Lori Berquam, UW-Madison’s dean of students, has issued a statement saying the school was working with John Cabot University and Italian authorities to locate 19-year-old Beau Solomon.
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A homeless man was arrested by the Italian police on suspicion of homicide in connection with the death of an American student.
In a statement on Tuesday, police say he was taken into custody because he was “seriously implicated” in the murder.
Solomon was due to start a study overseas program at John Cabot University, which has a campus near the river where Solomon was found.
Several witnesses claim to have seen a group of people tossing a body over a bridge and into the river on Friday morning, according to Italian media outlet La Republica.
He went missing in the early hours of Friday morning after he went drinking with other students in the late night Trastevere quarter and his blood-stained body was found floating in the city’s Tiber River near the Marconi Bridge on Monday. ANSA reports Solomon’s entire wallet and his cell phone were not found with his body, furthering the police’s theory he was robbed before he was killed.
Shortly after the disappearance, his parents called Beau’s credit card company and “realized thousands of dollars had been charged” in Milan to his card – which is about 350 miles north of Rome. His brother, Cole Solomon, remembered his brother for his courage in battling childhood cancer. Preliminary autopsy results indicated that Solomon had suffered injuries consistent with a fall and with days spent in the water, ANSA added. They say more than two-thousand students participated in all of the university’s study overseas programs in 2014.
The exact cause of his death has yet to be determined.
On Monday, hundreds of people took part in a vigil for Beau Solomon at River Valley High School in Spring Green.
In January 2015, another John Cabot University study overseas student, 20-year old Andrew Mogni of the University of Iowa, fell off a bridge and was seriously hurt. “And tonight we remember the good times we’ve had, and keep his family and friends in our thoughts and prayers”.
The family says Solomon’s credit cards have been used since he disappeared. “It’s not up to the president of John Cabot University to do an evaluation of the dangers of Rome’s nightlife, it’s up to judicial authorities”. He had recently completed his first year as a personal finance major at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
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His brother Cole Solomon told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel a “murder investigation” had been opened.
