CNN
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The parents of missing University of Pittsburgh student Sudiksha Konanki have asked for Dominican authorities to declare their daughter dead. Their request highlights the heartbreaking realities of losing a child and handling the legalities of a missing person case.
Investigators believe Konanki drowned “and no evidence of foul play has been found,” Subbarayudu and Sreedevi Konanki wrote in a letter obtained by CNN, asking that police “proceed with the legal declaration of her death.” As of Thursday, the investigation into her disappearance by the Dominican Republic National Police continues.
“We understand that certain legal procedures must be followed and are prepared to comply with any necessary formalities or documentation,” Konanki’s parents’ letter reads. “Initiating this process will allow our family to begin the grieving process and address matters related to her absence.”
The Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office in Virginia, where Konanki’s family lives, told CNN that while it “supports the wishes of Ms. Konanki’s grieving parents to seek closure in their request that the Dominican law enforcement authorities acknowledge the death of their daughter by accidental drowning,” it is up to Dominican Republican authorities to make that determination.
“That still does not confirm exactly what happened and we may never know with certainty, but Sheriff (Mike) Chapman believes the investigation in the DR should be completed before the case is closed,” sheriff’s spokesperson Thomas Julia said in an email to CNN Wednesday.
In the Dominican Republic, police don’t typically declare someone deceased without finding either a body or evidence of a crime, according to Dominican attorney Julio Cury. In this case, investigators have neither. A death declaration without a body would have to happen via special law by the country’s Congress or the president, Cury told CNN’s Jessica Hasbun. There is no specific time frame for this process, Cury said.
The US Embassy in the Dominican Republic website states it needs an original local death certificate in order to prepare a Consular Report of Death Abroad.
In Virginia, a person can be presumed dead after disappearance in several scenarios under the commonwealth’s law, according to Naomi Cahn, a law professor and co-director of the Family Law Center at the University of Virginia School of Law.
Under one provision, a person can be presumed dead seven years after their absence. Under another, there can be a declaration of death in Virginia before the seven years are up if there is a situation where someone was exposed to a “specific peril of death,” the code specifies.
“Possibly what happened here may be a sufficient basis for determining at any time after the exposure (to a specific peril of death), that the person is presumed to have died less than seven years,” Cahn told CNN.
The Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office is offering support to the family through their Victim Advocate Unit to help them navigate the two-step process of establishing grounds for presumption of death and following judicial procedure, “or any other process, should the Konanki family request it,” Julia told CNN.
One of the reasons the family may seek their daughter’s death declaration is simply for closure, said personal injury and criminal defense attorney Phillip DiLucente.
“From a parental position, they want to honor their child and have it be respected – their wishes – that she be declared dead because they’re under the impression, based upon all the evidence they were given at this juncture, that it was a drowning case,” DiLucente said.
“It is with deep sadness … and a heavy heart that we are coming to the terms with the fact our daughter has drowned. This is incredibly difficult for us to process,” father Subbarayudu Konanki said in an emotional interview on WTTG Tuesday. “We kindly ask you to keep our daughter in your prayers, we still have two young children to care for.”
“I think everybody would agree that they respect the family’s wishes,” DiLucente said. “Nonetheless, law enforcement, as well as the medical examiner, would have their duty (to rule a death), and that duty surpasses any desires.”
“There is still no body so that an autopsy could be performed, that in and of itself, is difficult for the authorities to then make a decision on whether or not to declare someone deceased, particularly under these circumstances,” DiLucente added.
Another reason for seeking the death declaration, DiLucente said, may be so an estate can be opened and any will and testament could then be administered. For example, any existing college savings plan in Konanki’s name could then be utilized for their other children, and insurance policies could also be honored and paid out, the attorney explained. Until a death certificate is issued, those things remain in an inertia period, he said.
Finally, DiLucente noted, until an estate is opened and there is an administrator for the estate, no lawsuit could be filed against any person or entity.
If the Konanki family were to seek any type of lawsuit, the declaration of death would also determine the type of lawsuit and the damages for the death, UVA professor Cahn said.
The Konanki family has not indicated plans to sue on behalf of Sudiksha’s death.
Konanki’s case is reminiscent of the 2005 disappearance of 18-year-old Natalee Holloway. In 2012, an Alabama judge signed an order declaring Holloway legally dead.
The teen’s father had filed a petition to declare his daughter dead, six years after Holloway was last seen leaving a nightclub on the Caribbean island of Aruba with Joran van der Sloot and two other men. No one was charged in her disappearance, and her body has never been found, though van der Sloot later confessed to killing her.
Holloway’s father’s attorney, Mark White, said at the time that the order – which acted as a death certificate – would help resolve Natalee’s estate, who still had a small college fund in her name and was listed as a participant and beneficiary on her father’s health insurance.
CNN’s Mark Morales, Jessica Hasbun, and Chris Boyette contributed to this reporting.
