Punta Cana – In the interrogation carried out by the Public Prosecutor’s Office into the disappearance of the tourist Sudiksha Konanki Chowdary, leaked to the media, the also tourist Joshua Steven Riibe revealed that they kissed on the beach on the night of her disappearance, on the 5th, but he offers contradictory versions to the investigators and refused to answer some of the questions asked by the prosecutor handling the case.
Today marks nine days since the mysterious disappearance. In the document, a copy of which is in the possession of this newspaper, the tourist states that he pulled the young woman out of the water because they were hit by a wave, and in another part of his statements he implies that the young woman stayed on the beach. In addition, in other questions, he merely said that his lawyers advised him not to answer and that he is taking advantage of this.
Riibe, a resident of Iowa, United States, a surveying student and a witness to the disappearance of the 20-year-old American woman of Indian origin, admitted to swimming with her in the early hours of March 5th on the beach in front of the Riu hotel.
The vacationer who was staying at the same hotel and who said he arrived in the country on March 1, stated that he took the young woman out of the water. He then stated that he did not see her again after leaving the beach. In response to the questions posed by prosecutor Luis Omar García on March 12 at the Prosecutor’s Office of the Gender Unit in Verón, Punta Cana, the man who was believed to be the last person to see Sudiksha left five unanswered.
He only indicated that his lawyers advised him not to answer these questions and that he was invoking his right to remain silent.
The reaction began with question 41, when he was asked: How can we verify that everything you have said is true? Could you tell us what your friend Carter Joseph said to you when you asked about the missing girl Konanki-Sudiksha? What is your opinion on Sudiksha’s disappearance? Could the young Sudiksha swim or not? Do you remember if the young Sudiksha made any gestures or screamed while she was in the sea?
The case that has shocked the population of the Dominican Republic, which has gained international notoriety and is being investigated by the country’s authorities and international agencies, took a turn this Friday, when it emerged that Konanki Chowdary, a medical student at the University of Pittsburgh in the State of Pennsylvania, had made two electronic money transfers, one of a significant amount.
The Sun US revealed that Sudiksha Konanki made two payments, via the payment app Venmo, on the afternoon before her disappearance, 40 minutes apart. The first transaction was made at 2:54 p.m. to an anonymous “new user,” and Konanki used a sailboat emoji to describe it.
The second was made at 15:38 (3:38 in the afternoon) and the description was “Coco Bongo”, a well-known nightclub in Punta Cana, and it was for Ananya Chilakamarri, one of the students on the trip and a friend of the young woman. He points out that “there is no evidence of any wrongdoing on Chilakamarri’s part.”