ROME — Pope Francis
met on Wednesday with the parents of an American college student whose
body was found in the Tiber River this week, a victim of what the police
are calling robbery and murder.
In an early
morning private and unscheduled meeting with the parents before his
usual audience with pilgrims, Francis expressed “feelings of deepest
sympathy and compassion, and his closeness in prayer to the Lord” for
the family’s loss, the Vatican said in a statement. The Vatican
newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, identified the parents as Nick and Jodi
Solomon.
The Solomons’ 19-year-old son, Beau Solomon, a student of the University of Wisconsin,
Madison, arrived in Rome last Thursday to attend summer classes at John
Cabot University, an American college in downtown Rome. He went out for
drinks with friends in the Trastevere neighborhood near the college
before disappearing around 1 a.m. on Friday, just hours after his
arrival.
Mr. Solomon’s body was found three days
later, on Monday afternoon, a few miles south of where neighborhood
surveillance cameras had recorded him for the last time. Early on
Tuesday, the Rome police arrested Massimo Galioto, a 40-year-old homeless man, on suspicion of murder.
More
than $1,700 was charged to Mr. Solomon’s credit card after he
disappeared, Italian news reports have said, including a large purchase
on Friday in a Milan store, about 350 miles north of Rome. His cellphone
is also missing.
Source: CNN
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