NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — More than a week after University of Missouri student Riley Strain disappeared while on a fraternity trip in Nashville, his bank card has been discovered on an embankment near Tennessee’s Cumberland River.
Police announced on X, formerly Twitter, that Strain’s bank card was found on Sunday. The news about the card came hours after crews were called to the river to recover a floating body, which surfaced from the water with a maroon colored shirt on, according to the Nashville Fire Department. The body didn’t fit the description of the missing student, however, authorities said.
Brandy Baenen, a TikToker who has been looking for Strain in a wooded area near the Cumberland River, told Nexstar’s WKRN that she and another woman found the card. Baenen said she decided to join the search on Tuesday, March 12, four days after Strain’s disappearance.
“I live 20 minutes away from this, and so once I heard [what] was happening… Tuesday night, I came down here with my boyfriend and we were like, ‘Let’s go,'” she said.
Strain’s family has also been at the scene, as well as detectives, to talk to the women who made the discovery.
Strain was last seen by friends at Luke’s 32 Bridge, a bar owned by country singer Luke Bryan, on March 8. He was asked to leave the bar after only being served one alcoholic drink and two waters, according to TC Restaurant Group.
“At 9:35 p.m., our security team made a decision based on our conduct standards to escort him from the venue through our Broadway exit at the front of our building. He was followed down the stairs with one member of his party. The individual with Riley did not exit and returned upstairs,” the company said in a statement released one week after the incident.
Surveillance footage from the Downtown Smoke & Vape Shop caught Strain stumbling and falling in a parking lot around 9:45 p.m. Two minutes later, a video shows him crossing the street.
Strain’s last phone ping was near James Robertson Parkway and Gay Street between 9:55 p.m. and 10 p.m. Detectives said the last phone conversation Strain had with one of his friends was also during that same time period, but the ping covered about a two-mile radius and didn’t give them a direction of travel or any more details about where Strain might have gone.
A friend of the 22-year-old called 911 on March 9 after saying he went to the Central Police Precinct and called the sheriff’s office to file a missing person’s report.
Investigators previously said there had been no indication of foul play or of Strain being involved in any type of fight or argument.
Strain is 6-feet, 5-inches tall, with a slender build, blonde hair, and blue eyes, according to his family. If you see Strain or have any information about where he may be, you are asked to call the MNPD at 615-862-8600.
