It’s been a couple weeks since Riley Strain’s body was tragically pulled from the Cumberland River. After two weeks of searching, he was found a few miles north of downtown Nashville, where he had been out with his fraternity brothers.
The University of Missouri student was reportedly asked to leave Luke’s 32 Bridge (the bar owned by Luke Bryan on Broadway), and he told his friends that he was would just going to walk back to their hotel. The group was staying at the Tempo Hotel, which is just off of Broadway on 8th Avenue, and just a few blocks from Luke’s bar.
However, Strain walked in the opposite direction of his hotel, and was spotted on numerous surveillance videos walking towards the river in downtown Nashville, and the last location that his phone pinged was near the James Robertson Parkway Bridge, near the Davidson County Courthouse at around 10:00pm.
The death was ruled an accident, and Nashville Metro Police have since closed their investigation, but the family says they are searching for answers. They have hired a private investigator and are still waiting for the results of various autopsy tests, however one puzzling piece of missing information comes from Strain’s fraternity brothers.
Strain’s father Ryan Gilbert says he hasn’t heard from them at all. He tells NewsNation:
“We haven’t really heard much from them. There’s a lot of things we’d like to find out from them.
If I was in their situation, I’d be beating down those parents’ doors to tell them everything I could and be helpful in any way that I could.”
Steve Fischer, a private investigator hired by the family, thinks it is suspicious that the family has had virtually no contact with Riley’s friends.
“This family needs peace of mind … to know if this is an accident or if something else happened. I would think everybody would be coming forward.”
The family continues to wait for answers, but toxicology reports could take a couple months.
Case Closed
News Nation’s Brian Entin confirmed the position of the MNPD, who said there is currently no ongoing investigation into the student’s death.
And while may have argued that the lack of water in his lungs is, in and of itself, evidence of foul play, a forensic pathologist from Strain’s home state of Missouri who spent 40 years as Chief Medical Examiner in St. Louis says that it’s not entirely unusual for a drowning victim to not have water in their lungs.
Dr. Michael Graham, who has reportedly examined “dozens” of bodies found in the Mississippi River, told KDSK that the lack of water in the lungs of someone who has decomposed for that long is not out of the ordinary. And he also said that many bodies found in rivers are missing their clothes due to the strong current, or even getting snagged on debris in the water.
