Found Deceased TN - Riley Strain, 22, missing after leaving bar, Nashville, 8 March 2024 #2

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Reposted from the very tail end of the last thread as I posted right as Knitty made this one:

When Inaki Bascaran went missing in Chicago a few years ago, they hired a private investigator quite quickly (iirc they used some money to help defray the cost). I'm wondering about that as a strategy...you'd have someone who could work as a point person. They would likely have insight into what sorts of data you'd want, and they may know how to get it more rapidly from cell providers, local businesses, etc. A PI perhaps has connections to the local LE community that they could leverage- or maybe a PI would turn local LE off as it might feel like you were undercutting them? Idk. I would think I would want a point person on my side who could direct the investigation and streamline all the information when I would likely be flailing all over the place with grief and panic. JMO MOO
 
Sustained said:
Looking at that terrain, I can't see anyway Riley would have tumbled into the river unless he was either chased or somehow made it down the hill to the edge of the water.
Click to expand...

I'd been thinking this as well - just waiting for someone to post photos/video as I'd only seen them from unapproved sources. The trees, trash, underbrush, and (at some places at least) retaining wall make me question if anyone could end up in the water unintentionally. It doesn't seem like one could "tumble" very far in this terrain.

[Sorry - link didn't carry over from the last thread!]
 
Hanoi2009 said:
Reposted from the very tail end of the last thread as I posted right as Knitty made this one:

When Inaki Bascaran went missing in Chicago a few years ago, they hired a private investigator quite quickly (iirc they used some money to help defray the cost). I'm wondering about that as a strategy...you'd have someone who could work as a point person. They would likely have insight into what sorts of data you'd want, and they may know how to get it more rapidly from cell providers, local businesses, etc. A PI perhaps has connections to the local LE community that they could leverage- or maybe a PI would turn local LE off as it might feel like you were undercutting them? Idk. I would think I would want a point person on my side who could direct the investigation and streamline all the information when I would likely be flailing all over the place with grief and panic. JMO MOO
Click to expand...
Do you think his parents have or will hire a private investigator? It seems they want no stone left unturned, and it certainly couldn’t hurt. I hope they get answers ASAP.
 
GeorgiaRai said:
I'd been thinking this as well - just waiting for someone to post photos/video as I'd only seen them from unapproved sources. The trees, trash, underbrush, and (at some places at least) retaining wall make me question if anyone could end up in the water unintentionally. It doesn't seem like one could "tumble" very far in this terrain.

[Sorry - link didn't carry over from the last thread!]
Click to expand...
Having lived there in the past and being familiar with that area, it isn't a place a normal functioning person would climb to and fall in the water. It's not as easy as some other places a little upstream. However, a falling down drunk person could easily fall over or do any number of unreasonable things that led straight to the water. I still believe this is what happened to this young man.

Of course one should keep an open mind to whatever evidence presents itself.

The bank card, or phone, would be the reason someone would attack him, and there it sat, never used by anyone, right next to the water. To me it isn't a red-flag, its a breadcrumb.
 
IMG_8683.jpeg
Chris Whiteid said his stepson, who he said is 6-foot-7 and weighs 155-160 pounds with blond hair and blue eyes, “stands out in a crowd.”

“Riley was the guy that knew no strangers,” Chris Whiteid continued, adding that Strain “would walk up to people, talk to them, full of life,” and is “energetic, had charisma.”

“Everybody loved Riley just because he didn’t care who you were, what group you were with. He was Riley, and you were whoever you were,” Chris Whiteid said.

Michelle Whiteid said her son is “very involved with family” and would often pay visits to aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents when he was visiting from school on the weekends.

www.nbcnews.com

Riley Strain’s parents hopeful they will find son who ‘stands out in a crowd’

Search efforts have been underway to locate the University of Missouri student, who has not been seen since he was asked to leave a bar in Nashville on March 8.
www.nbcnews.com www.nbcnews.com
 
Unfortunately, the video wasn't clear on where exactly the bank card was found. Was it found in that elevated area where all of that garbage was or was it found down below in that rocky area at the end of the video. Wish we could see the area where it was found with a better view of the surrounding terrain.
 
Curiousobserver said:
The bank card, or phone, would be the reason someone would attack him, and there it sat, never used by anyone, right next to the water. To me it isn't a red-flag, its a breadcrumb.
Click to expand...

Definitely agree.

IMO the bank card lying there is almost equivalent to a footprint…at some moment, Riley was at that spot.

I personally do not see a convoluted situation, just a very sad yet logical one.

Boy is wasted. Boy gets thrown out of bar. Boy loses any sense of direction in an unfamiliar area. Boy is stumbling on video. Boy drops card somehow. Card is near the river. So, tragically, is boy.

JMO

<modsnip - off topic>
 
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Curiousobserver said:
Having lived there in the past and being familiar with that area, it isn't a place a normal functioning person would climb to and fall in the water. It's not as easy as some other places a little upstream. However, a falling down drunk person could easily fall over or do any number of unreasonable things that led straight to the water. I still believe this is what happened to this young man...[snipped]
Click to expand...

I can definitely see "any number of unreasonable things" getting him to the water without another person being involved; it's just the falling, tumbling, sliding, or skidding down that embankment that I can't envision. Maybe I'll come across the right photo that shows how it's possible, once the most likely spot is determined. (This said as someone who never even considered venturing off the pedestrian sidewalks on my visits to Nashville, so admittedly just conjecturing.)
 
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GeorgiaRai said:
I can definitely see "any number of unreasonable things" getting him to the water without another person being involved; it's just the falling, tumbling, sliding, or skidding down that embankment that I can't invision. Maybe I'll come across the right photo that shows how it's possible, once the most likely spot is determined. (This said as someone who never even considered venturing off the pedestrian sidewalks on my visits to Nashville, so admittedly just conjecturing.)
Click to expand...
Since we saw him falling and tumbling on a flat surface (and who knows, he could have a head injury after that), I can sadly envision him falling down a muddy, rocky, or uneven surface.
 
There is a nice graphic in the Facebook group devoted to the search for Riley that shows the height of the river for the past 10 days or so. On the day he went missing, it had been raining and storming, and the water level was significantly higher than it was on the day the card was found. That makes for a shorter tumble to end up in the water, unfortunately, IF he did indeed fall from the place where the card was found.

Ah -- I've double-checked it now, and the person's graphic shows the water level at 24.66 feet on Mar. 8 at 10pm but at only about 18 feet (my estimation from the graph) on Saturday morning, March 16.

(Here is the source the Facebook poster used: admins, please delete if this isn't allowed: Cumberland River at Nashville, TN
 
I'm thinking the homeless folks where his card was found would be bedded down by about 10:00 due to darkness, etc. Just imagine a well-off drunk 22yo stumbling over a bunch of sleeping homeless campers on a river's edge. If he simply fell into the river, why did none of them report it at the time or in later police interviews? (JMO)
 
I think that once Riley was down there where his card was found, it's possible that Riley did find his way to the water's edge. Remember it was nighttime, possibly nearly pitch black, and once on the edge that's where he fell in. In his state he may not have realized there was water there, he may have perceived it as just another surface. He could have tripped over a rock or slipped. He may also have found himself further along from the homeless camp, so people may not have heard him if he let out a cry, if he did.
 
Sustained said:
Looking at that terrain, I can't see anyway Riley would have tumbled into the river unless he was either chased or somehow made it down the hill to the edge of the water.
GeorgiaRai said:
I'd been thinking this as well - just waiting for someone to post photos/video as I'd only seen them from unapproved sources.
Click to expand...
I don't think you can tell anything from a video taken in broad daylight then judge what a very intoxicated, lost young man, who had already taken a sidewalk dive, would have done in the dark. Add the river level that you are not seeing on that night.

Judy Sleuth said:
Ah -- I've double-checked it now, and the person's graphic shows the water level at 24.66 feet on Mar. 8 at 10pm but at only about 18 feet (my estimation from the graph) on Saturday morning, March 16.
Click to expand...
 
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