An experienced forensic scientist is casting doubt on the Spanish government’s statements regarding the passing of American student James “Jimmy” Gracey.

“We have a young man who exits a bar after midnight,” explained Joseph Scott Morgan, an associate professor specializing in applied forensics at Jacksonville State University, during an interview with Fox News Digital.

“Initially, reports suggested he left with someone, but that detail now seems uncertain. The area he was near is quite treacherous, with rocks extending into the sea. Could he have slipped and fallen? It’s a possibility.”

Gracey, a 20-year-old University of Alabama junior, disappeared in the early hours of March 17 after a night out at a well-known tourist bar in Barcelona. His body was discovered two days later, not far from a local pier.

On Thursday, March 19, 2026, Catalan police divers from the Mossos d’Esquadra searched the shoreline and Port Olimpic marina in Barcelona, Spain. They were looking for clues regarding the disappearance of James Gracey, a 20-year-old student from the University of Alabama. (James Breeden for Fox News Digital)

Almost immediately, Spanish authorities told the press that Gracey’s death was accidental and that he wandered toward the water while under the influence of drugs or alcohol. They said his wallet was recovered intact, with cash, credit cards and identification all inside.

A chain necklace worn by Gracey remains unaccounted for. 

Authorities later said they retrieved Gracey’s phone from a suspect in a crime unrelated to Gracey.

“The Spanish government, or at least their newspaper, is actually saying that he sustained multiple injuries over the course — and they’re framing these injuries as bruises — over a number of hours, and scientifically, that’s implausible,” said Morgan. “You can be insulted [by] bouncing off of rocks in a post-mortem state or deceased, and you get little dings on the body, little injuries, if you will, artifacts, as we refer to them as, off of these sharp rocks, but you’re not gonna bruise. That’s a problem for me.”

Jimmy Gracey pictured in an undated photo wearing a Crimson Tide football jersey. The University of Alabama junior was reported missing from a trip to Barcelona on March 17. (Gracey family)

Morgan argues that all the statements made by authorities were done so too early — especially in the way of toxicology.

“The government, I guess through the newspaper, are making statements relative to their conclusions about his death, and they’re missing a big piece of the puzzle here because everybody wants to know, did he have anything placed in his drink?” asked Morgan. “Was he plied with something? Let’s say like a date rape drug, something that would knock down inhibitions and make him certainly more controllable.“

The professor, who began his career with the Jefferson Parish Coroner’s Office in New Orleans in 1985 before becoming the senior investigator with the Fulton County Medical Examiner in Atlanta, thinks the Gracey family should have a private autopsy completed, though he’s not sure whether that’s still possible.

Mourners attend a vigil for Jimmy Gracey held at the Theta Chi fraternity at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Ala., Tuesday, March 24, 2026. Gracey died last week while on spring break in Barcelona, Spain. (Dana Mixer for Fox News Digital)

“It’s my opinion that the family would… they would be well-served by having their own examination of Jimmy’s remains at the hands of a board-certified forensic pathologist that they should contract with to do this,” he said.

But, as confirmed by Fox News Digital, Chief Communication Officer Harles Valles of Mossos d’Esquadra, Catalan’s provincial-level police, said Gracey’s body was returned to the United States on Tuesday.

“Now, here’s the big problem, is that his body would have been prepared prior to leaving Spain to travel over here, OK? We don’t know what organ samples they could still avail themselves of,” Morgan said. “The big piece to this is that there’s no toxicology you could do here. Those toxicology samples that were drawn in Spain are gonna be key.”

Ultimately, Morgan worries that Spanish authorities could have jumped to the conclusion of accidental death, given that Barcelona is a major tourist hub. He said he has seen many such cases.

A vigil for Jimmy Gracey is held at the Theta Chi fraternity at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Ala., Tuesday, March 24, 2026. Gracey died last week while on spring break in Barcelona, Spain. (Dana Mixer for Fox News Digital)

“Barcelona is a vacation destination,” he said. “There are millions of people there right now, and a goodly portion of that population right now are there on holiday. I’ve got friends in Great Britain that love to go to Spain, they love to go to Barcelona. And so yeah, that’s their life’s blood.”

“So yeah, I can see, you know, you don’t want to drive off the customer, and the fact that they were trying to defuse it so early, it makes me raise an eyebrow, I’ve gotta tell you.”

Amid the tranquil lanes surrounding their expansive Oxfordshire estate, Princess Beatrice and her husband, Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi, were seen cycling with their children last Saturday.

Locals, who are accustomed to spotting celebrities and royals in this picturesque Cotswold area, remarked that the couple appeared to be a typical young family savoring the spring sunshine.

However, for Beatrice, a member of the House of York and ninth in line to the throne, life is far from ordinary. Recent months have been particularly challenging due to the controversies surrounding her parents, which have cast a shadow over the family.

According to The Mail on Sunday, friends have expressed concerns that the ongoing scandal involving the disgraced Duke and Duchess of York may be affecting Beatrice’s five-year marriage to 42-year-old property designer Edo.

Despite putting on a united front, a royal insider revealed to the Daily Mail this week that tensions have surfaced in their relationship, stemming from the public disgrace of Beatrice’s parents over the past year.

Put bluntly, Edo, as he is known to family and friends, is said to be sick and tired of the ongoing House of York drama and its overarching impact on their lives – and his business.

Meanwhile, says the source, tearful ‘daddy’s girl’ Beatrice is finding it hard to walk away from her shamed parents, and having previously been ‘hyper-dependent’ on her mother, is feeling ­‘isolated’. Edo, it is said, is determined to distance himself from his toxic in-laws and ensure his own international interior design business interests and reputation are untainted by this unmitigated scandal.

Princess Beatrice and Edoardo Mapelli at the Christmas Morning Service last year

Edo has travelled on business to the US, including in Miami in February for an interior design conference and Australia

‘Behind the scenes, Edo has been working hard on keeping Bea distant from her parents,’ says the source.

‘He is convinced she needs to make her own life. He has also been trying to keep her from the Royal Family more generally because he thinks the Epstein “contagion” and, more generally, what Andrew was up to when running Pitch@Palace could leave all of them ­facing a lot of awkward questions.’

Beatrice, explains the source, ‘is finding all that hard to square with her beliefs’. ‘She was brought up to believe in dynasty and blue blood. She has yet to come to terms with it all and keeps ­bursting into tears, which he finds concerning.’

In January Beatrice demonstrated her continuing devotion to Andrew when she took her elder daughter, Sienna, for a 45-minute horse ride with the erstwhile Duke around Windsor Great Park.

The Daily Mail can also reveal that Bea is in regular touch with Andrew, 66, and has also made a top-secret visit to see him at Wood Farm on the Sandringham Estate, where he is holed up at the King’s expense, while his future home, Marsh Farm, is being refurbished. ‘Whether or not Edo knew about it is not clear,’ says the royal source.

With the pair apparently at odds over how best to navigate this familial crisis, Edo, who runs his own property company, Banda, set off for Palm Beach in Florida for a design conference last month. That trip raised more than a few eyebrows, not least because it came just days after the former Prince Andrew was dramatically whisked away from Royal Lodge under the cover of darkness.

While Edo was lapping up the sunshine 4,000 miles away, Beatrice was left alone to cope with one of the most critical moments in the agonisingly drawn-out fall of the House of York.

The location also left a bad taste in the mouth given that Palm Beach was where Jeffrey Epstein once kept a palatial home and where the late Virginia Giuffre, who claimed she was trafficked by Epstein and forced to have sex with the former Prince Andrew, grew up and was ensnared by the late billionaire sex offender.

Among the photographs Edo posted was one of himself, dressed in a pastel pink suit and loafers to match the iconic pink facade of the Art Deco Colony Hotel. If he was aware of the discomforting significance of that location then he didn’t show any sign of it.

The hotel was where Beatrice’s disgraced mother, Sarah Ferguson, often stayed and where she hosted charitable events. But according to a royal source who spoke exclusively to the Daily Mail this week: ‘Edo is deliberately trying to promote the fact that he is his own man so as to protect his business interests and reputation. He also needs to be able to visit the US frequently for business and not give the authorities any reason to summon him to answer questions, so keeping a distance makes sense.’

His Banda brand has gone from strength to strength since marrying into the Royal Family. Latest Companies House records show that Banda Design Ltd, its ­interior design arm, reported a turnover of £2.2 million in 2024 and retained profits of £774,353. A year before he and Beatrice wed, it was £244,000 in the red.

Edo was well aware of the skeletons in the York family closet when he proposed to Beatrice at a five-star hotel in Positano on the Amalfi coast in Italy in 2019.

Their July 2020 wedding at The Royal Chapel of All Saints, at Royal Lodge in Windsor, came just eight months after the then Duke of York’s disastrous BBC Newsnight interview when Andrew had already stepped down as a working royal.

Descended from Italian aristocracy, and raised in Charlbury, Oxfordshire, Edo crossed paths with Beatrice from a young age.

Although his parents – former Olympic skier Alessandro Mapelli Mozzi and British mother Nicola Burrows – divorced when he was a boy, it was through Edo’s late stepfather, Christopher Shale that a friendship with the Yorks was formed. ‘He knew Andrew and Fergie via his parents and was a semi-familiar face on the edges of royal society,’ says the source.

‘His slightly haughty manner, self-assurance and ease in very high society made him a natural fit,’ says the source. ‘Far more so than Eugenie’s husband Jack Brooksbank who was like a rabbit in the headlights as he was introduced into the family.

‘It was Edo’s insouciance and what might be interpreted as arrogance that appealed to Bea. He reminded her of her father. She was always the daddy’s girl and Edo had the same self-assuredness.’

Since their wedding, the couple have had two daughters: Sienna, four, and Athena, one. They also co-parent Edo’s ten-year-old son, Wolfie, from his previous relationship with Taiwanese-American architect Dara Huang. Edo is said to have maintained ‘discreet links’ with Andrew and Fergie at Royal Lodge.

But even before the release of the Epstein Files saw the York family scandal explode, he had tactfully refused Andrew’s ­constant requests to refurbish 30-room Royal Lodge, perhaps aware that his in-laws would not be in residence for much longer.

Despite purposely distancing himself from his wife’s family, Edo has struggled to convince ­Beatrice to do the same. According to the source: ‘She thought she would lead a grand House of York. She has yet to come to terms with it all.’

Nowhere was this more apparent than at Christmas when Beatrice accepted the King’s invitation to join the Royal Family at Sandringham. She and Edo were among royals photographed making the traditional Christmas morning walk to St Mary Magdalene Church. But Edo, says the royal source, was ‘opposed to playing happy families’ and, not surprisingly, appeared somewhat tense.

The Mapelli Mozzis, of course, are not the first couple juggling young children and careers to face marital challenges. While Edo has travelled on business to the US and Australia, Beatrice has taken multiple trips to the Middle East to promote her BY-EQ business consultancy. But in the wake of her parents’ catastrophic downfall, she is said to be feeling increasingly isolated.

‘She is lacking much of a ­support network. She was hyper-dependent on her mother and sister, although they aren’t in easy ­contact just now. She is quite ­isolated, especially with Edo away just now.’

Reassuringly, the Daily Mail’s royal source says that the couple are working through their problems and that ‘rumours of a marital rift remain wide of the mark’.

But amid ongoing tensions, Beatrice faces an unenviable dilemma.

Should she cling on to her hopes of a royal future, even if she risks being dragged into her parents’ ongoing scandal? Or should she step away from her royal birthright which in recent years has brought nothing but heartache?

She could do worse than throw her lot in with her ­husband, who declared upon their engagement: ‘You will never be alone my love, my heart is your home.’