Foul play is suspected in the disappearance of a University of Alabama student who vanished after a night partying with friends in Spain, according to local reports.
James Paul Gracey, 20, was seen on security footage leaving a hip Barcelona nightclub with an unidentified person around 3 a.m. Tuesday, a reporter for the Spanish newspaper El Periódico told CBS 42.
That footage led police to suspect somebody might be involved in Gracey’s disappearance.
Gracey — who goes by Jimmy — hasn’t been seen since he spent the night partying with friends at the world-renowned Shoko club. His friends left the club around 3 a.m., but Gracey opted to stay behind.
He was reported missing when he failed to turn up at their residence the next day.
And Gracey’s worried family say he would never go this long without contacting them — unless something was seriously wrong.
“Jimmy is a kind, responsible, and devoted son and brother. It is completely out of character for him not to check in with family and friends,” the family said in a statement.
The native of Elmhurst, Illinois, is a junior at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, and was visiting friends studying abroad in Spain when he disappeared.
Investigators have reportedly recovered his phone, with Catalonia police telling NBC News that they were working on an “open investigation.”
Searches are reportedly underway across Barcelona’s nightlife neighborhoods, and at the residence where Gracey was staying, according to CBS 42.
Gracey’s mother began posting on Facebook about the case soon after he vanished.
“Police have his phone but he didn’t make it back to the air bnb. Has anyone see him?” she posted on a Facebook page for students studying in Barcelona.
The high-flying club where Gracey and his friends were partying was ranked the seventh best club in the world and number one in Barcelona last year by Nightlife International.
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