One witness told local authorities that he had rescued the missing University of Pittsburgh student from drowning before she went missing in the Dominican Republic, a transcript of the interview obtained by NBC News shows.
20-year-old Sudiksha Konanki, a junior in college, went missing in Punta Cana on March 6 while on spring break with a group of friends.
NBC News obtained a transcript of the interview that the man, who has been named a “person of interest” by the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office in Virginia, gave to local authorities.
During a March 12 interview, he told investigators that he and Konanki, who was last seen around 4:15 a.m. on March 6, were together before she disappeared. He said that while they were at the beach, the two were “in waist-deep water, talking and kissing a little” when a wave crashed into them and took them “out to sea.”
“I tried to make sure she could breathe every moment, but that didn’t allow me to breathe all the time, and I swallowed a lot of water,” he said.
He said that he was able to get the two of them back to shore, but they remained in knee-deep water.
“I asked if she was OK. I didn’t hear her answer because I started vomiting all the seawater I’d swallowed,” he said. “After vomiting, I looked around and didn’t see anyone. I thought she’d grabbed her things and left.”
In the interview, he said he was surprised to learn she didn’t return to her room.
Though he was named a person of interest by the sheriff’s office in Loudoun County, the office has no jurisdiction over the case. Local authorities have said that nobody is considered a suspect yet and that they do not use the term “person of interest.”
Since her disappearance, international authorities have led a search for Konanki. Local emergency operations agency La Altagracia Civil Defense said in a statement on Facebook that it would be coordinating an extensive search for the student.
In a statement translated by TODAY.com, the Dominican National Police said on March 9 that surveillance footage was obtained of Konanki and her friends from the night she went missing.
The video showed Konanki walking with a group of people to the beach area at the hotel. Local investigators said that her friends returned to the hotel around 40 minutes after they went to the beach, believing that she stayed behind with at least one person.
Loudoun County Sheriff Michael Chapman told NBC Washington that Konanki remained on the beach with people who weren’t from her college that she met on the trip.
Chapman previously told NBC News, “We don’t really have any idea exactly what happened after that … when her friends returned back, and she didn’t.”
At this time, Konanki’s disappearance is still being investigated as a missing persons case.
