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Vigil planned Monday at SDSU 6-9 p.m.
March 6, 2011 (San Diego) – On February 25, San Diego State University student Austin Taylor Bice posted on his Facebook page about his plans for the evening. “It’s in Madrid and it should be a fun night,” he wrote. Bice, 22, an exchange student studying at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid in Spain, disappeared hours later and hasn’t been seen since.
SDSU posted a notice of the missing international business student on its website Friday. Bice was reported missing two days after he was last seen the night of February 25th.
ECM news partner 10 News spoke with a friend and fellow student, who said Bice and friends went out drinking that night, but that some were denied entrance to the La Riviera nightclub.
“Apparently, Austin was too drunk to get in so the bouncer didn’t let him,” Julio Cesar Prado said. “Supposedly, Austin told friends he was going to walk home and he would see them another day.”
Some friends have questioned that account. Connor Fabiano told NBC 7/39 that he’s been friends with Bice since fourth of fifth grade and had never seen him drunk. He denied that Bice was a heavy drinker and partier. “That’s not true,” he said.
A post by Bice on his Facebook face seems to confirm caution on his part. “Before I came to Spain I was told by all of my advisers that I should try to keep calm at parties and not try to be the typical loud and drunk American,” he wrote. “I have done exactly that, staying back and watching hilarious drunken events occur from a relatively sober mind.”
Spanish police have issued a continent-wide alert throughout Europe, notifying international police organizations Interpol and Europol, the Union-Tribune reported on March 4. The newspaper quotes Spanish police who report Bice was last seen at a fast-food restaurant near the nightclub in the Puerta del Angel neighborhood. Bllog posts by other students in the group indicate police discouraged them from reporting Bice missing initially, suggesting he may have merely been with a girl and would soon return.
But more than a week later, he remains missing. The SDSU student is originalyl from Carlsbad ahd played football at Torrey Pines High School before gaining admission to SDSU.
Larry Bice, father of the missing student, arrived Thursday in Madrid and with help from others has been posting missing person posters of his son. Hundreds of supporters planned to gather at the nightclub and fanned out across the city in search teams, the Union-Tribune reported.
Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-Solano Beach, has been coordinating with the State Department, Ameican Embassy, family and law enforcement, 10 News reports. “The report I’ve gotten is that both the Spanish and the American authorities have shifted into high gear on this issue,” Bilbray said.
Authorities have reportedly reviewed security footage from the city’s metro system, but think it’s unlikely that he fell into a nearby river because his cell phone signal was still on as of several days after his disappearance. No calls have been made or received on the phone, nor have any e-mails been sent through Bice’s e-mail account since he vanished.
The Agape House, an SDSU campus ministry organization, has scheduled a candlelight vigil for Bice on Monday from 6 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. on the campus' Free Speech Steps.
Comments
Check the bouncers
I'm from Madrid, Spain, and my opinion is that the bouncers who didn't let him in should be questioned and screened very carefully indeed. The brutality of those people is well known over here, and there have been a number of cases over the last few years in which brushes or mere arguments with them have ended quite tragically.
I'm pretty sure the Spanish police is looking at that angle, though. Best of luck.