Minnesota student is ‘person of interest’ in search for American woman in Dominican Republic

A Minnesota college senior “may have been the last person to see” a 20-year-old woman who went missing a week ago while on spring break in the Dominican Republic tourist town of Punta Cana, officials said.

Joshua Riibe, 22, is considered “a person of interest” in the disappearance of University of Pittsburgh student Sudiksha Konanki, who is a citizen of India, according to law enforcement in the Virginia county where she lives.

St. Cloud State University spokesman Zachary Dwyer said Thursday that Riibe is a student who enrolled there in 2023. Dwyer said Riibe is from Rock Rapids, Iowa, about 10 miles south of the Minnesota border, and is majoring in land surveying and mapping sciences.

Chad Quinn, a spokesman for the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office in northern Virginia, emphasized that Riibe is not suspected of a crime in connection with Konanki’s whereabouts.

Quinn said that “we consider [Riibe] a person of interest for the purposes of this missing person investigation [because] he may have been the last person to see or be with the missing person. We are not going to comment on when or where.”

The Star Tribune has left messages with phone numbers associated with Riibe and with family members seeking further information about his connection to the investigation.

Dominican police said they are re-interviewing people who were with Konanki before she vanished in the predawn hours of March 6 at a beach in front of the Hotel Riu República. The FBI is among the agencies participating in the investigation.

A hotel representative said Konanki’s disappearance coincided with a power failure that prompted guests to head to the beach. Quinn said Riibe was not traveling with Konanki’s group.

Konanki’s parents, Subbarayudu and Sreedevi, flew to Punta Cana after their daughter was reported missing and have asked authorities to widen the investigation. Her father said she and five other university students traveled to the Dominican Republic on March 3.

This story contains material from the Associated Press.