Twenty-year-old student at Pitt, Sudiksha Konanki, disappears in the early morning hours of March 6 after a swim with a person of interest resulting in speculation of drowning, foul play, or abduction.
Sudiksha Konanki, 20, went missing on her spring break vacation in Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic after going for a swim in the early morning hours of March 6. Ms. Konanki is a Junior at the University of Pittsburgh, and lives with her family in Chantilly, Virginia as an Indian Citizen with a permanent residency in the United States.
The Indian Embassy in the Dominican Republic and the Dominican Republic National Police are conducting a high-level commission into the disappearance along with the FBI and the International Liaison of the US Embassy. They are searching the shoreline with recovery groups, drones, helicopters and specialized maritime rescue but have not yet recovered Ms. Konanki.
The Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office of Virginia has filed for a Yellow Notice, an INTERPOL worldwide missing persons police alert. The Sheriff’s Office is working with the US Department of State, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the FBI, and Homeland Security Investigations, all seeking to establish the nature of Ms. Konanki’s disappearance and assist in the ongoing search for her recovery.
According to investigations, Ms. Konanki was traveling with five female friends from Pitt to a Punta Cana Resort for their spring break vacation. After attending a nightclub on the evening of March 5, the group went for a walk on the beach of the Riu Republica Hotel. Ms. Konanki, last spotted on security footage around 4:00 am, remained on the beach–without her phone or wallet–in the company of a young man while her friends returned to their hotel around 6:00 am.
The identity of the man last seen with Ms. Konanki, originally withheld for privacy, has now been released to the public as Joshua Riibe, 24, a tourist from Iowa. Riibe was seen on security camera footage returning to his room alone around 9:00 am. Ms. Konanki, however, has not been located since her last appearance on security footage at 4:00 am and is not known to have returned from her swim. Her continued disappearance is speculated to be a possible drowning, although the case remains officially a missing persons investigation.
Mr. Riibe, cooperating with investigators, has told the police that he and Ms. Konanki took a swim together and encountered a big wave, saying in one account that he felt sick and returned to shore leaving Konanki in knee-deep water, and in another that he fell asleep and last saw Ms. Konanki walking on the beach.
Spokesperson for the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office, Thomas Julia, stated to the Pittsburgh Post Gazette that “The investigation is looking at everything from an accident to foul play,” although there is no physical evidence that Ms. Konanki drowned.
Konanki’s parents, Subbarayudu and Sreedevi, flew to Punta Cana on hearing of their daughter’s disappearance to advocate in the official search for their daughter and file a complaint with the local police.
Mr. Konanki remains hopeful that his daughter is still alive, stating to WTOP-FM that, “if she was in water, she would likely have been strewn to shore.” As she has not been found, he is asking the Dominican authorities to widen the investigation to include the possibility of abduction.
The University of Pittsburgh has offered its support to the Konanki family and to the ongoing investigation in the Dominican Republic. At Pitt, Ms. Konanki studies biological science and chemistry and participates in a South Asian fusion a cappella group. According to her LinkedIn account, she earned a diploma in biological sciences from Thomas Jefferson High school, an esteemed institution ranked by the US News & World Report as the number one high school in America.
