Discovery Of Riley Strain's Body Confirms Crucial & Tragic Detail About The Case

After weeks of searching for Riley Strain, his body was recovered from the Cumberland River in Nashville on March 22. Metro Nashville PD took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to confirm the heartbreaking news, explaining, "No foul play-related trauma was observed. An autopsy is pending." The news undoubtedly comes as a terrible shock to Strain's mom and stepdad, Michelle Strain and Chris Whiteid, as well as his siblings. 

A few days before news of the discovery broke, TikTokers found a major clue in his missing case by recovering his credit card near Cumberland River, where authorities later found his body. However, on March 21, Whiteid told ABC that the family had been mentally preparing themselves for bad news after weeks of fruitless searches. "Everybody knows it, everybody's thinking it — those conversations are starting to happen," he explained. "It's not what we want. And I understand that people want to know what we're feeling — we're feeling frustrated, we're feeling hurt, we're feeling depressed." 

On the same day, the distraught stepfather told News Nation that the family was still optimistic about Strain's happy and healthy return and would continue to look on the bright side until they received strong evidence that tragedy had struck. His loss is also profoundly felt by his Delta Chi fraternity members. During a March 19 press conference, Strain's mom shared that his closest friends at the society were equally shaken up by his disappearance. 

Riley Strain, a University of Missouri student, went missing on March 8. On the night of his disappearance, Strain went to singer Luke Bryan's Luke's 32 Bridge bar with some of his friends. At around 9:30, the student was kicked out of the bar for failing to meet the bar's "conduct standards," a representative for the bar told People. His stepfather, Chris Whiteid, shared that his friends couldn't follow him out of the bar until they cleared their bills, so his stepson ventured out alone. 

Earlier in the night, Strain had hit up another bar with his friends and video-called his mom. Whiteid recalled to People that Strain was messing around and poking fun at how she was ready to call it a night at 8pm. The happy parents' world was turned upside down the next morning when the Delta Chi fraternity members called to tell them Strain had not come home. Over the course of the next few days, authorities pieced together security camera footage of Strain wandering around Nashville. 

The young man even crossed paths with a police officer at one point in the night. In the body cam video shared to X, the two shared a short exchange, and the officer noted that Strain didn't appear to be in any major trouble. On March 21, Whiteid told People that final CCTV footage from the fateful night showed him approaching a bridge. Strain's final text messages from the night also didn't raise any major red flags.