The family of 21-year-old University of Missouri student Riley Strain is desperately searching for answers after his body was found in Nashville’s Cumberland River. The news outlet WKRN recently reported that two weeks after Strain was last seen, his body has been found.
Strain had traveled to the city with fraternity brothers when he went missing. His friends had last seen him walking in the direction of the river before Strain, a finance major, vanished without a trace. As the days passed without a clue regarding his whereabouts, Strain’s friends reached out to the police on March 9 to report him missing.
Officers continue to work to locate missing person Riley Strain, 22, who was last seen Fri. night by friends @ a Broadway bar in Nashville. Riley is from Missouri and was visiting. He is 6’5″ tall with a thin build, blue eyes and light brown hair. See him? Pls call 615-862-8600. pic.twitter.com/daqKDWGJJO
— Metro Nashville PD (@MNPDNashville) March 11, 2024
Given that Strain’s fraternity brothers were the last ones to see him, suspicion immediately fell upon the group. Yet the reality was much less sinister. Strain had simply left a bar, only to be removed for consuming too much alcohol.
He appeared unsteady and aimless in surveillance footage that captured him crossing Gay Street in Nashville, where he was seen by a local homeless man who claims that Strain almost tumbled into the river. The homeless man described Strain as “very, very intoxicated,” adding that he was relieved Strain never actually fell in his sight.
As law enforcement officials investigated, Officer Reginald Young recorded on his body camera that he stopped Strain at around 9:52 p.m. that fateful night. Strain sounded positive in Young’s recording, responding cordially and watchfully, appearing to follow the dialogue without trouble before walking away.
The prevailing theory is that the student might have fallen into the river later. The final ping from Strain’s phone between 10 p.m. and 10.30 p.m. narrowed down the search for his body to the river where the tragic event would turn out to occur. According to police reports given to the New York Post, this is the last location Strain was detected, alongside the final text message his family received.
Although the police have yet to finish their investigation into the actual circumstances of death, the Good Lops [sic] message appeared to tangentially and cryptically allude to the tragedy that was about to unfold. This initially confusing string of words has now taken on an unexpected and broader resonance since Strain’s body was discovered.
An autopsy has been requested, and investigators are waiting for its results. While Strain’s family, as well as the police, continue to query the sequence of events leading to the student’s death, his friends and family are left devastated.
