Ten days since University of Missouri student Riley Strain went missing, more details have emerged on his movements before his disappearance in Nashville, Tennessee.
Police released new footage Monday showing Strain, 22, briefly interacting with an officer who was responding to a vehicle burglary on March 8, the night he went missing.
And his stepfather told NBC News on Monday that Strain had gone to two more bars on that same night before being kicked out of a third.
The new video shared by the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department on social media shows Strain briskly walking past an officer on a sidewalk adjacent to the Cumberland River on Gay Street at approximately 9:52 p.m.
The video shows the officer asking how Strain is doing, to which Strain replies, “I’m good, how are you?”
In security footage taken in the minutes prior to the latest video and released by police last week, Strain can be seen stumbling at times and in one instance falling. In the video released Monday, Strain appears to be walking upright.
“To those who are saying that they believe he could have been in distress, that somebody could have been after him as he walked onto Gay Street, well, as you see in the video, he’s walking by himself on the river side and speaks to a police officer as the officer is looking at a vehicle that had been broken into,” police spokesperson Don Aaron said.
Aaron said no evidence of foul play has surfaced as police continue to try to locate Strain and that no video of Strain walking on Gay Street after 9:52 p.m. has been obtained.
Strain had been visiting Nashville with friends from his college fraternity, Delta Chi. He went missing after being kicked out of Luke’s 32 Bridge Food + Drink, a bar owned by country singer Luke Bryan in the city’s downtown.
The bar said in a statement last week that security kicked Strain out at about 9:35 p.m. “based on our conduct standards,” but did not provide further details about Strain’s behavior. It added that Strain was only served one alcoholic drink and two waters.
Chris Whiteid, Strain’s stepfather, told NBC News that Strain FaceTimed his mother between 7:30 p.m. and 8 p.m. the night he went missing, and that Whiteid was sitting nearby and listening to their conversation.
Whiteid said Strain called his mother from Friends in Low Places Bar & Honky-Tonk, a bar owned by country singer Garth Brooks and located a few buildings over from Luke’s 32 Bridge. Strain also mentioned he and his fraternity brothers had also been to Miranda Lambert’s Casa Rosa that evening.
Attempts to reach members of Strain’s fraternity were unsuccessful. In a statement, the fraternity’s CEO, Karl Grindel, referred NBC News to the police and asked that journalists not reach out to individual fraternity members.
Whiteid said although he assumed Strain had more than one drink that evening, “he didn’t even sound like he had been drinking a lot” on the call and had been texting his mother coherently in the hour or so after the call ended.
“I’ve done a fair amount of drinking in my life and I still question whether it was alcohol or something else,” Whiteid said, referring to how Strain appeared to have lost control of his balance in some of the security footage.
Since Strain was reported missing, Whiteid said he has received messages from up to 10 people who claimed they were drugged while visiting bars in Nashville.
“We’re hearing the horror stories,” Whiteid said. “I hope that this helps bring it to light for people that are coming to town so they’re aware, so they watch and pay more attention, but I definitely feel that there is a very good possibility that this is a common problem in this town.”
Authorities said Strain’s bank card Strain’s was found on the embankment between Gay Street and the Cumberland River on Sunday.
Whiteid said it does not appear Strain was robbed — there have been no new charges on any of his debit or credit cards and the only account his family can’t access is the one associated with the card found Sunday.
“I want Riley to know: we’re actively looking for you, son,” Whiteid said through tears. “We’re going to be bring you home.”
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
