Last person seen with missing student can't leave DR -

The man who was last seen with missing University of Pittsburgh student Sudiksha Konanki is no longer under police supervision, a Dominican judge ruled, but he can’t leave the Dominican Republic just yet.

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Joshua Riibe, 22, a senior at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota, said he had been kept in a hotel room in Punta Cana since Konanki vanished on March 6, though prosecutors denied he was being detained.

“He’s a witness. He’s cooperated and keeps cooperating,” magistrate Edwis Rijo Delgado said in Spanish while granting a habeas corpus petition on Tuesday, NBC News reported.

Konanki’s parents, Subbarayudu and Sreedevi, asked Dominican police to declare their daughter dead, following the extensive search, after local authorities stated they believe the girl drowned.

Sudiksha was at a Punta Cana resort with five female friends to celebrate spring break when she disappeared.

Her body has yet to be found.

Sudiksha Konanki, University of Pittsburgh student who mysteriously disappeared while on spring break in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic on March 6, 2025. (Facebook) Photo by Sudiksha Konanki /Facebook

Riibe revealed to the judge that he had spoken to Sudiksha’s mother, and said she hugged and thanked him for pulling her daughter from the ocean prior to her disappearance.

“Before the family of Sudiksha left the hotel, they came up and they gave me hugs and the mother even said thank you very much for helping save my daughter the first time,” he told the judge.

“I’m just doing what I can but at this point there is nothing more I can do… I’m ready to go home and go back to my life.”

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During questioning by Dominican police, Riibe revealed that he and Konanki waded out into the water where they talked and kissed until the surf became too strong for them, taking them both “out to sea.”

He recounted: “I kept trying to get her to breathe, but that didn’t allow me to breathe all the time, and I swallowed a lot of water.”

Riibe eventually managed to get them both to shore before she vanished.

“The last time I saw her, I asked if she was OK. I didn’t hear her answer,” he told investigators, adding he thought “she’d grabbed her things and left.”

Riibe added that he was surprised to later learn about her disappearance.

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The judge said Tuesday he could rule only on whether Riibe should be allowed to move freely, however his passport and its whereabouts remains an issue.

Riibe, who has not been accused of any crime, previously said he was stripped of his passport and phone on March 8, two days after Konanki vanished.

“I don’t know about the passport,” Eduardo Velázquez, a prosecutor with the Dominican Republic attorney general’s office told NBC.