Minnesota student’s passport held amid investigation of missing woman in Dominican Republic

A Minnesota college student who’s been identified as a “person of interest” in the disappearance of an American woman on spring break in the Caribbean has been under police surveillance for more than a week and subjected to lengthy interrogations, his family said Friday.

Joshua Riibe’s passport has been held by authorities since the investigation began and he is not free to leave his hotel as it continues, his attorneys said.

Law enforcement officials said this week that the 22-year-old St. Cloud State University senior was possibly the last person to be seen with 20-year-old University of Pittsburgh student Sudiksha Konanki before she went missing in the predawn hours of March 6 in the Dominican Republic tourist town of Punta Cana.

Riibe’s parents released a lengthy statement through a Dominican-based attorney pointing out that their son “is deeply dismayed by [Konanki’s] disappearance and has fully cooperated in the search and clarification of the facts since the beginning.”

Albert and Tina Riibe went on to say that “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.”

He has been confined to hotel premises and is escorted by police wherever he goes, Riibe’s attorneys told the Minnesota Star Tribune on Saturday.

“He has not been allowed to leave,” officials with the Guzmán Ariza law firm said in an email. “Only when taken for questioning and escorted always by the police.”

Given the circumstances, the Riibes said they have retained legal counsel “to initiate legal actions ensuring his safety and the protection of his rights through this process. ... We trust that the investigation will be conducted with transparency and justice. Our only interest is that due process be respected.”

St. Cloud State spokesman Zachary Dwyer said Thursday that Riibe enrolled at the school 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.

Konanki is a citizen of India who resides in the Washington, D.C., suburb of Chantilly, Va. Dominican police said they were re-interviewing people who were with her before she vanished on a beach in front of the Hotel Riu República. The FBI is among the agencies participating in the investigation.

Chad Quinn, a spokesman for the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office in northern Virginia, where Konanki lives as a permanent U.S. resident, said Riibe is not yet suspected of a crime in connection with the woman’s whereabouts.

Riibe is considered “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,” Quinn said. “We are not going to comment on when or where.”

Without specifying Riibe by name, Dominican President Luis Abinader said at a news conference that the last person known to be with Konanki disclosed that a wave crashed into them while they were on the beach.

Riibe, who met Konanki that night, told a prosecutor Thursday that they had kissed after a night of drinking, according to a transcript provided to ABC News by two Dominican sources.

“A big wave came and hit us both, then the tide pulled us into the ocean,” he told the prosecutor. “When we surfaced, we tried to plead for help, but there was no one there.”

According to the ABC report, Riibe added: “The last time I saw her, I asked her if she was OK. I didn’t hear her response, because I began to vomit with all the water I had swallowed. After vomiting, I looked around and I didn’t see anyone. I thought she had taken her things and left.”

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.

Her family says her belongings, including a phone and wallet, were left with her friends, though she’s known to always carry her phone.

Along with addressing their son’s plight roughly 2,000 miles from his northwestern Iowa home, the Riibes expressed “our deep sorrow and solidarity with the family of Sudiksha Konanki. ... We ask everyone to pray that Sudiksha be found and returned home to her family.”