One of the last people to see Riley Strain, the missing college student who was kicked out of a Nashville bar, said she appeared to be “very, very drunk” and nearly fell off the side of a path into a river. said.
A homeless man who lives with his wife near the Cumberland River “heard a commotion” on the night of March 8 and saw a 22-year-old Mizzou student tripping and nearly falling over the river’s edge. , he revealed.
“We turned around and he almost fell off the cliff there. The last bush there caught him,” said the man, who requested anonymity. He said this in an interview on Fox 17 that aired on Sunday..
“He was very, very drunk…I’ve never seen anyone stumble so hard.”
The man said he yelled to someone in the street to check on Strain.
“I screamed. They said, ‘He’s just drunk.’ He’s okay,” he recalled.
He later told detectives he reported the entire encounter to detectives and Strain’s family.
Strain, a 22-year-old University of Missouri student, disappeared earlier this month after being kicked out of country star Luke Bryan’s honky-tonk bar, Luke’s 32 Bridge, for being too drunk.
The 6-foot-7 finance major was in Nashville with his Delta Chi fraternity brothers for the annual event. After being kicked out of the bar, he told the group he would meet them back at the hotel.
However, Strain staggered in the opposite direction, eventually landing next to the James Robertson Bridge, which was occupied by a temporary population.
Surveillance video last captured Strain near the Cumberland River, but an extensive search using boats, K9s and sonar along the riverbank has left authorities with no clues as to what happened to Strain. Not provided.
Strain continued up the first street in the same direction, but there his tracks stopped. No other surveillance footage or cell phone activity will be available beyond that point.
Phone tracking shows he was last seen about a half-mile from the bar between Gay Street and James Robertson Parkway. It is a few meters from the river and the Woodland Street Bridge. No other surveillance camera captured him more than that.
Metro Nashville Police said the department does not suspect foul play at this time.
Police found Strain’s bank card on the banks of the Cumberland River during a riverside search on Sunday.
“This afternoon, Riley Strain’s bank card was discovered on the embankment between Gay Street and the Cumberland River. The search for him continues,” police said in a post to X.
Strain’s distraught parents claimed the bartender “overreacted” when they were trying to pay taxes when their son was kicked out.
However, the bar claimed they only served one alcoholic drink and two glasses of water.
“This is definitely your worst nightmare,” Strain’s stepfather, Chris Whyed, said last week. “He talks to his mother three or four times a day. It’s never normal for him to go this long without talking.”
