DR, Sudiksha Konanki, 20, Punta Cana, 6 March 2025

[tarabull]

‘Person of interest’ in missing Dominican Republic tourist case speaks out - National | Globalnews.ca

Joshua Riibe, the person of interest, 'is permanently escorted by the police anywhere he goes,' the law firm working with him said, adding he is 'not free to leave' the resort.

globalnews.ca

 

[Marie A]

You couldn’t pay me to go to the Dominican Republic after this.
Places where authorities seize your passport and don’t return it in a timely manner (as in that same day) without just cause are both dangerous and corrupt.
Putting this young man under house arrest but not arrested without an iota of proof in his culpability for Sudiksha’s disappearance is abhorrent.
There should be a national travel ban against this place.
And hard earned tax dollars paid for Virginia authorities to FLY DOWN HERE and interview Josh in person. You can’t have a zoom meeting or talk to him stateside?
SMH.
This has become a ridiculous story.
You just can’t make this stuff up.
I’m sorry but a fully drunk person doesn’t make a good key witness for detailed memories - period.
His memories could be inaccurate or inadvertently fabricated (as others have pointed out) and are snippets of what has actually transpired at best.
I personally think Josh has been truthful to the best of his ability.
They better free Josh during the hearing tomorrow morning and let him fly home.
He must be fully traumatized by now and his parents (who don’t appear to be wealthy or particularly smart about protecting their son from being harassed) must be facing incredible costs for this circus that has ensued.
They are certainly fully traumatized now as well.
I can’t figure out why it’s taken Josh’s attorney so long to file for his release.
Now Josh will have missed a minimum of 1.5 weeks of college classes.
Hopefully he has access to a laptop in his hotel room and can do some work online.
It’s horrible that Sudiksha disappeared but this treatment of the “key witness” stinks.
How this Dominican government can continue to hold Josh is beyond my comprehension.
All imho

 

[KooshBall]

You couldn’t pay me to go to the Dominican Republic after this.
Places where authorities seize your passport and don’t return it in a timely manner (as in that same day) without just cause are both dangerous and corrupt.
Putting this young man under house arrest but not arrested without an iota of proof in his culpability for Sudiksha’s disappearance is abhorrent.
There should be a national travel ban against this place.
And hard earned tax dollars paid for Virginia authorities to FLY DOWN HERE and interview Josh in person. You can’t have a zoom meeting or talk to him stateside?
SMH.
This has become a ridiculous story.
You just can’t make this stuff up.
I’m sorry but a fully drunk person doesn’t make a good key witness for detailed memories - period.
His memories could be inaccurate or inadvertently fabricated (as others have pointed out) and are snippets of what has actually transpired at best.
I personally think Josh has been truthful to the best of his ability.
They better free Josh during the hearing tomorrow morning and let him fly home.
He must be fully traumatized by now and his parents (who don’t appear to be wealthy or particularly smart about protecting their son from being harassed) must be facing incredible costs for this circus that has ensued.
They are certainly fully traumatized now as well.
I can’t figure out why it’s taken Josh’s attorney so long to file for his release.
Now Josh will have missed a minimum of 1.5 weeks of college classes.
Hopefully he has access to a laptop in his hotel room and can do some work online.
It’s horrible that Sudiksha disappeared but this treatment of the “key witness” stinks.
How this Dominican government can continue to hold Josh is beyond my comprehension.
All imho

Completely agree. Very scary that without any evidence of wrongdoing a person could be stripped of their passport and forced to stay under police custody in a foreign country.

 

[CityKid]

You couldn’t pay me to go to the Dominican Republic after this.
Places where authorities seize your passport and don’t return it in a timely manner (as in that same day) without just cause are both dangerous and corrupt.
Putting this young man under house arrest but not arrested without an iota of proof in his culpability for Sudiksha’s disappearance is abhorrent.
There should be a national travel ban against this place.
And hard earned tax dollars paid for Virginia authorities to FLY DOWN HERE and interview Josh in person. You can’t have a zoom meeting or talk to him stateside?
SMH.
This has become a ridiculous story.
You just can’t make this stuff up.
I’m sorry but a fully drunk person doesn’t make a good key witness for detailed memories - period.
His memories could be inaccurate or inadvertently fabricated (as others have pointed out) and are snippets of what has actually transpired at best.
I personally think Josh has been truthful to the best of his ability.
They better free Josh during the hearing tomorrow morning and let him fly home.
He must be fully traumatized by now and his parents (who don’t appear to be wealthy or particularly smart about protecting their son from being harassed) must be facing incredible costs for this circus that has ensued.
They are certainly fully traumatized now as well.
I can’t figure out why it’s taken Josh’s attorney so long to file for his release.
Now Josh will have missed a minimum of 1.5 weeks of college classes.
Hopefully he has access to a laptop in his hotel room and can do some work online.
It’s horrible that Sudiksha disappeared but this treatment of the “key witness” stinks.
How this Dominican government can continue to hold Josh is beyond my comprehension.
All imho

BBM for emphasis. I agree that this treatment goes so far beyond what should happen in a just legal system. This is terrifying if he's innocent; if he's guilty, it could set up years of appeals. Does anyone remember how long JR was questioned before getting an attorney? How did the attorney only file a writ of habeas corpus today?

At this link, the story of three men who confessed after 16 hours of interrogation without an attorney and spent nearly 30 years in prison before being exonerated.

3 Men Exonerated in New York, 30 Years After False Confessions (Published 2023)

Prosecutors said the men had been wrongfully convicted in two separate cases, one of which involved a detective linked to the false confessions of the “Central Park Five.”

www.nytimes.com

 

[Ghostwheel]

Snipped for emphasis. That's one thing that doesn't strike me as odd. We don't know if she goes by a nickname. It's doubtful he knew her surname at all. I don't believe any hotel would allow a guest to check if another guest who's not part of their group was in their room. I don't know how he would be able to check up on her. All he knows (if he even knows this) is that one of SK's friends has his friend's phone number. And let's face it: Not every spring break rendezvous results in a desire to keep in touch once everyone is back to their regular home life.
RSBM

Fair point. You can check on another guest by name (They would just leave a message at the room-whatever message you want to leave), but if she wasn't registered that would not help. I suppose I attach more meaning to the word "friends" than is applicable here. They were two separate friend groups, not a group of friends.

 

[MollyHarps]

I actually really feel for Josh now.

I don’t actually believe he has done anything wrong.

How can they take his passport and essentially put him under house arrest when they have no evidence he has anything to do with this.

I hate how he’s being shown in the media like he’s a suspect.. if they genuinely believe he’s a suspect then arrest him…

 

[Sillybilly]

ADMIN NOTE:

For those who question, this is just to let you all know that "Surviving the Survivor" is a Websleuths approved source.

SB

 

[slowpoke]

I don't know what he did to try and track her down the next day, though. That is the part that makes a difference to me.

^snipped

Thinking on this. Maybe after he was vomiting seawater and feeling sick from the scary ocean incident and then he turned and didn’t see Sudiksha anymore after getting her footing back close to shore, he thought maybe she stormed off angry or upset, blaming him for the near drowning or that the event ‘woke her up’ to say to herself, “What am I doing?! I don’t even know this guy!”

All he knew was that she left him (in his thinking), at the time. He only met her that night, so they didn’t really know each other. And what they did know about each other was while they were under the influence of alcohol.

So, perhaps he was expecting to feel her out the next day, to see if she was still interested in him in the light of day.

Even her own friends seemed not that concerned at first, I think? Wasn’t it only after some excursion that they started worrying about her? I wonder if she was scheduled to go with them on that excursion?

JMO

 

[Charlot123]

Snipped for emphasis. That's one thing that doesn't strike me as odd. We don't know if she goes by a nickname. It's doubtful he knew her surname at all. I don't believe any hotel would allow a guest to check if another guest who's not part of their group was in their room. I don't know how he would be able to check up on her. All he knows (if he even knows this) is that one of SK's friends has his friend's phone number. And let's face it: Not every spring break rendezvous results in a desire to keep in touch once everyone is back to their regular home life.
Also, has anyone figured out how SK, who is 20, was able to check into a 21-and-over resort? Do they just check to make sure at least one member of the party is 21+?

https://www.vaxvacationaccess.com/globalassets/suppliers/ifj/documents/groups/riu_hotels_and_resorts_spring_break_policy.pdf?_t_ip=157.55.39.81#:~:text=All%20Student%2FSpring%20Breaker%20Group,request%20at%20its%20sole%20discretion.

Probably. I think that between the need to make money on tourism, the fact that the minimal legal drinking age in DR itself is 18, and the fact that Sudiksha was a holder of a green card and Indian passport (and Indian laws about drinking age significantly vary by the state), it was not strictly enforced.

I am more interested in what the resort served them (probably some bad alcohol, sorry). Also, they said that SK and JR’s trip to the beach coincided with the power outage. Obviously, there was no outage when they were seen on cameras.

So I wonder if whatever potentially happened to Sudiksha short-circuited the systems. Where do their power lines go?

 

[mickey2942]

Completely agree. Very scary that without any evidence of wrongdoing a person could be stripped of their passport and forced to stay under police custody in a foreign country.

This. Real learning experience. Why not Spring Break in the United States? Go skiing. Something fun and healthy. So many things happen out of the country, just adds a layer of confusion to everything.

 

[Campizi67]

Joshua Riibe speaks out after being named as person of interest

Just a thought... After reading the different additions to Riibe's account of what happened, I believe this one is interesting. Riibe allegedly told authorities that he saw Konanki walking along the beach with the water up to her knees in the direction of where she left her cover-up on a lounge chair.

I’ve spent many hours on beaches in different types of weather, and whenever the waves are particularly bad (no matter the weather), you always end up further down the beach than where the wave initially hits. You just do. So, I can see her walking toward where she knew her clothing was, as the waves and undertow likely caused them to drift down the beach.

If Riibe went straight to a lounge chair after throwing up, it's possible that he lost sight of her and fell asleep. It's hard to know how far down the beach her clothing was from where they ended up because I wasn’t there. But it’s feasible that she either got hit by another wave and it took her out, or something else happened. I’ve been hit by strong waves with undertow in knee-deep water that took me under very quickly.

My point is, Riibe may not know what happened to her after that. I’m not suggesting that this removes any guilt or adds any blame to anyone—it’s just one possibility of what might have happened.

 

[Charlot123]

Doing yard work without enjoying a cold beer would be no fun. They both over indulged. I’m curious if the reported power outage added to them consuming more than they normally would have. No power means no AC. I can imagine the humidity is high this time of year? No lights, no TV, possibly no Wi-Fi had them staying out of their rooms much later than planned. I especially feel the girls might’ve been a little freaked out being in their rooms in the dark. Hot conditions, sunburns, dehydration, boredom and simply the communal curiosity on the outage itself led them all to consume way more than intended.

Remembering being a student at resorts, people overconsume for sure. The only thing that was different in our favorite bar was music and dancing a lot. Yet some people definitely overindulged. Plus, they served good alcohol. In Punto Cana, I wonder about the quality of alcohol and also, what food they were offered (biggest issue about not getting drunk, one should eat in a bar).

About the power outage, I wonder when it happened, before SK’s disappearance or during that night. There are photos of them both vomiting and of the group going towards the beach. And then he also gets on the camera. Does it mean that the light was restored by that time, or that the outage was precisely at that time? If so, I wonder what caused the outage.

On a side note, the senator in DR that is criticizing both students is doing nothing but a bad publicity job for DR. We all were students and had kids who were students. Age-wise, this behavior is normal. The only question is, people are affected by alcohol in a different way.

If they didn’t serve them alcohol in the DR, why would students even go there?

It is good that the police is trying to find Sudiksha so hard.

 

[nerosleuth]

Aside from Joshua Riibe having his passport confiscated and having to stay in the DR, were his friends and Sudiksha's friends allowed to leave the country, or are they still stuck in the DR as well?

 

[lonetraveler]

Growing up in coastal California---that exact thing happens a lot. Often late at night, drunk and stoned, HEY LeT"S GO In The WaTER

Growing up on the East Coast, I can truthfully say that , yes, alcohol makes you do stupid things like walking in the water and even going for a swim while entirely intoxicated. I must admit, after my daughter's wedding and the reception, my sister, brothers and myself, fully intoxicated, decided to go jump in the waves in the ocean at night. Yeah, not one of my most proud moments. It was a miracle that we all made it back to shore. The location was right at the inlet where the currents are very strong. As it happened, we were literally fighting the waves for our very lives. Thankfully, we all made it back to shore and it taught me a very important lesson.
This young man made a very bad decision, just like myself and siblings, to go into the ocean while intoxicated.

 

[acutename]

Doing yard work without enjoying a cold beer would be no fun. They both over indulged. I’m curious if the reported power outage added to them consuming more than they normally would have. No power means no AC. I can imagine the humidity is high this time of year? No lights, no TV, possibly no Wi-Fi had them staying out of their rooms much later than planned. I especially feel the girls might’ve been a little freaked out being in their rooms in the dark. Hot conditions, sunburns, dehydration, boredom and simply the communal curiosity on the outage itself led them all to consume way more than intended.

This article has details of what the hotel says about the power outage:

"When asked to comment about her disappearance, the hotel told Daily Mail: 'The electrical outage occurred during the early hours of Tuesday, March 4 to Wednesday, March 5, specifically at 01:27 AM.

'Two hours later, service was restored to 70%, while the remaining power supply was fully reinstated on the night of Wednesday to Thursday, specifically at 02:13 AM, which is before the time of the disappearance.'"

more in the article and they say lobbies, security systems,etc. were working:

MSN

 

[lonetraveler]

Dude, yes to this— where the heck are his shirt and shoes?! He is wearing them on the way out to the beach on CCTV, conspicuously missing both on footage showing him returning from beach alone. Wouldn’t they have been discarded right next to SK’s when they both elected to go into the ocean? Why were hers found alone? If he did in fact retrieve his at some point after recovering from his fight to the shoreline or after waking up several hours later, he would have seen that SK’s were still there. This is pure speculation, but I think he knew that SK had not made it out of the ocean that morning but did not want anyone to know that he was involved in her disappearance (either for innocent or nefarious reasons), so he retrieved his own shirt and shoes so that they would not be found sitting next to her things and moved them. Why, though, would he retrieve his own things but NOT take them back inside with him? Was there a reason he didn’t want them found? Why did it take so many days for any news sources to report that SK’s belongings had been recovered? Perhaps just a crowded beach? Help me understand, sleuthers

I think that the rogue wave, yes, I'm calling it this because I think it was exactly that. I've been caught up in a rip current and undertows many times while in the water. Undertows will pull your feet right out from under you and then a large wave hits you and throws you down. Very frightening. You are under a wave trying to regain your footing and the wave is slamming you. I've nearly drowned a couple of times in my lifetime. I think that he tried very hard to take her to shore and was nearly drowned while trying. He assumed that she got up and got her things when most probably, she was so weak from swallowing water that she was washed back into the waves.

 

[lonetraveler]

The resort is the RIU Republica. Is that a road along the left side of the resort in this attached photo?

Number one: You never go into the ocean, especially at night with sparkling jewelry. Attracts sharks instantly.

 

[lonetraveler]

Are you saying his friend may have had an extra key card for his (Riibe’s) hotel room? I guess I was under the assumption the two guy friends each had their own hotel rooms. Or maybe I am mistaken?

Is it one hotel room with two separate bedrooms for Riibe’s and his friend? I’m confused.
Moo

It's very unusual for college students to get separate rooms for spring break. Its a financial reason or just that they want to be with their friends.

 

[lonetraveler]

Was he sick from alcohol or was it the intake of the salt water? It seems like he’s stated that it was the amount of water he took in that he was spitting up, not necessarily from drinking- IMO

Could probably be from both the salt water swallowed, and the amount of alcohol he consumed.

 

[nightowl2728]

[snipped]

I read earlier today, the 4 other people who drowned in January were all found within 48 hours.

Where did you read that? I read that only 1 of the people were found. Which led me to believe that if S drowned, they likely wouldn't find her body. However, if they did find all 4 people, that makes her disappearance even more suspicious.