A judge in the Dominican Republic instructed the police to cease monitoring the man who was the last person to see a University of Pittsburgh student before she went missing. However, the judge did not order the return of his passport, preventing him from leaving the country.
The disappearance of Sudiksha Konanki, a 20-year-old student, occurred in Punta Cana on March 6. She was last spotted on the beach near her hotel, alongside Joshua Riibe, a fellow student from St. Cloud State University in Minnesota. While the group had been out partying, Konanki remained on the beach with Riibe after the others returned to the hotel around 6 a.m.
The authorities have taken Riibe’s passport and subjected him to extensive interrogation. Consequently, his lawyer has initiated a habeas corpus petition to release him from police custody. A judgment on the habeas corpus request is anticipated by March 28, according to ABC News.
“I can’t go anywhere. And I really want to be able to go home, talk to my family, give them hugs, tell them I miss them,” Riibe said at Tuesday’s hearing. “I understand I’m here to help, but it’s been 10 days and I can’t leave.”
Prosecutors, at times contentiously, insisted that Riibe was not actually under surveillance during the hearing, noting that he was not escorted into the courtroom. But Riibe and his father, Albert Riibe, testified that officers follow them to restaurants and everywhere else they want to go.
Riibe told the court that Konanki’s mother hugged him and thanked him before she left the Dominican Republic.
“Her mother gave me a hug and said, ‘Thank you for saving my daughter the first time,”‘ Riibe said in court Tuesday. “It was really tough.”
Riibe, a native of Iowa, has said that he and Konanki waded into the water and were swept out to sea by a large wave. He said he managed to get them both back closer to shore and last saw her walking in knee-deep water back toward where they had left their personal items. He said he passed out, however, and when he awoke, he assumed she’d gone back to her hotel room.
Meanwhile, Konanki’s parents sent a letter to Dominican authorities asking them to declare their daughter dead. They said in the letter that they accepted Riibe’s explanation of what happened and believed that she had drowned accidentally since investigators have found no evidence of foul play, CrimeOnline reported.
They spoke with reporters outside their home in Loudon County, Virginia, on Tuesday but did not comment on Riibe’s hearing.
“It is with deep sadness, sadness and heavy, heavy heart, we are coming to the terms with the fact that our daughter has drowned,” Subbarayudu Konanki said, according to NBC News. “This is incredibly difficult for us to process.”
Konanki said that authorities showed the family how high the waves were at the time of his daughter’s disappearance and said that authorities “clarified that the person of interest is not a suspect from the beginning.”
