A second autopsy on Riley Strains confirmed there was no water in his lungs, the family revealed, raising fears he was dead when he entered the water.
The 22-year-old student’s semi-naked body was pulled from the Cumberland River in Tennessee on Friday, 14 days after he disappeared in Nashville during a night out.
An initial police autopsy found no signs of foul play, but no signs he had drowned after leaving Luke’s Bridge Food and Drink at 9.30pm on March 22.
Now, a second autopsy commissioned by his family has added to the mystery as investigators await toxicology results.
“You know, I just hope this doesn’t get swept under the rug because the family deserves more answers than we get,” said family friend Chris Dingman. NewsNation Elizabeth Vargas reports.
Mom Michelle Strain Whiteid with her son Riley Strain before her disappearance on March 8
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.
‘I’m not a person who does crime dramas, by any means. But usually water in the lungs means that, you know, they were alive when they entered the water.
“More questions, we hope to get some answers with toxicology.”
The family also wants answers about why her pants, boots and purse were missing when her body was finally found under a rock eight miles downstream at 7.28am on Friday.
“Once again, one more question,” Dingman said. But unfortunately the only thing that was found with him, as the police stated in the report, was the watch and the shirt.
“Everything else wasn’t with him when they found him.”
The University of Missouri student was in town with members of the Delta Chi fraternity for their annual spring party when he was kicked out of the bar shortly after 9:30 p.m.
Strain told his friends he would meet them at their hotel, but he was nowhere to be seen when the group returned from their night out.
His friends tried to contact him but received no response and reported Strain missing as they were unable to locate him via his Snapchat location.
Strain, 22, was seen leaving Luke’s 32 Bridge Food + Drink on Broadway on March 8, according to the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department.
Nashville police released this disturbing image of Strain walking down the sidewalk after leaving the bar, asking an officer how he was doing before telling him he was “okay.”
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.
Anna Clendening, a musician, and Brandy Baenen, an artist, are true crime enthusiasts and are passionate about bringing Strain home. They live-streamed the moment they found Strain’s card on the riverbank.
The couple found the card while searching the steep Cumberland River embankment and the James Robertson Parkway Bridge.
Nashville police searched a homeless encampment at the water’s edge after people living there reported seeing the missing student the night he disappeared.
Surveillance footage collected by police from Downtown Smoke & Vape Shop on Church Street showed Strain near the intersection of 2nd Avenue and Church Street.
The apparently intoxicated student was wearing a black and brown two-tone shirt and blue jeans and fell, then quickly got up and continued down the street.
Another camera captured him near the intersection of Gay Street and 1st Avenue North just before 10 pm taking long strides with his head down as he stumbled through the streets.
The student had reportedly FaceTimed with his mother, Michelle Whiteid, that night and she said nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
Police previously shared footage from X showing Strain walking on the sidewalk alongside an officer, who appeared to be inspecting a car with a broken window.
Homeless people living in a camp on the nearby river bank reported seeing a man matching Stains’ description enter their camp.
‘We heard a commotion. We looked up again. He almost fell. The last bush got him,” an unidentified man who lives in the camp told WZTV.
“He was very, very, very drunk. I’ve never seen anyone stumble so much before,” the man said. ‘I yelled get up. They said, ‘He’s just drunk.’ He’s fine.'”
Concerns about the police investigation increased when two amateur sleuths on TikTok discovered Strain’s bank card in the rubble outside the camp, and a social worker reported seeing a homeless man wearing a shirt identical to Strain’s distinctive black and white an day after the disappearance.
His involvement appears to have been ruled out after Strain was found still wearing the T-shirt he disappeared in, but his family in Missouri is concerned that investigators are not focusing on those people who may have been the last to see his son alive.
“One of the persons of interest, about an hour after Riley was found, I went back to the scene and I happened to see that person,” Dingman said.
‘And then we had a group of volunteers who followed the gentleman.
‘We called the police to inform them that we had found him because they had not yet notified us that they had spoken to them and the police told us that he was no longer a person of interest.
Authorities said no trauma related to foul play was observed on Strain, who was last seen on March 8.
It was found by a worker from a local construction materials company unloading barges into the river.
“They had someone else interested,” he added.
“But we know from the homeless people who live there, that that was the person who was supposedly on the road when Riley fell in the bushes or whatever happened, and he yelled that it was someone who had been drinking and that he was okay.
‘So once again, a little more confusion. I just hope he hasn’t dropped the ball on this.
“I think there’s someone out there who knows what really happened that night. And we’d love for them to come forward. You know, and we need more information.