The US FBI, Dominican prosecutors, Interpol, a detective from the Sheriff’s Office of a community in Virginia state, and Dominican police are investigating the whereabouts of 20-year old Sudiksha Konanki, gone missing on the early morning of Friday, 6 March 2025 at the Riu Republica in Punta Cana. She was here with five friends on spring break vacation. She was last seen in a surveillance camera dressed in beach attire and headed with friends to the beach. While her girlfriends were still in night club attire from the partying they had been at that evening, Konanki is seen walking embraced with a friend made at the resort, identified as a person of interest in the case. The surveillance video shows the two seemingly tipsy from partying at the all-you-can-drink resort that evening.
What has to be answered is what happened at the beach that led the young woman to go missing.
Joshua Steven Ribe, Reib or Reef is the 24-year old US citizen last seen with her as they walked to the beach. He is again captured on camera as he walked back to the hotel at around 8:50am after supposedly falling asleep on the beach.
Somos Pueblo muckraking media talk program host Ricardo Ripoll says for sure there is hotel staff that combed the beach that would have seen the young man sleeping on the beach. He also questions where the clothes of the young man who was the last seen accompanying the missing woman are, and if these have been examined by the investigators. There is a video showing when the person of interest returns to the hotel accommodations barefoot and shirtless at around 8:50am.
The beach dress of the girl has appeared with no signs of violence, but not the clothes of the young man, or at least this has not yet been reported in the press. Ripoll says that there is hotel staff combing and cleaning the beach to prepare it for the tourists in the early morning who would have seen the young man sleeping on the beach or would have noticed anything unusual on the beach.
The young man identified as Joshua Steven Ribe or Reib or Reef is signaled as “person of interest” in the case and has been questioned by the investigators.
The main theory in the case follows up the version of the person of interest who says both he and Konanki were in the beach waters when swept by a wave. He was able to get out, vomited and fell asleep. Witnesses say he had been drinking that evening.
While land searches and investigations continue, the Navy Commander, Vice Admiral Agustín Morillo Rodríguez told Noticias SIN, that military and civilian divers are searching for the corpse in the Atlantic Ocean from Arena Gorda to Uvero Alto and Macao further to the north.
“There is a possibility that the body may be entangled in the reefs or corals,” Morillo Rodríguez explained. “Therefore, the Navy has assigned a team of naval divers along with local divers to thoroughly search the entire area where reefs and corals are present. Unfortunately, as of now, we have not been able to locate the young woman.”
He described the natural processes that occur after a drowning incident. “When a person drowns, they expel the air from their lungs and fill with water, causing the body to sink,” he said. “After 72 hours, the body begins to decompose as organs break down and fill with gases, which causes the body to float. This process can take anywhere from 36 hours to up to 7 days.”
Eduardo Sanchez Tolentino (El Piro) and Ricardo Ripoll complained on Somos Pueblo that missing Dominicans have yet to get the same widespread efforts of the authorities to locate a person and solve the case. The government has moved around 300 persons and helicopters, drones and canine unit have been unfolded to locate the Indian tourist.
The investigations are ongoing under the Attorney General Office, with the lead of the La Altagracia prosecutor, the National Police and detectives from the US FBI and the Sheriff Office of Virginia, the state where the Indian woman is a resident in the United States.
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Somos Pueblo
Noticias SIN
13 March 2025