Bermuda bar owner says Philadelphia college student not drunk before deadly disappearance
PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania -- A Bermuda bar owner says a Pennsylvania student did not appear to be drunk before he disappeared. Mark Dombroski, 19, was found dead Monday at the base of a colonial-era fort in a park on the island territory.
Frank Arnold, owner of the Dog House bar, says Dombroski "was not sober, but he was not intoxicated."
Bermuda police said Dombroski was found dead in a moat at Fort Prospect in Devonshire. The location is near police headquarters.
They said foul play was not yet ruled out, but they couldn't say at this time if the body bore any telltale signs of violence. But they also noted that the body had just been found, police said.
"Foul play is not ruled out right now," said James Howard, Bermuda's acting assistant commissioner of police. "The forensic officers are there. They're assessing the scene, assessing the body."
Arnold said Dombroski's parents had been to the bar on Sunday to look through hours of closed-circuit television footage.
A cause of death has not been released, and forensic experts were still processing the scene where his body was found.
Dombroski was a member of the rugby team at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia and had come to Bermuda to compete in a tournament.
He had last been seen around midnight Saturday and was due to leave Bermuda Sunday.
Dombroski was a graduate of Archmere Academy in Claymont, Delaware, and was a freshman at St. Joe's. His family rushed to the island to join the search and retrace his steps.
"We dearly love our son, we cherish our son...We want him back," mom Lisa Dombroski said at a news conference with police officials. "We thank the citizens of Bermuda. People have been with us shoulder to shoulder throughout this ordeal."
She speculated her son, who had hurt his shoulder in a game that day and wasn't feeling well, had simply wanted to call it a night. She said the surveillance footage showed him favoring his arm.
"He wasn't in a celebratory kind of mood," Lisa Dombroski said. "He wanted to get back."
(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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