Amanda Knox's advice for American linked to Punta Cana missing persons case
Amanda Knox knows exactly what Joshua Riibe is feeling right now.
The senior at St. Cloud University in Minnesota, who is believed to be among the last people to see University of Pittsburgh student Sudiksha Konanki in the Dominican Republic, left the Caribbean country on March 19, his lawyers said.
Riibe was holed up in the resort Riu Republica in Punta Cana under strict police monitoring for 11 days before a judge ruled the situation violated Dominican law. The 22-year-old's restrictions also included confiscating his cellphone and passport.
Missing American In Dominican Republic: What's Next For Witness Joshua Riibe After Court Ruling
Riibe's attorneys successfully argued that, as a witness, not a suspect, police control over his movements over an 11-day span was unlawful.
"I had not followed that case, but the first thing is… how can I contact him?" Knox told Fox News Digital. "Because it's not just one little quote that I would give him… There's a sense of urgency that he's going to be feeling that I know I felt."
Read On The Fox News App
The mother of two has a book that was published on Tuesday, "Free: My Search for Meaning." It recounts the struggles the 37-year-old endured in attempting to reintegrate into society after spending nearly four years in an Italian prison. In it, Knox also reflects on what it was like returning to a more normal life, including seeking a life partner, finding a job and walking out in public.
Knox said she had some sage advice for Riibe and his parents as they attempt to navigate the same fears she and her family experienced.
"I absolutely would recommend taking his time because I feel like there's a lot of pressure from the outside world to turn him into content," she said.
"And also, to feel like he can go back to his life… After you've lost so much time, the last thing you want to hear is, 'Take your time. Take things slow.' But it's really, really true. And inevitably, it's just going to take time for him to really get hit by the waves of realization of what happened to him."
SIGN UP TO GET True Crime Newsletter
"It's going to be a long journey, whether or not he takes his time," Knox warned. "But really, just allowing him the space to just be without being in survival mode would be my first piece of advice."
Fox News Digital reached out to Riibe's lawyers for comment.
Knox, born in Seattle, was a 20-year-old student in Perugia studying abroad when her roommate, Meredith Kercher, was found stabbed to death in 2007. The 21-year-old was found in the cottage they shared with two Italian women.
The case made global headlines as suspicion fell quickly on Knox and her boyfriend of just days, Raffaele Sollecito.
But another man, Rudy Hermann Guede, from the Ivory Coast, was eventually convicted of murder after his DNA was found at the crime scene. The European Court of Human Rights ordered Italy to pay Knox damages for the police failures, noting she was vulnerable as a foreign student not fluent in Italian.
Knox returned to the United States in 2011, after being freed by an appeals court in Perugia, and has established herself as a global campaigner for the wrongly convicted. Over the years, she has attempted to clear her name.
Follow The Fox True Crime Team On X
Today, Knox is a board member of The Innocence Center, a nonprofit law firm that aims to free innocent people from prison. She also frequently discusses how high-profile cases impact loved ones on a podcast she hosts with her husband, "Labyrinths."
Guede, 37, was freed in 2021, after serving most of his 16-year sentence.
Riibe is believed to be among the last people who saw Konanki, 20, before she vanished in the early morning hours of March 6 from the beach behind their resort. The students were visiting the Caribbean nation for spring break with friends.
According to the transcript of an interview with prosecutors, Riibe told police he was drinking with Konanki on the beach, and they were kissing in the ocean when they got caught in a current. Riibe said he was a former lifeguard and helped bring her ashore.
Riibe told investigators he vomited upon reaching the beach and that Konanki said she was going to fetch her things. When he looked up, she was gone. Riibe said he was later surprised to hear of her disappearance.
WATCH: PARENTS OF MISSING STUDENT SUDIKSHA KONANKI FULLY BELIEVE ACCIDENTAL DROWNING
Konanki's parents, Subbarayudu and Sreedevi Konanki, have asked Dominican authorities to declare their daughter legally dead. In a letter, they said that after an extensive search, local authorities believed that their daughter had drowned.
While Riibe was faced with scrutiny, he was not named a suspect in the case. Following a trial exceeding five hours, Judge Edwin Rijo ruled that Riibe, classified as a witness, should have full rights under Dominican law and unrestricted freedom of movement.
Michael Chapman, sheriff of Loudoun County in Virginia, where the Konankis live, said in a statement that officials have been working with Dominican authorities and continue to review evidence in the case.
GET REAL-TIME UPDATES DIRECTLY ON THE True Crime Hub
"The disappearance of Sudiksha Konanki is tragic, and we cannot imagine the grief her family has been feeling," he said. "Sudiksha's family has expressed their belief that she drowned. While a final decision to make such a declaration rests with authorities in the Dominican Republic, we will support the Konanki family in every way possible."Original article source: Amanda Knox's advice for American linked to Punta Cana missing persons case
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
9 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Kash Patel Sends Ominous Threat in Response to L.A. Protests
The FBI says it will act on its own to squash the Los Angeles anti-ICE protests. FBI Director Kash Patel issued an ominous threat to the city and its residents late Sunday night, claiming that his agency would intervene in the multiday anti-Trump display without explicit direction. 'Just so we are clear, this FBI needs no one's permission to enforce the constitution,' Patel posted on X. 'My responsibility is to the American people, not political punch lines. LA is under siege by marauding criminals, and we will restore law and order. I'm not asking you, I'm telling you.' In a move that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem should agree with, California announced it would sue the federal government Monday, arguing that the Trump administration's order to send hundreds of National Guard troops toward Los Angeles, without coordination with the state's governor, was an unconstitutional breach of power. Hours earlier, FBI Public Affairs Assistant Director Ben Williamson shared that Patel had gotten off a call with 'senior leadership' addressing what they referred to as 'riots' in L.A., specifying that Patel and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino had 'offered all necessary resources from FBI HQ' to address the situation. Williamson said the pair 'reiterated the position that any perpetrator who attacks or interferes with law enforcement will be aggressively pursued and brought to justice.' Bongino made it plain that one of the agency's primary targets would be individuals suspected of assaulting officers, writing on X that he and Patel had notified all FBI teams to pursue suspected individuals 'long after order is firmly established.' 'We will not forget. Even after you try to,' Bongino posted. But Republicans have so far not been very successful at pinpointing wrongdoing in Los Angeles. Instead, some viral videos circulating in conservative circles of protest-related violence in the city are actually not from the weekend at all, but were instead taken in 2020 during the Black Lives Matter protests.
Yahoo
15 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Groomed terror suspect not treated as a ‘vulnerable child', says her mother
The mother of an autistic teenager who was groomed and 'brainwashed' by right-wing extremists says she was not treated as a vulnerable child before she took her own life. Rhianan Rudd, who died aged 16, had an 'obsession with Hitler', downloaded a bomb-making manual, and threatened to 'blow up' a synagogue after she was radicalised online by an American neo-Nazi. In the 18 months before she died, Rhianan was diagnosed with autism, investigated by counter-terrorism policing and MI5, and prosecuted over terrorism charges after she had been groomed and allegedly sexually exploited by extremists. Senior coroner Judge Alexia Durran concluded that she was not satisfied that Rhianan intended to end her own life at Chesterfield Coroner's Court on Monday. She said that 'missed opportunities' in Rhianan's case were 'not systemic' and she will not make a prevention of future deaths report. In an interview, Rhianan's mother, Emily Carter, said she believes the teenager's death was preventable and the agencies involved in her case need to be held accountable. Ms Carter said: 'They need to recognise that the way they dealt with things was not the correct way, because she's dead. 'I don't ever want this to happen to another family. This has been devastating. 'If I could save just one child from these people making all their changes and making sure they follow through with everything, there's justice in my eyes – my daughter didn't kill herself for no reason. 'It was just one thing after another basically, but all of them should learn from Rhianan's death, all of them.' Ms Carter said Rhianan was not treated as a vulnerable child, despite her autism diagnosis, and she does not believe her daughter was ever a threat to other people. The mother said: 'She was five foot one, weighed seven stone. She was tiny. 'I don't know what people thought she could do, but I don't believe that she was ever a threat. It was just what people would put in her head – brainwashed her, basically. 'They (the agencies) treated her as a child, but I don't believe they treated her as a vulnerable child. 'If you've got vulnerable children, you take extra steps to watch them, to look after them, to make sure they feel safe, even from themselves, and they didn't. Obviously, she's dead.' The mother said the moment 19 police officers and two detectives came to arrest her daughter at their family home was 'mind-numbing' and she felt 'violated' when officers turned her house 'upside down'. She said: 'It hurt … the fact that they thought that my daughter was some sort of massive terrorist. 'They were going to put her in handcuffs, but the handcuffs didn't go small enough. Even on the smallest ones, they just fell off her hands. That's how small she was.' The inquest heard that the police did not refer Rhianan to the National Referral Mechanism (NRM), which identifies victims of human trafficking or modern slavery, when they began investigating her in 2020, but the referral was made by Derbyshire County Council in April 2021. Her mother says the NRM referral should have been done 'at the very beginning' because 'they could see that she was vulnerable'. Ms Carter added that she thinks Rhianan should not have been charged, and said: 'She was a child, a vulnerable child. A child with mental health issues. 'She should have been treated as a victim more than anything.' The mother also said it 'angered' her that Rhianan was investigated by MI5 before her death and added: 'If they knew that my daughter was being groomed and sexually exploited online, and then you're investigating at that time, why did nobody come and stop it? 'Why watch a child be completely humiliated, sexualised, trafficked, brainwashed?' Speaking about her daughter's autism diagnosis, Ms Carter said Rhianan would get fixated and 'sucked into' something until it was the 'be all and end all of everything'. She said Rhianan's fixations began with My Little Pony before she became interested in German history, wanted '1940s German furniture in her bedroom', and eventually made contact with extremists on the messaging apps Telegram and Discord. Ms Carter said: 'Finding out that she'd been groomed, and the way these people talked to her … it really changed her wholeness as a person, the way she thinks, the way she feels, everything.' She said that Rhianan was a 'bubbly' girl but she became withdrawn after she was radicalised, and added that the extremists 'took away an innocent child' and 'took away her substance as a person'. She said: 'After she started talking to her so-called friend online – I thought she was talking to gamer friends and friends from school – she started withdrawing. 'She stopped talking about normal things. She wasn't very bubbly, and I'd literally have to drag her out the house.' Ms Carter said she believes Rhianan's death could have been prevented if she was placed in a mental health unit, rather than the children's home, to 'deal with her mood swings, her brain going mad'. She said: 'They don't know a child like a mother does. Even when she was at home, I would wake up two or three times throughout the night and go and check her. These houses aren't guaranteed to do that.' The mother added that it was 'scary' when she referred her daughter to Prevent but she 'knew it had to be done'. She said: 'I was hoping that it was just going to take her two or three times a week to work on her mind, unpick her head, and turn her back into Rhianan. 'Not end up with all these police officers turning up arresting her and pulling my house apart. You don't expect that at all.' The inquest heard that Rhianan took an overdose of her mother's medication after being encouraged to by the 'two competing individuals' in her mind a week before she was charged and moved to the children's home. Recalling that moment, Ms Carter said: 'I go down the stairs and Rhianan was laying on my living room floor. And I actually thought she was dead, but she wasn't. 'She basically called them (an ambulance) when she decided that she changed her mind and didn't want to die.' Ms Carter continued: 'I've made mistakes, and I want the organisations to put their hands up and admit they've made mistakes and to rectify their mistakes so it doesn't happen again. 'And then that way everybody can be happy, except me, because I've already lost my daughter.' Ms Carter described Rhianan as 'loving, kind' and a 'really beautiful soul'. She added: 'Her brother, Brandon, and Rhianan were like two peas in a pod, and he just feels completely lost without her.'
Yahoo
24 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Latinas for Trump founder now condemns White House deportation agenda: ‘Not what we voted for'
A Republican state lawmaker in Florida who founded Latinas for Trump condemned the administration's sweeping immigration arrests across the state despite the president's months-long campaign that promised the largest 'mass deportation operation' in American history. 'This is not what we voted for,' state Sen. Ileana Garcia said in a statement Saturday. 'I have always supported Trump, through thick and thin. However, this is unacceptable and inhumane.' She said her Cuban-refugee parents 'are now just as American, if not more so, than Stephen Miller,' among the architects of Trump's anti-immigration agenda demanding 3,000 daily immigration arrests. 'I understand the importance of deporting criminal aliens, but what we are witnessing are arbitrary measures to hunt down people who are complying with their immigration hearings — in many cases, with credible fear of persecution claims — all driven by a Miller-like desire to satisfy a self-fabricated deportation goal,' she wrote. 'This undermines the sense of fairness and justice that the American people value,' Garcia added. Her remarks follow arrests across the country targeting immigrants at work sites and inside courthouses, sparking widespread outrage and protests accusing the administration of targeting immigrants who were following the law. But her statements — coming from the Miami-area lawmaker with a years-long history with the president — seemingly ignore Trump's countless campaign promises of a 'mass deportation operation' and years of warnings from immigrant advocates who cautioned against these exact scenarios playing out across the country. Garcia has supported Trump since his first campaign in 2016 and created Latinas for Trump to rally Hispanic women behind the president. She also served as a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security during Trump's first term. Throughout his 2024 campaign, Trump promised to combat what he called an 'invasion' of undocumented immigrants who are 'poisoning the blood of our country,' relying on stories of violent crime to support a brutal crackdown that could impact millions of families. Trump repeatedly promised to arrest, detain and deport people living in the country without legal permission as part of his 'day one' agenda. He first pledged to 'carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history' nearly two years ago. 'Lawless mobs of unscreened unvetted illegal alien migrants are stampeding across our border by the millions and millions, including hordes of criminals, terrorists, human traffickers, child smugglers, gang members and inmates emptied out of their prisons and insane asylums and mental institutions,' Trump said in Iowa in September 2023. 'It's actually worse than that,' he added. 'This is an invasion and I'm one candidate who from day one knows exactly how to stop it.' In office, the president rescinded immigration enforcement policy limiting arrests in sensitive locations like courthouses, workplaces, schools, hospitals and places of worship, or at events like funerals, weddings and public demonstrations. Homeland Security officials have also revoked humanitarian protections for roughly 1 million people with temporary legal status — including thousands of people from Venezuela and Cuba, which have large populations in Florida, whose support for the president helped deliver him the state in 2024 elections. Now, thousands of people in those communities have lost protected status, making them vulnerable to immediate removal from the United States. In a recent survey of hundreds of Florida Venezuelans, Florida International University's Latino Public Opinion Forum found roughly 80 percent of respondents — half of whom are U.S. citizen voters — said the administration's rescission of temporary protected status for Venezuelans is unjust. Public criticism from one of Trump's longtime supporters arrived one day after another Republican lawmaker in Florida spoke out against the administration's immigration enforcement. Republican state Rep. Elvira Salazar said people navigating the nation's byzantine immigration system — including their pending asylum claims or green card petitions — deserve to 'go through the legal process.' The Cuban-American state lawmaker said she is 'heartbroken' about the 'uncertainty' gripping her district. Courthouse arrests and the termination of temporary protected status for tens of thousands of immigrants 'all jeopardize our duty to due process that every democracy must guarantee,' Salazar said. After taking office, the president issued an executive order that greenlights fast-track deportation proceedings for immigrants who cannot prove that they have continuously lived in the United States for more than two years. That 'expedited removal' process — historically used at the U.S.-Mexico border — is now being expanded across the country, with masked federal agents standing outside courtrooms to arrest immigrants moments after their immigration cases are dismissed. The American Immigration Lawyers Association says courthouse arrests are a 'flagrant betrayal of basic fairness and due process' for people who are simply following the rules. 'Immigration courts are being weaponized, judges are coordinating with ICE to dismiss cases and immediately funnel individuals into the fast-track deportation pipeline known as expedited removal,' the group said in a statement. 'These are not fugitives. They are individuals, many who are seeking protection from torture in their countries, complying with the law.'