An American college student visiting friends for spring break in Spain has gone missing, his family said.
James “Jimmy” Gracey, a 20-year-old student on the University of Alabama, was last seen by a friend around 3 a.m. local time on Tuesday outside of Barcelona’s Shoko restaurant and nightclub, his mother said in a Facebook post, pleading for the general public’s help to seek out him.
“My college aged son is visiting friends who’re studying abroad. The [sic] went to Shoko last night. The police have his phone but he never made it back to his air bnb,” Therese Marren Gracey wrote within the Barcelona Expat Families Facebook group.
She didn’t explain how the police got here into possession of her son’s cellphone.
Gracey, of Elmhurst, Unwell., was wearing a white T-shirt, dark pants and a gold chain with a rhinestone cross on it when he went missing, in line with his mother. He’s roughly six foot one and weighs 175 kilos, she added.
He was reported missing after he did not return to his Airbnb on Wednesday morning.
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School officials from Chicago’s Saint Ignatius College Prep, where Gracey graduated, shared a press release on Facebook, writing, “The Saint Ignatius community is praying for the secure return of Jimmy Gracey ’23.”
The Catalonia Police said they’re conducting the “initial checks and have taken a report in an open investigation.”
“A call was received early yesterday morning, around 1:00 AM, reporting a possible disappearance. The disappearance was reported to have occurred on March 17, 2026, at 3:00 AM, within the Port Olímpic area,” the Catalonia Police said to NBC News.
Global News has reached out to the Catalonia Police for further information.
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