Missing US college student found dead in Rome's Tiber

Rome, July 4 (IANS/AKI) Prosecutors on Monday opened a murder investigation after frogmen recovered from Rome's Tiber river the body of a missing American college student with a gaping wound on his head.

Nineteen-year-old Beau Solomon's corpse was floating in the Tiber near the Ponte Marconi bridge and the shirt he had been wearing when he vanished in central Rome in the early hours of Friday was covered in blood.

Although coroners said the head wound was compatible with a fall, witnesses came forward to say they saw a man being pushed into the river the night he disappeared.

Solomon's wallet and mobile phone were missing and his family said his credit card had been used since his disappearance. He was last seen at around 1am on Friday when he parted company with friends after they spent an evening together a pub in Rome's popular Trastevere district.

The corpse was transferred to Rome University La Sapienza's forensic medicine department for an autopsy. His family was due to identify his body after flying to Italy from the US on Sunday.

Solomon, a keen American football player, had arrived in Rome on Thursday for a five-week course at the John Cabot University in Trastevere. He was a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

--IANS/AKI

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