.

“The water was not calm on the day in question,” he said.

Activity at the beach

The hotel said Konanki’s disappearance coincided with a power outage that prompted a number of guests to head to the beach, the Associated Press reported.

A group of people including Konanki were drinking in the hotel’s lobby about an hour before they headed to the beach, a source with the Dominican National Police told CNN.

The man thought to have last seen Konanki on the beach has provided various accounts of what he witnessed, CNN reported, citing a law enforcement source familiar with the investigation.

The man told investigators they both went into the ocean, but he felt ill, got out of the water and fell asleep on a lounge chair. He is said to have told police variously that Konanki might have been swept away by a wave, that she may have left when he exited the water or that he saw her walking along the beach in knee-deep water toward where she’d left her clothes.

Translation issues might have been a reason for those differences, according to a CNN source.

A Dominican law enforcement source told CNN there were no signs of violence when investigators found Konanki’s sarong-style cover-up on a lounge chair on the beach.

According to the Associated Press, Dominican Civil Defense Director Juan Salas told local newspaper El Nuevo Diario media reports that authorities had found Konanki’s clothes weren’t true.

When Konanki didn’t return to her room, her companions searched for her, a law enforcement source told CNN. They reported her missing to hotel staff about 4 p.m. Thursday, the Riu hotel chain said in a statement.

About the student

Sudiksha Konanki, a citizen of India, is a permanent U.S. resident of Chantilly, Va., according to the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office. Originally from India, the Konanki family has been in the United States since 2006.

Konanki, who was taking a break ahead of premed studies, joined five other female students on a trip to the Dominican Republic on March 3, according to her father.

Subbarayudu Konanki and his wife, Sreedevi, have flown to Punta Cana with two family friends. He and a family friend filed a record of complaint Sunday, asking authorities to widen the investigation into his daughter’s disappearance.

The complaint notes the student’s belongings, including her phone and wallet, were left with her friends, “which is unusual because she always carried her phone with her.”