The bank card for the college student who went missing after being “overserved” and kicked out of a Nashville bar owned by country artist Luke Bryan was found by cops near a river in the area Sunday.
Riley Strain, 22, a student at the University of Missouri, vanished March 8 at Luke’s 32 Bridge Food + Drink on Broadway in the city’s honky-tonk district.
The Metro Nashville Police Department got a clue when it found Strain’s bank card on the embankment of the Cumberland River on Sunday afternoon, according to a report by Fox News.
“Riley Strain’s bank card was discovered this afternoon on the embankment between Gay St. and the Cumberland River. The search for him continues,” police said in a post on X.
Strain was last spotted walking along Gay Street around 10 p.m. after getting kicked out of the bar for being too drunk, according to the cops and his family.
The student — who’d been visiting the Music City with his Delta Chi fraternity brothers — told his friends he was heading back to the hotel but he never arrived.
What to know about the mysterious disappearance and death of Riley Strain
- College student Riley Strain, 22, went missing after being kicked out of Luke’s 32 Bridge Food + Drink in Nashville on March 8, 2024. Strain told his University of Missouri fraternity brothers that he was going back to his hotel room, but never arrived or contacted his friends.
- Surveillance footage shows him walking toward the hotel before making a wrong turn. His cellphone last pinged about a mile from the bar. A video saw Strain jogging away from his hotel before his disappearance.
- According to the Luke Bryan-owned bar, Strain only purchased one alcoholic drink and two waters the night he went missing. The 22-year-old’s parents have claimed he was “overserved.”
- The student’s bank card was found days later on an embankment of the Cumberland River by two TikTokkers searching the area.
- A local homeless man allegedly saw a “very, very intoxicated” Strain almost fall over the edge of a trail into the river. Strain was also spotted by a police officer near the river, according to body camera footage.
- Strain’s body was found in the river on Saturday by workers clearing the river of debris. According to a preliminary autopsy, Strain’s death was “accidental.”
Phone tracking last placed him about a half-mile from the bar between Gay Street and James Robertson Parkway — which is yards from the river and the Woodland Street Bridge.
Surveillance video shows Strain walking in the direction of the hotel before making a wrong turn.
Strain’s parents claim a bartender at the establishment said the son had been overserved and was trying to pay his tab at the time he was booted.
But the bar claimed it only served him one alcoholic drink and two waters.
“This is definitely the worst nightmare,” Strain’s stepfather, Chris Whiteid, said last week. “He talks to his mom three or four times a day. For him to go this long without talking is not normal by any means.”
