Seven days after 20-year-old Sudiksha Konanki, a University of Pittsburgh junior from South Riding, Virginia, was last seen heading to the beach in Punta Cana, scuba divers are searching near coral reefs.
Meanwhile, the aunt of a person of interest in Konanki’s disappearance has voiced support for her nephew.
Konanki, a premed student who had graduated from the highly rated Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax County, was reported missing Thursday, March 6.
She was last seen on surveillance video, walking with a group of friends to the beach at 4:50 a.m., after a party at the Riu Republica hotel, where she and five of her friends from college were staying.
Wednesday, the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office named a person of interest in Konanki’s disappearance — the young man who was last seen with Konanki, pictured on hotel surveillance video, obtained by Noticias SIN, a Dominican media outlet. The person of interest told local police he last saw Konanki after they were hit by a large wave, while swimming.
According to sheriff’s spokesman Thomas Julia, “This is still a missing person case,” rather than a criminal case.
Contacted by WTOP, the aunt of the person said, “Our family is going through a very difficult time right now, and we’re experiencing a lot of sadness and pain,” and asked for privacy.
WTOP is not naming the person of interest, since he has not been named a suspect. There have been no arrests in connection with Konanki’s disappearance.
Also, Wednesday, at the request of the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office, Interpol issued a Yellow Notice for Konanki, which can enable international cooperation in missing persons cases.
In addition to investigators from the Dominican Republic, FBI agents and two detectives from the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office are in Punta Cana, where authorities continue to interview people who were with or may have seen Konanki in the hours before she disappeared.
Search includes coral reefs; four drowned at resort in January
After six days of what local officials call “exhaustive searching,” there’s still no evidence of what happened to Konanki, although initially investigators believed she accidentally drowned.
The search for Konanki, who is also a citizen of India, comes two months after four tourists drowned and two others were rescued in January, at the same resort where Konanki and her five female friends from Pitt were staying.
The search area has continued to widen, and local officials are using software that analyzes tides and current, in an attempt to narrow where Konanki might be.
Vice Admiral Agustín Morillo Rodríguez of the Dominican Navy told Noticias SIN scuba divers are searching near coral reefs.
“The body may be stranded on the reefs, on the coral reefs, which is why the Navy has deployed a team of Navy and local divers to comb the entire area where there are reefs or corals. So far, unfortunately, we have not been able to find the young woman,” he told the Dominican news outlet.
Speaking generally, he said it can take up to a week to find a drowning victim: “When a person drowns, they lose air from their lungs and fill with water, then the body sinks. After 72 hours, the body begins to decompose, the organs begin to decompose and fill with gas, then the body begins to float. This process lasts from 36 hours to 7 days.”
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