ROME — An American college student has vanished just hours after arriving in the Italian capital, according to police and his university.
Beau Solomon, a 20-year-old visiting student from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, arrived in Italy on Thursday. He was reported missing the following morning by his roommate, John Cabot University said in a statement issued Sunday.
After the disappearance, Solomon’s parents called their son’s credit card company and “realized thousands of dollars had been charged” to his account, his brother Jake Solomon told NBC affiliate WMTV in Madison, Wisconsin.
The sophomore was last seen around 1 a.m. on Friday (7 p.m. ET Thursday) while at a pub in Rome and his roommate became “worried when he did not see Beau at orientation that morning,” according to the small liberal arts college based in Rome.
“John Cabot University also informed the American Embassy and the student’s home school, which notified the family,” the statement added.
Solomon’s disappearance was reported to Italian authorities by college officials at 9 p.m. local time (3 p.m. ET) on Friday, a spokesman for the police told NBC News.
Solomon’s parents were en route to Italy on Sunday, according to NBC affiliate WMTV in Madison, Wisconsin.
“We’re just really worried about his safety,” Jake Solomon told WMTV. “If anybody can reach out to anyone that they know to try to get somebody to recognize Beau and help spread the word, it would be incredibly helpful.”
Solomon had just finished his first year as a personal finance major, WMTV reported.
U.S. Embassy officials were not immediately available for comment.
Investigators on Monday identified a body found in Rome’s Tiber River as a 19-year-old student from Wisconsin who’d vanished hours after arriving in the Italian capital.
“John Cabot University is deeply saddened to announce that the body of Beau Solomon, the missing American visiting student, has been found in the Tiber River. We express our most heartfelt condolences to the Solomon family and to all those who loved Beau,” the university in Rome confirmed in a statement.
Solomon had gone out to a pub with friends Thursday. The school was “alerted by his roommate who reported that he had lost contact with Beau around 1 a.m. on Thursday night.”
Officials said he failed to show up at orientation Friday morning. After contacting a credit card company, the family learned that somebody charged “thousands of dollars” to his account from Milan — some 350 miles northwest of Rome, his brother Jake told NBC News.
The university was in contact with Italian authorities, the U.S. Embassy and the student’s home school, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Cabot President Franco Pavoncello told the Associated Press.
Jake Solomon told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that if Beau was kidnapped, his abductor “has it coming.”
Relatives also said Beau Solomon had survived a childhood cancer battle that lasted 10 years. “All three of us (brothers) are aligned on the fact that Beau is the toughest S.O.B. that we’ve ever met,” Jake Solomon added.
Solomon was from Spring Green and UW-Madison said he had just completed his first year as a personal finance major. His family said he dreamed of becoming a lawyer.
Solomon’s case marks the latest dramatic development involving an American student in Italy.
In 2012, a U.S. student was allegedly stabbed by his roommate, a fellow student at John Cabot University, after what police said was a night of alcohol and possible drug use and Halloween partying. The stabbed student survived.
Also in recent years, a young American man, recently arrived in Rome for studies, apparently fell off a low wall, where many people sit at nighttime, and landed several yards below on the cement banks of the Tiber River near the Trastevere neighborhood.
Trastevere and the Camp de’ Fiori Piazza areas are filled with pubs, bars and cafes, many of them frequented by U.S. students who do “pub crawls.”
In another case, another young American male student, who had been reported missing after leaving a bar, was found dead near train tracks in a tunnel, apparently hit by a train in the early morning hours.