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Exclusive | Sudiksha Konanki’s hometown sheriff doesn’t believe Joshua Riibe was ‘complicit’ in Pitt student’s death
CHANTILLY, Virginia — The sheriff in missing Pitt student Sudiksha Konanki’s hometown doesn’t believe that Joshua Riibe was complicit in her disappearance — though US investigators still want Dominican authorities to keep working the case.
Riibe was the last person to see Konanki, 20, alive after apparently meeting her at a bar in Punta Cana, where she was partying with her girlfriends on a spring break trip early March 6.
Dominican authorities have said he is a “person of interest” in the case and have put him under police guard and seized his passport.
However, the Loudon County Sheriff’s Office in Virginia sent investigators to the Dominican Republic and interviewed Riibe. As a result, detectives do not think he is responsible for her disappearance, Loudoun County sheriff’s spokesman Thomas Julia told The Post.
“Is he in any way complicit in any of this? And even if he’s not complicit in any way, and we don’t believe he is, we’ve interviewed him, and he was very cooperative,” Julia exclusively told The Post.
“We believe he just struggles with his memory in the pre-dawn hours when you’re in a particular state of mind after going through a near-drowning yourself, you may indeed have passed out,” Julia said of Riibe.
Riibe, a 22-year-old college senior from Iowa, said he last saw Konanki while kissing her as the two swam in the ocean but soon after drunkenly passed out on the beach and could not say what happened to her.
Julia questioned how much time passed between when Riibe last saw Konanki and when he passed out — a key missing piece of information that would likely help investigators determine what happened to her.
“Was it a moment? Was it seconds? And that correspondingly bears on, could she have had a chance to get out and then somehow disappeared without his knowledge?” Julia said.
“So that’s why all of this is very important, to try to understand the exact timeline as best we can from his limited recollection,” he continued.
“If she really didn’t have any chance to get out and she did get washed out in a second wave, then all of this about ‘Might something else have happened to her if she did get out of the water that morning?’ becomes moot because it’s likely that never happened,” Julia said.
Even though Virginia officials in Konanki’s hometown don’t believe that Riibe, who has not been accused of any wrongdoing, was directly involved, they’re pushing for the investigation to be completed by authorities in the Dominican Republic.
“Anything that’s outstanding in terms of surveillance, phones, any other evidence that has been collected and hasn’t been analyzed, we would like all that completed,” Julia said. “We think this investigation and this family is owed the completion of the investigation.”
When asked what evidence or phone has not been analyzed, Julia said he couldn’t say but that they “haven’t seen 100% of the analysis yet.”
The Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office hopes authorities in the Dominican Republic close out their investigation, even after Konanki’s parents on Monday asked officials to declare her dead — despite authorities never finding her body.
“There’s no reason not to do that, even if they acknowledge and accept what the parents have said, there’s no reason for them not to complete this investigation so there’s no lingering ‘Oh, what about that phone? Oh, what about that piece of videotape?’” Julia said. “There’d be no reason not to complete the investigation.”
Konanki’s parents on Monday also suggested authorities should stop investigating Riibe, who was the last person to see the 20-year-old pre-med student alive on March 6.
“The individual last seen with her is cooperating with the investigation, and no evidence of foul play has been found,” the grieving parents wrote to local officials, without mentioning Riibe by name.
The two, who met sometime after Konanki arrived at the resort town, were seen in surveillance footage together the night she went missing.
Local authorities initially said they believed Konanki drowned in the ocean — but then said they were not ruling out foul play after Konanki’s family earlier raised fears that she could have been kidnapped.
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Chud the Builder, Known for Racist Confrontations, Charged With Attempted Murder
A streamer known for hurling racist slurs in public settings under the nickname “Chud the Builder” was charged with attempted murder after a shooting outside a Tennessee courthouse on Wednesday, the authorities said.
The streamer, Dalton Eatherly, 28, was involved in a confrontation with an unidentified man that escalated to gunfire outside the Montgomery County Court in Clarksville, about 50 miles northwest of Nashville, the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. Both men sustained gunshot wounds and were in stable condition, the office said.
In addition to attempted murder, Mr. Eatherly was charged with employing a firearm during dangerous felony, aggravated assault and reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon, the sheriff’s office said.
Mr. Eatherly, who is white, has accumulated an online audience by livestreaming confrontations in which he uses racist language toward Black people in public.
Law enforcement did not provide any details about the second man involved in Wednesday’s shooting. Mr. Eatherly posted an audio recording online of paramedics treating his wounds in which he claims he shot the man in self-defense.
A video posted by the website Clarksville Now shows Mr. Eatherly on a stretcher with a microphone attached to his lapel.
Mr. Eatherly is being held at the Montgomery County Jail, pending arraignment, the sheriff’s office said.
According to court records, Mr. Eatherly was scheduled to appear for a court hearing on Wednesday morning in an unrelated case brought by Midland Credit Management, a collections agency.
A lawyer listed in court records from a separate harassment case in which Mr. Eatherly was a defendant in November did not respond to a request for comment.
On Sunday, three days before the shooting in Clarksville, Mr. Eatherly was arrested in Nashville. According to a police affidavit, Mr. Eatherly live streamed his meal at a restaurant, Bob’s Steak and Chop House, on Saturday even though the restaurant had asked him ahead of time not to do so.
When he was confronted, Mr. Eatherly “became disruptive and started making racial statements, yelling, screaming and otherwise creating a scene,” according to the affidavit.
He then refused to pay for his $370 meal. Mr. Eatherly was charged with theft of services, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. He was released on $5,000 bond.
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Suspect in murder of University of Washington student surrenders to police
SEATTLE (KOMO) — Seattle police have arrested a suspect in the murder of a University of Washington student.
The student, a 19-year-old transgender woman, was found dead with stab wounds in a laundry room at the Nordheim Court Apartments – off-campus housing for UW students – Sunday night.
The arrest comes a day after the Seattle Police Department (SPD) released photos of a suspect described as armed and dangerous. SPD has not yet confirmed whether the man in the images is the suspect.
According to Seattle police Det. Brian Pritchard, a 31-year-old man turned himself in to Bellevue police before being transferred to SPD detectives.
The Bellevue Police Department said the man was arrested at 10:42 p.m. on Wednesday.
The suspect was booked into the King County jail for investigation of murder.
RELATED | UW students raise security concerns after deadly stabbing, report prior break-in
Anyone with more information is asked to call the SPD violent crimes tip line at 206-233-5000. Anonymous tips are welcome.
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This story is developing.
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South Carolina Governor Plans Special Session to Redraw House Maps
Gov. Henry McMaster of South Carolina, a Republican, plans to call the state legislature back for a special session that will be focused on redrawing the state’s congressional maps, lawmakers said on Wednesday evening. The effort could eliminate the state’s sole Democratic district, held by Representative James E. Clyburn.
Mr. McMaster’s decision came one day after five Republican state senators voted with Democrats to block a resolution that would have brought the legislature back to the State Capitol to consider redistricting.
That vote had seemed to close the door on the matter. Republican lawmakers had considered an agreement to extend their session only when it became clear that Mr. McMaster would not immediately call a special session himself.
But Mr. McMaster, who cannot seek re-election because of term limits, now appears willing to thrust South Carolina into the redistricting battles that have reached fever intensity, particularly in the South, ever since the Supreme Court dealt a blow to the Voting Rights Act last month.
President Trump has been clear about his wish for a G.O.P. sweep of all seven of South Carolina’s congressional districts, pressing Republican officials to draw new district maps before the midterm elections.
Mr. McMaster’s office declined to comment on Wednesday. Recently, he had said that he would let the Republican-controlled General Assembly decide the matter.
If Mr. McMaster calls the special session, lawmakers would face a time crunch. South Carolina’s primaries are on June 9, but early voting begins in two weeks, so Republicans would have to pass new maps before May 26.
The South Carolina House has proposed moving the congressional primaries to August to accommodate new maps.
There are also legal hurdles to consider. Hundreds of overseas voters have already cast ballots, which could prompt lawsuits if their votes are discarded to account for a change of date in congressional elections.
It is still unclear if new maps would pass in a special session, although Republicans control the legislature and would need only a simple majority to approve them.
Davey Hiott, the Republican leader of the South Carolina House, told reporters that his chamber was ready to get things rolling on Friday morning and vote on a map as quickly as possible, ideally next week.
Shane Massey, the Republican leader of the State Senate, who drew national attention for his impassioned speech against redistricting, was much more apprehensive about moving fast. He said public input was important and continued to voice opposition to the redistricting effort.
“I haven’t heard anything that alleviates the concerns, not just for me but for other people that I’ve been talking to,” Mr. Massey said. “The concerns are there. If anything, they’re only heightened.”
He also noted that there were other pressing matters for the legislature to consider in the special session, such as finishing the budget.
Unlike their counterparts in states like Tennessee, Alabama and Louisiana, some South Carolina Republicans have been much more lukewarm about the idea of mid-decade redistricting, mostly because they are skeptical that a new map would guarantee one more Republican-leaning congressional district. Instead, they fear that Democrats could be competitive in the newly created districts as Republican strength in some current districts is diluted.
Mr. Massey said in the chamber on Tuesday that changing the maps was “extremely risky” and could allow Democrats to pick up a seat.
“Very candidly, you’re going to motivate Black turnout, and there will be repercussions from that,” including on local races, he said in that speech.
Mr. Massey and Mr. Hiott did agree that the redistricting debates were about to get even messier in Columbia, the capital.
“It’ll be like nothing we’ve ever seen,” Mr. Hiott said. “It’ll be long. It’ll be tedious. At times, hopefully, it’ll be respectful.”
He laughed when asked what he made of the governor’s change of heart on redistricting, adding, “I never thought it was out of the realm of possibility.”
Mr. Massey said Mr. McMaster had argued in a private meeting that calling the legislature back didn’t mean he was telling them what to do.
“My position on that is, if you’re calling us back, you’re telling everybody what you want us to do,” Mr. Massey said.
Mr. Massey described their redistricting dilemma as “a box within a box,” a “maze,” something he didn’t know how to escape. Sooner or later, he added, they would have to vote on new maps.
The debate over redistricting comes in the waning weeks of a crowded Republican primary battle for governor. All of the leading candidates have expressed their support for redistricting to increase Republicans’ chances of retaining control of Congress. Some of the candidates, including Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette and Alan Wilson, the state attorney general, have showed up at committee hearings, urging lawmakers to move ahead.
Mr. Trump has not yet endorsed anyone in the governor’s race.
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