Riley Strain disappeared on March 8, 2024, in Nashville, Tennessee. Since then, Strain’s bank card has been found on the banks of the Cumberland River in downtown Nashville, but otherwise, no signs of the 22-year-old University of Missouri senior have been found except for some security camera footage from the area.
In that footage, Strain appears intoxicated as he wanders through Nashville, but beyond that, the clips have offered few clues as to what might have happened to him. Strain was in Nashville with his Mizzou fraternity and had been escorted from Luke Bryan’s Nashville bar at about 10 pm that night for conduct issues. The Tennessee Alcoholic Beverage Commission launched an investigation into whether Strain was overserved.
On March 18th, however, ten days after Strain vanished, Nashville police released body cam footage from an officer on Gay Street, near Bryan’s bar and the Cumberland River. In the body cam clip, Strain has a brief conversation with the officer, but Strain doesn’t seem distressed. Strain’s last phone ping also came from near where the footage was taken, which was not long after the officer spotted him. That’s also close to where Strain’s bank card was discovered.
At first, the body cam footage seemed to be another dead end in the search for Strain. But upon closer examination, some TikTokers saw something in the Mizzou student’s behavior and heard Strain say something after he passed the officer that might explain what happened when he disappeared.
Did Riley Strain get in a car?
In the Nashville police body cam footage, the officer on Gay Street, who was there to respond to a reported car burglary, can be heard asking Strain, “How are you doing, sir?” and Strain replies, “I’m good, how are you?” before continuing down the sidewalk. Strain’s voice can then be heard saying something like “park” and possibly “get in the car,” followed by the sound of a car door closing. In the opinion of TikTokers like FloDaddyFlo, Riley also appears to be running at first, as if on his way to meet a rideshare driver. He then slows his gait, possibly attempting to appear sober in front of the officer.
ABC27.com says it was also around that same time that Strain had his last phone conversation with his fraternity friends after they were separated at Luke Bryan’s establishment. The Cumberland River is also surrounded by parkland, so Strain could have said “park” to his friend, or possibly “James Robertson Parkway,” a roadway intersecting Gay Street not far from where he was, to pinpoint his location.
But while it’s difficult to make out exactly what happens in the body cam footage beyond Strain and the police officer’s short conversation, some online sleuths think the clip could indicate Strain may have been lured into a fake rideshare vehicle and abducted.
When Nashville police shared the body cam footage on X, Julie Walls commented, “It sounds like Riley is on his phone & says ‘where you parked?’ after he talked to the officer. He was running right before he came up to the officer, possibly he called & looking for his Uber/Lyft. Could he have dropped his card when getting in a car or did he never get in one.”
Lyft and Uber drivers were asked to help solve the case
About five days before the Nashville police body cam footage was released, Riley Strain’s family and friends asked rideshare drivers to share the dash footage from the night Strain vanished, according to WATE.com. Around that same time, a Reddit post also called upon rideshare drivers to help. But whether any drivers offered footage is unknown, as is the possible involvement of a fake rideshare driver related to Strain’s disappearance.
It’s difficult to know for sure what he said, but it does sound like Strain is speaking to someone else in the body cam footage. One unconfirmed X comment on the Nashville police post does say, “Already confirmed he used no rideshare apps, and the family has his phone records. Wasn’t communicating with anyone out of the norm,” Police have also said there’s no evidence he contacted a rideshare service, but Strain still may have been tricked into a vehicle. We’ll keep an eye on any further developments in the case.