Found Deceased TN - Riley Strain, 22, missing from a bar, Nashville, 8 March 2024

Status
Not open for further replies.
Thank you for the article but I’m still struggling to understand the why. After searching on Google I couldn’t find any other answers. My only guess is that men underestimate their capability of walking near water safely, and seem drawn to either walk toward it or alongside it.
I do what to say I don't think he was looking for water per se' I think he was heading in the wrong direction and then there was water. IMO
 
I think there should be a campaign started nation wide that educates college students and young adults on the dangers of drinking and bodies of water near the walk home. We focus only on drinking and driving but there have been enough cases in the last couple years alone that demonstrate drinking and walking can also be dangerous.

The older I get the more I think alcohol is just so damaging and I hate that partying and being drunk is so normalied in American society, especially for people in their 20s. The video of Riley walking with his head down reminds me of the few times that I have been drunk. My head felt so heavy that I couldn't keep it up, was just a mess, saying and doing stupid stuff, waking up sick the next morning. Nothing cool or fun about being drunk imo
There is so much emphasis on staying away from drugs but not enough on alcoholic. It's legal so people think it's safe, but it's destroyed plenty of lives and families
 
MAR 13, 2024
The Tennessee Alcoholic Beverage Commission (TABC) has opened an investigation after a Missouri college student went missing from downtown Nashville while on a fraternity formal.

[...]

“I wish that number one, they would’ve just called him an Uber or cab, or I mean something or waited for their friends, let him wait for his friends,” said Michelle Whiteid, Strain’s mom. “And I wish that somebody on the street would have helped him, just anyone. There were so many people; somebody has to know something… he would have helped anyone.”

Metro police told News 2 they are still working to collect surveillance video of the area. On Wednesday, March 13, Strain’s parents said they themselves had seen limited surveillance footage. They called on Luke Bryan directly for help.

[...]
 
MAR 13, 2024
[...]

The newest piece of video shows Strain running and then falling to the ground blocks away from the bar. It’s the first piece of video in a three-clip timeline.

“We actually went to the scene last night looking for anything that would’ve been on the barricade,” Dingman said. “Luckily, there was no blood or anything on that pole.”

The second video shows Strain clinging to a wall before he heads in the direction of the river in the third clip, where his phone was last pinged.

“Uber has reached out,” family friend Chris Dingman said. “They are trying to go back through their logs on their cars that they had downtown that evening. Lyft had also reached out.”

[...]

The family is also in contact with Apple, in hopes of using Strain’s Apple Watch to pinpoint his location.
 
Really good map here.

View attachment 490338
Even if he did continue north along Gay St, I wouldn’t expect many cameras beyond the James Robertson bridge as that is the boundary of downtown proper. Beyond that, it continues into a more industrial area, and splits off into a greenway that follows the river. It’s been awhile since I’ve run on that greenway, but if I remember correctly, there’s little to nothing blocking you from going into the river. However, veering west past the bridge would have taken him into Germantown, which is a more populated area where there would definitely have been cameras.
 
<modsnip: quoted post was snipped>
But it does seem more often to be young men. My theory is that men are more likely to be alone outside at night, so instead of being guided home by their companions, they go "explore" alone and lose their balance when close to the water. JMO.
Men are more likely when drunk to pee in places like rivers and canals, lose their balance and fall in. In Amsterdam, about 15 men, mostly tourists, drown in the canals every year trying to pee in them. There's a video on YT regarding this issue. I won't link it but it's easy to find.
 
Yes, I think he was WAY OVERSERVED before he was kicked out for being over-served. And, yes, bartender should be held accountable inmho.

Bar owner, Luke Bryan speaks out:
He's not the owner. Licensing for use of his name. It's owned by a company out of Ohio that does a lot of these celebrity licensing deals.
 
MAR 13, 2024
[...]

“Our primary search has been 9 to 11 evening on Friday,” Dingman said.

But now Dingman wants to expand the search window to 24 hours after Strain was last seen as the family has been overwhelmed with potential leads.

[...]

Dingman is now calling on anyone who owns a dash or surveillance camera to look back on Friday evening.

“We are trying to reach out to anybody that had a dash cam, commercial, Uber, Lyft…take the time, I know it’s time-consuming, but it might just be the lead to point us in the right direction,” Dingman said.

[...]
 
Why are they stopping a patron that wants to leave the bar from doing so? That needs to be investigated.
I wonder if the friends are rewriting the narrative a bit, out of guilt. I just can't see some bar refusing exit, it makes no sense. And even if the threat was, if you leave, you aren't coming back in, it suggests the friends made a judgement call.

I don't ever remember leaving an inebriated friend by themselves in a bar or letting them leave by themselves, but I'm a woman and our alarm bells about being drunk and vulnerable never include falling in water. Which is where I think he is. It's a script followed too often.
 
MAR 13, 2024
[...]

...A third angle from a Metro Police camera shows Riley crossing First Avenue where Church Street turns into Gay Street near the river. Riley can be seen looking around for a moment, before continuing towards the river.

That was the last time Riley was shown on camera, but according to his family, his phone showed his location moving up Gay Street towards the James Robertson Parkway Bridge before the signal stopped.

[...]

According to Riley's family, his fraternity brothers didn't realize Riley never made it back to the hotel until early Saturday morning. The next morning, his friends started searching and stopped by the Davidson County Sheriff's office first, before being re-directed to Metro Police. The friends evidently called Riley's parents about the disappearance around 10:30 am Saturday.

[...]

Meanwhile, the Tennessee Alcoholic Beverage Commission confirmed to NewsChannel 5 that they are launching an investigation into Luke's 32 Bridge. They want to see if bartenders there may have over served Riley before they asked him to leave.

Nashville's Office of Emergency Management confirmed, despite searching by boat for Riley on Tuesday, their services were not requested on Wednesday.
 
I don’t usually post on sites such as this, but the story really piqued my curiosity for some reason. That area where his phone last pinged looks pretty janky, and the kind of place where things might happen. I wonder what drew him there, as he must had known he was off track earlier and should had asked a passerby for directions back to his hotel.

I ended up pretty drunk myself at that age, and never became so dissociated that my safety was in danger. And I started drinking and partying at 13 or so. And I agree with another poster about not blaming the bar or his friends. He is old enough to be a rookie fighter pilot in the Air Force. Heck, I was living on my own in Skid Row Seattle at age 17, renting a room in a flophouse.

I am hoping that there is a good resolution to this, and I feel for his family. Possibly the reality of bar hopping is not as glamorous as they make it out to be?
I’m going to tell on myself in regards to being “this” drunk. In college I was out with friends partying, and apparently at some point in the evening blacked out, but I was still walking and talking. My next memory is walking down our (luckily small town) Main Street, about 2 blocks from my apartment and about 2 miles from the last bar I remember being at. I changed out of my clothes and saw a large bandage on my leg covering a cut. I had neither cut nor bandage when I’d left to go out that evening. I called my friends the next day thinking they’d tell me some story about something stupid I’d done and how they’d patched me up.

No. They last saw me leave the bar with ‘some guy’. To this day 40 years later I have zero clue as to what happened, who the guy was, how I got cut and who bandaged me up, and how or why I’d walked all the way home blackout drunk. I embarrass myself with this story to say that when I watch the videos of Riley, and people say why did he do this or not do that, I understand that most people have not had the terrifying experience of losing so much time with absolutely zero idea of what was transpiring. I’m very blessed that nothing worse happened to me that night.

Praying for Riley and his family.

All moo and youthful stupidity on my part.
 
i agree, i wish there was some sort of law in place. a local bar here has had TWO deaths where very drunk patrons were kicked out during winter, then died of hypothermia. Of course, a degree of personal responsibility is in order, but i think bouncers should be looking out for the safety of their patrons as best as they can (especially in a college/uni town)
That always sounds good on paper but the reality is that drunk people can be combative and aggressive, spitting, pushing, punching. Many are passive, too, which probably was Riley but bouncers aren't paid to be compassionate; they're paid to keep the peace. There's a reason drunks get kicked out of bars. They are a danger to the other patrons and the last thing bars need is a fight escalating. The degree of responsibility rests solely on the individual and to a lesser extent the people who come as a group.
 
<modsnip - quoted post was removed>
It's not an issue of what time they cut him off. The issue is degree of inebriation. The bar had a duty, at least in Ohio they do, to cut people off BEFORE they become a danger to themselves. This man isn't a little drunk. He's a mess! He should have been cut off long before, imoo. If bars need to offset the financial hit they take for cutting people off, they can charge a cover or up their cover.
His mom said he'd been at multiple other bars before. If he kept his composure getting ID'd at the door, the bars on Broadway are wall to wall people inside. It'd be fairly easy to not get noticed once you get inside. He may have only had a couple drinks there. I know in college my friends and I would bar hop, and it wasn't hard for an already drunk person to get themselves in.
 
I think a lot of behavior exhibited can be chalked up to being “overserved.” I, too, had many youthful adventures in college where my friends and I would go out and drink way too much. Don’t underestimate how completely unaware being extremely drunk can make you—even if you don’t “black out.” I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the boys just passed out right away when they got back to the hotel without giving anything else a second thought, hence not realizing the issue at hand until they had woken back up and were more sober. Also, weren’t there 50 fraternity brothers on the trip? Did they all stay in the same hotel? Maybe it was assumed Riley was in someone else’s room, so there wasn’t a huge sense of urgency?

EDIT: Just saw above it said 200 fraternity brothers. That’s a very large crowd!
 
So, according to this, his family says he got as far as the Jefferson Street Bridge. That’s quite a few blocks past Public Square park and the other two bridges previously mentioned. It appears to me that he’s traveling in the opposite direction of the hotel and is probably lost. :(

(Same color key I used before; hotel, bar, surveillance at Gay and 1st Ave N , last ping) IMO, this new footage is before he’s seen at Gay and 1st Ave N.

View attachment 490099

I think he went over the railway bridge.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Members online

Online statistics

Members online
179
Guests online
4,133
Total visitors
4,312

Forum statistics

Threads
593,453
Messages
17,987,770
Members
229,144
Latest member
G@$p•
Back
Top