ROME — A homeless man was detained Tuesday in connection with the death of a 19-year-old student from Wisconsin who disappeared just hours after he landed in Rome, Italian authorities said.

Massimo Galioto is suspected of involvement in what the police in Rome said was the murder of Beau Solomon, a visiting student from the University of Wisconsin who was found in the Tiber River on Monday with a head wound and blood on his shirt.

Solomon disappeared after going to a pub Thursday night, not long after he arrived in the city for a summer program at John Cabot University, a US school in central Rome.

The university said in a statement that Solomon’s roommate, who has not been identified, was with him at a pub in Trastevere, an area near the university known for its night life, and that he lost contact with him around 1 a.m.

He alerted the school’s administrators when Solomon failed to appear at orientation the next morning, the university said.

More than $1,700 was charged to Solomon’s credit card after he disappeared, according to Italian news reports, including a large purchase Friday at a store in Milan, about 350 miles north of Rome. His cellphone is missing.

Solomon’s body was found about two miles south of the Garibaldi Bridge, roughly 2,000 feet from the pub where he left his friends.

New York Times