The family of missing student Riley Strain says it has been shown unreleased surveillance video that captured him walking fast or “jogging” in the opposite direction of his hotel.
Chris Whiteid, Strain’s stepfather, and Chris Dingman, a friend acting as the family spokesman, revealed that Metro Nashville Police on Sunday showed them the last known video of the University of Missouri student from the night of his disappearance.
“We got to see him walking,” Whiteid told NewsNation in an interview that aired Thursday. “We got to see him kind of at a fast pace walk, almost a jog. And it just shortened the last known window of sightings anyways.”
Whitied said police played the video for the family on Sunday, after Riley’s debit card was found near the Cumberland River by a pair of TikTok sleuths.
“It was the last known video of Riley. Basically from where the body camera footage was with the officer to just right before the James Robertson Bridge,” the stepfather said.
Whitied was referring to previously released bodycam footage showing an officer encountering Strain and asking him how he’s doing while responding to a burglary on Gay Street in Nashville on March 8.
Whiteied said the surveillance video was taken from a distance, but the 22-year-old appeared to be walking at an “extremely fast pace or jogging.”
“We all know how hard it is to balance…if you had been drinking, let alone try to jog,” he added.
Strain vanished after he was booted from country star Luke Bryan’s honky-tonk bar, Luke’s 32 Bridge, for being too drunk.
The 6-foot-7 finance major had been visiting Nashville with his Delta Chi fraternity brothers for an annual event.
After getting ejected from the bar, Strain told his friends he would meet them back at their hotel, but he ended up staggering in the opposite direction.