The preliminary autopsy findings indicate no evidence of foul play in Riley Strain’s death, but the family arranged a second private autopsy, citing concerns about the absence of water in his lungs, which casts doubt on the possibility of drowning
“I find it very difficult to believe he fell in the water; nobody knew about it, heard about it, heard him yell – nothing at all. And then he turns up without his pants, his boots, his wallet all missing. I have a problem with that. I’ve got a big problem with that,” Nancy Grace said during Monday’s “Crime Stories” episode.
As CrimeOnline reported, Strain was tossed out of a downtown Nashville bar while partying with his University of Missouri fraternity brothers on March 8. None of his friends left the bar with him, and he was seen on surveillance video stumbling along the streets and on a police officer’s body camera, where he passed by and said he was fine.
Minutes after the sightings, he disappeared. Two weeks later, his body surfaced eight miles down the Cumberland River.
Close family friend and spokesperson for Riley Strain’s family, Chris Dingman, told Grace that Riley’s family found out his body was found via a reporter before the police notified them.
“It’s ironic that most of our information has come from the media and not the police,” Dingman said. “They had been searching so hard for a positive ending, but also it had ultimately found the ending.”
“She [Riley’s mother] never gave up hope to find her son. We never gave up trying and we were blessed with the media getting Riley’s story out and generating the leads we needed because at the point, literally the media, the social networks is the only leads that we had been given, period, as to what happened to Riley.”
Former death investigator Joseph Scott Morgan explained, however, that, “you’re not always going to find water in the lungs.”
“In a drowning, you can have what’s referred to as a dry drowning. Many times this is where you have, actually a spasm that occurs in the organs of the throat and you can prevent water from getting in.”
“I worked a lot of cases, Nancy, where people’s shoes do in fact come off in the water. The current generally facilitates that, but when you have pants that come off, that’s a completely different animal at that point in time. That’s what you know. Leaves me with more questions than answers here.”
The family is also concerned that Strain was found nearly nude, wearing only his watch and a shirt. Pictures analyzed from the night he vanished show Strain had his wallet in the front pocket of his pants, and he was wearing Justins, which are square nose-style Cowboy boots.
His body was found without the boots, pants, or wallet.
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[Feature Photo: Riley Strain/Family Handout]
Additional reporting by KC Wildmoon
