WHITFIELD: This breaking news just in to CNN, an American student missing in Rome, has been found dead. John Dirken was last seen at a bar with a group of friends two days ago in Rome. Our Alexandria Field is following development from New York. What more can you tell us about the circumstance of the death.</s>ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Fredricka, police in Rome are now saying that they found John Dirken's body in a railroad tunnel in Central Rome. They said the body had been hit by a train. He was discovered on Friday morning two days after he disappeared. His family identified his remains earlier today. Dirken was an economics major from Bates College in Maine, who had been studying aboard in Rome through a foreign exchange program run by Trinity College in Connecticut. He was a linebacker on the football team originally from Rye, New Hampshire. He had been out on Wednesday night with a group of friends we are told. They had left the bar before him. He never returned home. That's when he was reported missing. Family and friends went on a desperate search to find him. We know that Dirken's father had flown to Rome to look for his son and had arrived by the time it seems this news was delivered.</s>WHITFIELD: Terribly sad. All right, thank you so much, Alexandra. Let us know if you learn any more details about the investigation. You know, before I let you go, are they looking at this as, you know, foul play or is it terrible accident? Do we know anything like that in terms of the direction of the investigation?</s>FIELD: Sure, what police are saying right now is that they are still investigating the circumstances of the death, what they can say definitely is where his body was found and that it appears he was hit by a train. But we don't know how he got into the railroad tunnel, what may have happened between the time he was last seen by his friends and when his body was discovered on Friday.</s>WHITFIELD: All right, so sad, thank you so much. Alexandra, appreciate that. We'll have much more from the NEWSROOM right after this.
American Student Found Dead In Italy