Riley Strain’s final text message as new footage sheds light on night he went missing: Live

Riley Strain’s family held a press conference today in Nashville to provide updates on the search for the missing University of Missouri student.

The family is asking the Cajun Navy to assist in the search for Mr Strain.

The Cajun Navy is a natural disaster response organisation formed during Hurricane Katrina. The group also helps provide supplies to disaster stricken areas and assists with missing persons cases and search and rescue operations.

“Our goal is still to bring Riley home,” he said.

Dave Flagg, national director of operations for United Cajun Navy, said Mr Strain’s family has asked for the Cajun Navy to assist the search efforts.

Mr Flagg said the Cajun Navy has been involved since earliest days of the search, but said it would increase its efforts to help try to find Mr Strain.

He said a hovercraft was being brought in, and that it would be on the river today or early tomorrow, and added that an airboat that has already been searching the river would continue its search.

Mr Flagg said his people would both be searching for Mr Strain and organising the volunteer portion of the search to ensure searchers are safe. He asked individual volunteers to “come under the umbrella” of the Cajun Navy search.

University of Missouri student Riley Strain was out with his fraternity brothers in Nashville, Tennessee, on Friday 8 March when he disappeared.

He’d been asked to leave a bar the Delta Chi group were hanging out in, shortly before 9.45pm, and said he was going back to their hotel.

Here is everything we know so far.

After the discovery of Riley Strain’s bank card on Sunday by a pair of TikTokers searching the Cumberland Riverbank, there has been some question as to the efficacy of the police response to Mr Strain’s disappearance.

Metropolitan Nashville Police have been searching the Cumberland River with sonar-equipped boats, a drone, helicopters, and have searched the surrounding areas for Mr Strain.

However, friends of Mr Strain have questioned certain decisions the police have made, according to a report by FOX Nashville.

Chris Dingman, one of Mr Strain’s friends assisting in the search, questioned why a detective was not assigned to Mr Strain’s case until two days after he was reported missing.

“I wish something would have been done sooner The first 48 is so crucial,” Mr Dingman said.

The owners of shops near where Mr Strain stumbled into a pole — which was caught on surveillance video — have also reportedly not been questioned.

“People that owned the businesses were not talked to. That unfortunately is what’s going on in this situation,” one of the owners told FOX Nashville.

Mr Dingman also expressed frustration that it was amateur sleuths, and not the police, who managed to locate Mr Strain’s bank card near the river. He believes that police have jumped the gun on concluding that no crime had been committed.

“It blows our mind that the card that was found yesterday evidence that there was a crime and we’re being told that may not be what it takes to reclassify this from a missing person’s [case],” Mr Dingman said. “And that is very frustrating.”

Nashville police said they have briefed the family on the latest in their investigation.

“No evidence of foul play has surfaced as work continues to locate Riley Strain. On Sunday evening, Riley’s parents met with some of the detective team and received a full briefing on the work being done. They were also shown available video,” the department told FOX Nashville.

Search efforts were launched to find him but, so far, police have found no trace of Mr Strain other than his bank card, which was found close to the Cumberland River over a week after he was last seen.

Missing University of Missouri student Riley Strain’s last text message before his disappearance has been revealed.

Riley Strain was last seen on 8 March after being asked to leave a bar in Nashville while on a trip with his fraternity.

On the afternoon of 14 March, police said there was currently no signs of foul play in Riley’s disapearance, but that investigations by water and air would continue.

Metro Nashville Police Sgt Bob Neilsen said, “In a missing person’s case, people go missing for various reasons. Some are voluntary, some are not. Some could be due to a medical incident.”

“Right now, we have no idea what happened with this gentleman. We don’t believe there was any crime involved, however. All of our resources right now are dedicated to locating him,” the police sergeant added.

Although the Tennessee Alcoholic Beverage Commission announced on 13 March that it was investigating whether Mr Strain had been overserved at the bar, on 15 March, the bar owners revealed that the college senior had been served just one drink and two waters before being escorted out.

“No members of Riley’s party were required to stay inside the venue to close any open tabs, and no one from Luke’s 32 Bridge team prevented anyone from Riley’s party from leaving the venue with him,” the owners said in a statement.

New footage has emerged capturing some of the last known movements of Riley Strain before the University of Missouri student vanished without a trace on a night out in Nashville.

The 22-year-old was partying with his fraternity brothers in Nashville on the night of 8 March when he was kicked out of a bar.

He said he was returning to his hotel but his friends later discovered him missing – kicking off a week-long search for the college student.

Now, newly-released video shows that Mr Strain spoke briefly to a police officer minutes after leaving the bar.

Nashville Metro Police said that the student did not appear distressed during the encounter.

Riley Strain, 22, was last seen on Friday night as he left Luke’s 32 Bridge Food + Drink in Nashville’s Broadway area.

The senior’s stepfather said in an interview on Monday that the days since Riley’s disappearance had been “pure hell”.

His family has travelled to the city and been walking the streets looking for the young man who called his frat brothers after leaving the bar, saying he was going back to their hotel.

Riley’s friends tried to call him repeatedly after that on Friday night and on Saturday morning, but the calls kept going to voicemail.

Metropolitan Nashville Police Department released video footage on Tuesday, showing Riley wearing a two-tone shirt, crossing 1st Avenue North to Gay Street at around 9.45pm on Friday. That spot is just over half a mile from the bar.

Investigators are asking anyone who could help locate the 6’5” tall man with a thin build, blue eyes and light brown hair to come forward.

The department said on Monday that it had searched the downtown area where Riley was last seen, including the riverbank, but “to no avail”.

Mr Strain, a Mizzou senior, vanished while on a fraternity trip to Nashville.

Chris Dingman, one of Mr Strain’s friends, reportedly learned the missing student had been spotted by a group of homeless individuals on the night of his disappearance.

“I was talking to family members currently in downtown Nashville searching, and we have found another homeless person that had acknowledged that Riley had been in that area,” Mr Dingman told WSMV4.

“This now makes two people that have done confirmation. These are areas that the camera had stops. We don’t have any footage. Basically, the areas where his phone quit pinging. We now do have visual confirmation from two homeless camps that Riley was in that area.”

A family friend of Riley Strain has revealed the last known communication the student had that night.

Chris Dingman told NewsNation that the student sent a text message to a girl that he was seeing.

“She texted him to see how he was doing and if he was having fun,” he said.

“He sent kind of a scripted text back to her saying ‘Good lops.’”

It is unclear what the confused message means.

Mr Dingman said that neither he nor the recipient of the text knew what it meant and described it as “unclear slang”.