The body of a University of Alabama student who disappeared early Tuesday in Barcelona, Spain, during a night out at a club was found Thursday evening, the Catalonian police said.
The student, James Gracey, 20, was visiting friends who are studying abroad in Spain and had gone to Shoko, a popular beachfront nightclub, before he disappeared, according to a statement from his family on Tuesday.
Mr. Gracey’s body was found in the sea near the area where he was last seen, the Mossos d’Esquadra, Catalonia’s autonomous police force, said on Thursday.
“We are so grateful for the kindness and concern that has been shown for our family during this incredibly difficult time,” Mr. Gracey’s family said in a statement on Thursday. “We have made the decision to pause media interviews at this time to focus on being together and caring for one another.”
Allison Gracey, Mr. Gracey’s aunt, said in a phone interview earlier Thursday that the police in Spain had told the family that they had his phone and his wallet, but she said that they had not been told where the items were discovered, or how. She said there had been no arrests in the case.
“He was with friends but they got separated at the end of the night,” his mother, Therese Gracey, wrote on social media on Tuesday. She said her son’s friends lost touch with him around 3 a.m., and he never returned to the short-term rental where he was staying.
The police in Barcelona used helicopters as well as maritime and underwater units around Vila Olímpica, the neighborhood where Mr. Gracey went missing, according to an officer with the regional police force who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case publicly. The police had also reviewed security camera footage to try to retrace Mr. Gracey’s steps in the area, which is known for its nightlife.
The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Ms. Gracey said that Mr. Gracey’s father, Taras, had traveled to Spain to work with investigators. She had urged anyone who may have been in the area to check the videos and photos on their phones to see if any of them contained images of Mr. Gracey, who she referred to by his nickname “Jimmy,” and to report any sightings to the authorities.
“Jimmy’s a very responsible kid, very loyal and very active in the community,” she said, before his body was found. “And not being in contact with his family and friends, especially the friends he was traveling with, is just unlike him.”
David Gracey, Mr. Gracey’s uncle and a producer at CNN, told the news organization that his nephew had a return flight to the United States booked for Saturday.
Mr. Gracey, who was originally from Elmhurst, Ill., a suburb of Chicago, was the oldest of five children and an avid hockey player, his uncle told CNN. He was also a member of the Theta Chi Fraternity at the University of Alabama, where he was recently elected chaplain, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Cavin McLay, a member of Mr. Gracey’s fraternity, told the ABC affiliate in Birmingham, Ala., that Mr. Gracey was “the guy that’s always there when someone needs it.”
Alex House, a spokeswoman for the University of Alabama, said in a statement that Mr. Gracey had been on a personal trip when he went missing.
In recent years, there have been several cases of U.S. college students going missing while abroad that have drawn widespread attention. Last year, Sudiksha Konanki, a 20-year-old biology student at the University of Pittsburgh, went missing during a spring break trip to the Dominican Republic. Her disappearance prompted an intense, weekslong search involving drones, helicopters, divers and boats, but she was never found.
In 2022, in a case with a positive outcome, Kenny DeLand Jr. went missing in France before he turned up more than two weeks later in Spain. Mr. DeLand, a student at St. John Fisher University in Rochester, N.Y., at the time, had stopped communicating with his family, leading to a frantic search that included an Interpol alert, before he said he saw himself “in the news” and called his family.
Rylee Kirk contributed reporting.
Jonathan Wolfe is a Times reporter based in London, covering breaking news.
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