Riley Strain’s mother revealed that her son mysteriously texted her to say his drink tasted strange, just hours before he disappeared.
Michelle Whiteid said Strain, 22, had ordered a rum and coke that “didn’t taste good” the night she disappeared, NewsNation reports.
The University of Missouri student’s semi-naked body was pulled from the Cumberland River in Tennessee 14 days after he disappeared, but an initial autopsy ruled out foul play.
Now his mother has shared her fears that his drink may have contained something that could explain the circumstances.
Riley Strain’s mother, Michelle Whiteid, said her son texted her to say his drink tasted strange hours before he disappeared.
Strain, 22, was seen leaving Luke’s 32 Bridge Food + Drink on Broadway on March 8, according to the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department.
Strain was seen stumbling through the streets of Nashville the night he disappeared.
“Maybe there was something in it that shouldn’t have been there,” Whiteid said, explaining that his son told him the drink “tasted like barbecue.”
“I said, ‘Well, that sounds horrible,'” Whiteid added. “He said, ‘Well, it sounds good, but it’s not.'”
Luke’s 32 Bridge Food + Drink, where Strain was last seen alive in person, said he was asked to leave after being served an alcoholic beverage and two waters.
The Delta Chi fraternity member was in Tennessee on a group trip for their annual spring party when he was kicked out of the bar around 10 p.m.
Surveillance video showed him falling while walking the streets of Nashville before his disappearance on March 8.
Additional surveillance footage released by Nashville police shows him staggering and appearing confused as he crossed a closed road near the water.
The next morning, his fraternity brothers tried to find Strain using his Snapchat location, but were unsuccessful and called the police to report him missing.
Whiteid said her son was “excited” about the trip, but his world came crashing down when he received a call from his friends informing him they couldn’t find him.
‘I said, ‘What do you mean he’s with you?’ Why would there be her? What do you mean you can’t find it?,” Whiteid recalled. “(The brother) says, ‘Well, he’s not at the hotel and we can’t find him.'”
Michelle Strain Whiteid said her son told her her drink “tasted like barbecue” and she advised him not to drink it.
It was found by a worker from a local construction materials company unloading barges into the river.
The last location of his cell phone was recorded between Gay Street and James Robertson Parkway, near the bar where he was last seen.
A frantic search ensued and Strain was eventually found in the river without pants, shoes or his wallet.
An initial police autopsy found no signs of foul play, but no signs that he had drowned.
A second autopsy ordered by the family confirmed there was no water in his lungs, raising fears that he was already dead when he entered the water.
“One thing that baffled the family was that the coroner officially declared a lack of water in his lungs,” a friend of Strain’s family told NewsNation.
“Usually, water in the lungs means they were alive when they entered the water.”
Strain’s stepfather, Chris Whiteid, says he wants to know what happened and will continue searching for answers.
‘If it fell and really fell into the water, and you can prove it to me, show me. I’ll take it,” she told NewsNation.
Michelle Strain Whiteid, left, and her husband, Chris Whiteid, speak to the media during a press conference to inform the public about the disappearance of Riley Strain.
Chris Dingman (pictured), a friend of the Riley family, appeared on NewsNation’s ‘Elizabeth Vargas Reports’ and said the new development in the case was ‘huge.’
“But I can tell you from everything we’ve done as far as searching and observing and taking pictures that I don’t think it’s really possible that that happened.” She may have fallen, but someone helped her into the water.
The person who last spoke to Riley is said to have spoken to police earlier this month, and the family hailed it as a “huge” development.
Family friend Chris Dingman told NewsNation’s Elizabeth Vargas Reports this week that the witness “told the detective his account of the story of what happened to Riley.”
Video surveillance from a nearby detention center may be the key to Riley’s final moments.
Dingman said one of the videos from one of the cameras was made public, but the others were not available to the family.
‘The detention center is just north of the last ping on Riley’s phone. It was the only video released to the public,’ she stated.
The family’s worst fears have been further stoked after a renowned forensic expert said he believed Strain’s state of undress could indicate he was murdered.
“I’d say someone took them off,” Dr. Bill Bass, who founded the University of Tennessee’s famous Body Farm, said of Strain’s pants.
Riley, 22, was wearing this distinctive black and white T-shirt when he disappeared after being kicked out of a bar in downtown Nashville during a night out with friends.
Nashville police searched a homeless encampment at the water’s edge after people living there reported seeing the missing student the night he disappeared.
“If you research this, it would be very difficult because you have to kill a person to do it, but it’s hard to take off your pants,” he explained to News Channel 5.
“It’s hard when you’re alive to take off your pants.”
‘This is unusual. Normally if you fall into the river it is very difficult to take off your pants,” she added.