When parents send their kids off to college, I think it’s on all their minds about their children being alone and making mistakes they might not be able to take back. This fear became true for Riley Strain and his parents during this ordeal. Have you or someone you know ever been in a situation like this? Have you ever felt unsafe in some of the choices you made? I hope by reading this article and some of the details of what Riley went through I hope you can see the mistakes that were made, and you can take a lesson from this.
Here at Dean College, we are a small, close-knit community. When going out for a night on the town do you and your friends have a game plan that you follow? Do you plan to all leave together to go there, and do you plan to leave together when through with the night? I think if these things haven’t crossed your mind they should because something like what happened to Riley Strain is not an impossible outcome. Please when out with friends and consuming alcohol be vigilant and stay together in groups always that way you can make sure you do not become another statistic.
Riley Strain, a 22-year-old college student from the University of Missouri has been found deceased after being missing for nearly two weeks.
The story begins on Friday, March 8th. Strain was in Nashville, Tennessee with his fraternity brothers from Delta Chi for an event, and they were at Lukes 32 Bridge Food & Drink. His family said he was asked to leave the bar at 9:45 pm that night. The bar made a statement saying they had asked Strain to leave based on conduct standards. They also claimed he was only served one alcoholic beverage and two waters. They wrote, “At 9:35 p.m., our security team made a decision based on our conduct standards to escort him from the venue through our Broadway exit at the front of our building. He was followed down the stairs by one member of his party. The individual with Riley did not exit and returned upstairs. Our prayers continue to be with Riley's friends and family during this difficult time and for his safe return.”
After doing my research and reading these various articles my first question is why didn’t his friends go with him? Why would you let your friend leave the bar alone if you were there together? It has been said this wasn’t Riley’s first time in Nashville, so he might have known the city a little bit. Still, I just don’t think in any circumstance they should have let him leave alone. Before they had gone to Lukes 32, they had also been at Garth Brooks' Bar “Friends in Low Places” and Miranda Lambert’s “Casa Rosa”. So, who knows how many drinks he had been served at each place? The question even stands maybe he was drugged?
As the story began to unfold all I could think of was what I would do if my friend had been asked to leave a bar and the simple answer is I would have gone with her, no doubt in my mind whatsoever. I think it’s very important as college students we learn the importance of sticking together in groups because you never know if this could happen to any one of us at any given time. The whole thing just seems very odd to me, not one member of the fraternity made any comments during the whole search process!!! That’s your friend and you have nothing to say?!
As the stories continue it is said that after he left the bar his friends called him, and he told them he was going back to his hotel. Strain was caught on CCTV footage at 9:47 pm crossing 1st Avenue North to Gay St. This path was not taking him toward his hotel but was in fact leading him away from it. Nashville police also released body cam footage showing Riley the night of his disappearance. In the video you see Riley walking down the street the officer sees him and asks Riley how he is doing and Riley replies with “Fine” and continues walking. Police also revealed that Riley’s last text message said, “good lops”. It is unclear what this message meant. Some people speculated that it meant low on power, but the police said Riley’s phone was not low on power at all. The last ping from his cell phone put him at a park near the river where his body ended up being found. On March 17th, two women would find Riley’s debit card on the banks of the Cumberland River. They also found a body that same day, but the police determined it was not Riley.
This story sadly does not have a happy ending. His body was found on Friday, March 22nd after having been missing for two weeks. His body was located eight miles from Nashville in the Cumberland River. Workers were the ones who discovered the body when removing something from the water. The police say now there are no signs of foul play and there will be an autopsy, but no timeline has been revealed yet. They believe right now what happened is that Riley slipped and fell into the river and that is what led to his death. As of right now, they are blocking off the area where they believe he fell in.
The moral of this story is please, please, please don’t let someone go out alone after a night of drinking. As young adults, we all want to have a good time and live our lives to the fullest but that doesn’t mean there has to be an outcome like this. Now Riley’s mother must bury her only child because his friends, I believe, wanted to stay out and continue to drink with no consolation or worry about their friend at all. Just think about it for a second, a 22-year-old student about to graduate in two months with his bachelor’s degree, and now his life is over. Could the circumstances have been different if his friends had gone with him? I think it might have made a huge difference, but that is just my opinion.
May Riley Strain rest in peace, and I hope his parents can find comfort in the closure they have. It doesn’t take the pain of losing their only son away, but so many people came to their side in these last two weeks, and I hope that brings them some solace.
Independent Digital News and Media. (2024, March 21). What we know so far about the disappearance of Mizzou Student riley strain. The Independent. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/what-happened-to-riley-strain-nashville-b2516169.html
Kruesi, K. (2024, March 23). Police find Missouri Student Riley Strain’s body in Tennessee River; no foul play suspected. AP News. https://apnews.com/article/riley-strain-body-found-nashville-missouri-d8aba1eb1bb4ad701554571a62a79d6a
Wilson, M. (2024, March 20). Here’s the alleged reason Riley Strain was kicked out of Luke Bryan’s bar. Wide Open Country. https://www.wideopencountry.com/heres-the-alleged-reason-riley-strain-was-kicked-out-of-luke-bryans-bar/