Rahab's Red Rope, page-13

Truly I tell you today - expression was an idiom of that time.
The thief did not go to Paradise the day he died. He was not qualified to go to Heaven, he had not been born again. And Jesus was not to be raised back to life until the 3rd day

So nobody went anywhere until the 3rd day. Jesus was resurrected and the thief remained in Hades
or the grave. And there he still waits until he is restored to life in the coming Paradise.