A power cut at hotel, a ‘person of interest’: What probe in Sudiksha Konanki missing case has revealed

A ‘person of interest’: The Dominican National Police, has identified 24-year-old Joshua Riibe as a “person of interest” in the case. According to a local news outlet El Nacional, Joshua Riibe was the last person to see Konanki alive. A tourist from Iowa, Riibe was also a guest at the same resort. Reportedly, during interrogation, he told the police different versions of what happened in the early hours of March 6.

Riibe’s conflicting statements: According to local media outlet Noticias SIN, at first Riibe told police he entered the waters with Konanki. However, he soon felt sick due to the rough surf and went back to shore, leaving Konanki in the water. In another statement, Riibe said he passed out on beach leaving Konanki in knee-deep water. Noticias SIN reported that Riibe, in a third version, said that he saw Konanki walking on the beach before he fell asleep on the beach.

A power cut at hotel: The Riu República Hotel in Punta Cana experienced power cut during the early hours of March 6 — the day on which Konanki, a Virginia resident, went missing around pre-dawn. As darkness loomed, many guests — including Konanki and her friends — left the hotel for the beach, Dominican Today reported.

Last footage: The surveillance cameras captured a bunch of people – Konanki, five other women and two men – walking up to the beach, the Dominican Republic National Police said in a release. The group had been drinking in the hotel’s lobby till around an hour earlier, a national police source told CNN. In her last known image before her disappearance, she was pictured with her arm around a man, reported CNN.

‘Multiple issues with hotel’: A tourist, who was staying in the same hotel as Konanki, has claimed that Riu República did not communicate anything regarding beach safety. Speaking to NewsNation, D’Lani Sweeney flagged prolonged power outages at the hotel and boarders being locked out of their rooms for hours and days due to the same. With customer care being of little or no help, people had no option but to sleep in other people’s rooms, pool chairs, or even on the beach, she said.

FBI joins investigation: In a latest development in the case, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has joined the local agencies in investigating Konanki’s mysterious disappearance in Dominican Republic.

–With inputs from Fox News, CNN and New York Post