Why professionals think it is impossible for the student Sudiksha Konanki to have drowned at the beach.

Missing spring breaker Sudiksha Konanki is unlikely to have drowned after disappearing from her beach resort in the Dominican Republic. 

Private investigators who specialize in missing persons said it’s possible Konanki may still be alive – but time is running out to find her. 

‘We can’t let this be dismissed as a “drunk college student on spring break” story,’ investigator Toby Braun told DailyMail.com.

‘That’s exactly what a kidnapper would want – shifting attention away from real suspicions.’ 

Konanki, 20, has not been seen since the early hours of March 6 at the Riu Republica Resort on Punta Cana.

A University of Pittsburgh student was observed on camera heading to the beach with Joshua Riibe, a former Iowa high school wrestling champion, at 4:15 am. At this time, Riibe has not been identified as a suspect or a person of interest.

Dominican officials were quick to write her death off as a drowning, though they appeared to be keeping a more open mind in the past few days. 

But Braun, along with an expert on oceans, told DailyMail.com her body would almost certainly have washed up on the shore by now if she drowned.

‘The possibility of her drowning being accidental is slim. The conditions of the water that night were calm, with no high tides or rip currents present, indicating that she was likely not swept away,’ stated Braun.

‘Keeping focus on her likely being alive increases the chances of finding her.’

Stephen Leatherman, a professor of Earth and Environment at Florida International University, also thought eight days was too long for her body to be at sea.

‘If she drowned, her body should have already surfaced in the warm Caribbean waters,’ he said.

‘I have served as an expert witness for 30 years, so I have been involved in many cases where someone drowned in a rip current, but the body was always recovered. 

‘I think that there must be another explanation for her disappearance.’

Leatherman, known as Dr Beach for his encyclopedic knowledge of coastlines, also rubbished a theory that her body was stuck on a reef.

Dominican Navy vice-admiral Agustin Morillo Rodriguez floated that theory this week, but said so far searches of local reefs hadn’t found her.

‘The body may be stranded on the reefs, on the coral reefs, which is why the navy has deployed a team of navy and local divers to comb the entire area where there are reefs or corals,’ he told local media. 

Leatherman said that didn’t make sense with the topography of the ocean and how far Konanki’s body would have to travel to even reach the reefs.

He said the distance from the shoreline to the front of the breakers was 85ft with the white water extending 166ft offshore.

The reef, where some waves were breaking, was 1,965ft offshore, which was ‘too far away to be a real factor’.

‘The chance of her being stuck in the reef is pretty remote. Rip currents do carry at all depths, and if she was struggling, she should be up high up in the water, not down on the bottom,’ he said.

‘Also, in warm water like that, the gasses in the body build up as flesh decays, that’s what makes the bodies come to the surface.

‘The warmer the water, the faster that happens and she’s in the Caribbean, that’s pretty warm water. So she’s not sitting on the bottom somewhere, that’s for sure.’

Leatherman also doubted Konanki was eaten by an ocean predator as tiger sharks, which live in those waters, didn’t come close enough to shore.

‘In many places along this shoreline, the coral reefs offer protection from large waves, and the tiger sharks stay in the deeper water offshore,’ he said.

‘We call tiger sharks denizens of the deep because they don’t come in a shallow water unless they smell blood.’

The only way sharks would be involved in her disappearance was if Konanki was already dead on seriously injured in the water,’ he said.

Leatherman said it was unlikely was found farther along the coast and wasn’t yet identified as the waves on the northeast-facing beach of the hotel tend to come straight onshore, so her body would wash up close to where she entered the water.

Carole Lieberman, a forensic psychiatrist and expert witness, said local officials were quick to blame drowning to deflect blame away from the tourism industry.

‘The Dominican Republic does not want to take responsibility for people who go missing,’ she said.

Lieberman said this was similar to the case of Alabama teen Holloway, 18, who was bashed to death with a cinder block in Aruba in 2005.

Joran van der Sloot admitted 18 years later to killing her after she rejected his advances, then throwing her body into the ocean where it was never found.

Aruba also tried to avoid any blame for her disappearance, Lieberman said.

‘It is more likely that she met with foul play.’

Both she and Leatherman said the only likely way Konanki would still be in the water was if she was taken out to sea on a boat and thrown overboard.

Braun agreed that a more sinister explanation was likely, and that authorities were slowly coming around to that possibility.

‘She didn’t just run away. She was in a foreign country with no known reason to disappear, making this scenario highly unlikely,’ he said.

Braun noted the Interpol yellow notice and the involvement of the FBI in the case as signs murder or abduction hadn’t been ruled out.

‘The FBI stepping in is a major move. Their presence ensures a proper investigation,’ he said.

‘If she was taken, human trafficking is a real concern. The Dominican Republic has one of the largest trafficking networks in the Caribbean.’

Riibe told police he saved her from drowning in a rip tide while paddling in the shallow water after their friends went to bed.

‘We were in waist-deep water. We talked and kissed a bit. A big wave came and hit us both. And when the water returned, it swept us out to sea,’ he said.

‘I realized she was getting tired of swimming too. I’ve been a lifeguard. I grabbed her and pulled her out. I held her under my arm and swam to get her out of the water.’

Riibe said he was able to make it to shore, but claimed Konanki was still wading in the water when he last saw her.

‘When I finally reached the ground on the beach, I held her in front of me. She wasn’t out of the water, she was knee-deep and walking at an angle out the water,’ he said.

‘The last time I saw her, I asked if she was okay. I didn’t hear her reply because I started vomiting all the water I had swallowed. After vomiting, I looked around. I didn’t see anyone. I thought she had grabbed her things and left.’

He told investigators that he then passed out on the beach and did not hear anything about Konanki until the next day when her friends texted his friend.

Riibe’s family explained the conflicting accounts as being the result of a different translator being present at each of three police interviews.

The senior at St Cloud State University in Minnesota is under round-the-clock police surveillance in the same luxury Caribbean mega-resort.

He has not been named a suspect and is legally free to fly back to the US whenever he wants.

But Riibe remains holed up in a private corner of the sprawling party complex – a virtual prisoner in paradise – while he continues to cooperate with police and search agencies.

‘Joshua Riibe is deeply dismayed by her disappearance and has fully cooperated in the search and clarification of the facts from the very beginning,’ his family said.

‘Despite his full willingness to cooperate, Josh has been detained under irregular conditions and subjected to extensive questioning without the presence of official translators or legal counsel until Wednesday, March 12.  

‘He has remained in his hotel room under police surveillance and has been repeatedly taken to the police station since March 6, where he has been interrogated for long hours.’

However, while assisting authorities, Riibe refused to answer at least eight different questions into Sudiksha’s disappearance.

When asked if he can verify his statements, what he told his friend, if Konanki knew how to swim, if she made any cries for help, if he told authorities what happened on the beach and how he feels about the situation – he had the same response.

‘My lawyers advise me not to answer that question and I follow their advice,’ Riibe told investigators before going silent.

The college student was a wrestler who made the Iowa State championships while in high school in Rock Rapids.

He also played guard on his high school football team and competed in discus and shot put for track and field.

‘I’ve known Josh since he was a young boy. There is no way he would harm her or have anything to do with her disappearance,’ his next-door neighbor Laurel Schreiver told DailyMail.com.

She added, with conviction: ‘I bet my life on it, Josh did not hurt that girl.’

Both Riibe and Konanki was seen on CCTV vomiting at a nightclub minutes before heading to the beach with three of her friends and one of his friends.

The footage showed the Konanki vomiting at 4.05am before walking back to the bar.  Riibe remained in the background vomiting while two men stood near him.

Separate security camera from the all-inclusive resort showed Riibe holding a cup and placing his arm around Konanki back as they trailed the group at 4.15am.

At about 4.55am, the hotel security camera system showed two of her friends returning to the hotel.

The same camera picked up another female friend accompanied by Johnson walking into the building at 5.05am.

The surveillance camera would show Riibe, barefoot and shirtless, as he slowly walked back to his room at 8.54am with Konanki nowhere in sight.