By BEN ASHFORD IN PUNTA CANA FOR DAILY MAIL and GERMANIA RODRIGUEZ FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
Missing University of Pittsburgh student Sudiksha Konanki was seen in haunting surveillance footage walking to the Dominican Republic beach where she was last seen alive.
The video shows Konanki striding towards the beach in Punta Cana with Joshua Steven Ribe, who is believed to be the last man to see her alive.
It was taken in the early hours of March 6. Sudiksha was on a vacation with her college friends.
The video shows her, Ribe and the group walking towards the ocean after a night out at around 4am.
At 5.55am, the others went back to their rooms, leaving Ribe and Sudiksha on the beach.
According to Ribe, the pair went for a swim but were caught by a large wave. Ribe says he clambered back to the shore and then fell asleep. Sudiksha was never seen again.
Her body has not yet been found, but Dominican police remain convinced she drowned.
Her family are less certain. They are calling for an investigation into human trafficking.
A private investigator who probed murder victim Natalee Holloway’s 2005 disappearance disagrees with the police theory that Sudiksha drowned.
The video shows Konanki striding towards the beach in Punta Cana with Joshua Steven Ribe, the last man to have seen her alive
While the others peeled off, Ribe and Sudiksha made for the beach with one other girl
Sudiksha Konanki, 20, vanished from a beach in Punta Cana last week. Local officials believe she drowned but her family and a private investigator disagree
The Riu Republica Resort in Punta Cana, where Konanki and her friends were staying
‘I don’t think that she drowned in the ocean,’ private investigator TJ Ward told Fox News.
‘I totally believe that somebody knows something where she is, or somebody took her away, or somebody’s holding her somewhere.’
Ward added: ‘If she had gone into the water, she would’ve washed up somewhere with a tide the way that comes into the island.’
The PI previously helped with the disappearance of 18 year-old Alabama high school graduate Natalee Holloway, who vanished on the Caribbean island of Aruba in 2005.
Holloway’s body was never found and she was declared dead in 2012. In 2023, Dutch tourist Jordan van der Sloot admitted he’d killed Holloway for rejecting his advances.
Konanki’s family has also expressed doubt that she drowned and have pleaded with authorities to look into more sinister theories.
‘It’s four days, and if she was in water, she would likely have been strewn to shore,’ her father father, Subbarayudu Konanki told WTOP News.
Authorities were using drones, helicopters and detection dogs in the search for the student
‘She’s not found, so we’re asking them to investigate multiple options, like kidnapping or abduction.’
It comes as a mystery 24-year-old man who was the last known person to see Konanki told police Konanki vanished in the ocean.
The Iowa was a fellow guest at the Riu Republica Resort in Punta Cana, where Konanki and her friends were staying.
He told police he and Konanki went for a swim after her friends returned to their rooms and got caught in a big wave. The man claimed he got back to the beach, threw up and went to sleep on a beach bed.
When he woke up, he said, Konanki had vanished.
The man is one of several witnesses police have spoken with since Konanki vanished. Her friends have also provided statements to authorities.
The US State Department is working with the Indian embassy in the Dominican Republic, which has taken the lead in the investigation as Konanki is an Indian citizen who was a permanent US resident.
The pre-med student was expected to graduate from the university in 2026, according to her LinkedIn profile.
Police have already spoken with Konanki’s friends to establish exactly where a maritime search should be focused
