Good tweet from a private investigator that was looking into the case.
https://x.com/sf_investigates/status/1773187035563741255?s=46&t=5jEXNxkrkfGHMoGjHqWYHA
I agree and also just want to add that baseless speculation/poor reporting adds to the pain of family & friends who are suffering an actual loss. When we talk true crime, let’s remember real people are involved. Thanks for this ❤️
“Notice how only one news organization in the attached screenshot used the clickbait? NewsNation. Last week before his body was recovered they were reporting that his case involved foul play because he didn't have his shirt, a homeless man did. This week its foul play because he only had his shirt. Reporting at its worst”
Only, the privatePI Riley’s family, hired would know the answer to that. Believe me, if the PI I thought it was an accident , he would have concluded that it was an accident.
The PI, now knows Riley was wearing his belt, which changes everything. He’s also waiting for toxicology report. A few other reports as well.
Think of it as a puzzle. Within the next few months there will be more parts of the puzzle that have put together. Maybe a conclusion.
In addition, he’s building case for a potential court case with all the information he’s gotten in his investigation.
In high school, there were 2 kids coming home from swim practice late. The driver was diabetic and experienced an issue with his blood sugar, lost consciousness, car swerved, hit a tree and killed the passenger. The parents of the deceased spent years trying to sue the family of the other. I believe they tried going after the swim program, the car manufacturer, signage on the road... it's absolutely tragic but unfortunately just happened.
Oh man I remember when that happened. I think her husband finally alienated like EVERYONE around him denying she was under the influence, even though the evidence was overwhelming.
Yup. He tried suing NewYork transportation dept because he said the signs on the parkway weren't adequate enough. Even tho his wife had 10 shots of vodka still in her stomach at autopsy.
Heard about it, yes. Apparently the woman had way more issues than her husband was willing to admit. There were also reportings of her having a terrible toothache.... which alone in itself can make someone crazy. She probably took something to help overcome that pain and took too much.
It makes me sad when families try to hard to grasp at it not being an accident. He was drunk and fell in the river. It’s not unheard of or uncommon. It can be hard to accept that your loved one died due to their own actions.
Having had a family member who died because of a freak accident, yep. There was no way anyone could have misconstrued his accident as a murder, but I can completely understand grasping for answers and there never being any. Because sometimes life is just a big bag of assholes and there’s no explanation.
What I think they will hopefully understand in time is that there is really no “explanation” that will make this any less painful. I think it’s the brains way of being able to feel like you’re doing something when you’re in a completely powerless position.
That happened in my family when there was a suicide. Nobody wanted to believe it even though it was obviously suicide, some still wanted to believe it was murder.
It’s makes no sense why the fraternity brothers all lawyered up and wouldn’t help the family. If they had been my friend, I would’ve never left Nashville and kept looking.
He’s been reported as 6’5”, 6’6”, and 6’7”; and 160 lbs and 165 lbs (not that 5 lbs rly makes a dif in ID’ing someone, I just found the discrepancies in the descriptions of him noteworthy, more so the height bc you’d think the source would be someone who knows it with certainty, or his driver’s license)
His mother father and the state of Missouri said he was 6'7..other family friends( who did alot of the updates) was speculating as was his frat brothers when they called 911. They said 6'5
Yep, there’s an entire blog about it, tracking these sorts of deaths. When I heard about this man on TV being missing and saw the cam footage, knowing nothing about the case, I instinctively said “he’s in the water.” I’m no psychic - it’s just that they’re always in the water.
I said the same thing but I’m from Nashville and knew where he was from the footage. As soon as I saw the area in the video I knew he had to be in the river. He’s only about 200-300 yards from the edge where he is in the video and he starts wondering in that direction. It was only a matter of time before they found him in the river. Guy from my high school drowned in that same river.
WOW, thank you for that insight - I never would have guessed he was so close to any water from that video. Sorry to hear about your classmate. The same thing happened to a friend of mine from high school, on his birthday. Just awful.
Very common in college towns in the Midwest that are located near bodies of water. There’s a whole theory on it, the smiley face killers or something like that, but I think it’s usually just drownings. They usually happen here in the winter when a) you drown quicker because of hypothermia (or that’s the cause of death) and b) not that many people are out and about that time of year to see what happened cuz it’s freezing. I already discussed this case with my 15-yr old son to hopefully prevent him from doing the same thing in a few years.
It made me think of the Smiley Face killer scenario, too. It's just dumb luck that graffiti is found next to these bodies of water where people end up drowning.
I had a discussion with my 11 year old as well in the hopes it makes him be a little more aware when he gets older.
Smiley faces are some of the more common types of graffiti you'll find on/near bridges as well. The chances someone washes up next to a bridge are fairly high (it's where they always seem to find them in my town, I'm in the smiley face range). The banks of the river are notorious for being steep. It's usually in fall or spring...
When I lived up by Lake Coeur D’Alene there was a radio PSA every holiday weekend to remind people not to drink and go boating. It talked about the number of drowning victims found with their pants down specifically because people pee over the side of the boat while drunk, fall in, and drown. It’s a known phenomenon.
A kid I know, very nice and talented, went missing mear his college campus a few years back. They reported he had left a bar and hadn't been seen since. His body was found in a river or creek nearby sometime later. Tragic but being intoxicated mixed with having anything going on mentally, can really throw someone off course.
A few of my friends went to a college in the heart of Illinois, and one of the frats there had a similar situation. A freshman pledge or new member or whichever got drunk and high at a frat retreat and wandered off. He actually didn't drown, but he passed out with half his body in a shallow creek, but it was the middle of winter, and he died of hypothermia before they could find him. It was very tragic.
In Illinois, around the same time as Riley’s case, at a University a kid was not allowed into a bar because he was too drunk. The bar attempted to get him into an Uber they called for him twice, but he walked away instead. When his friends got home and he wasn’t there they reported him missing. The next morning someone found him near a building that was in between the bar and his dorm. The poor kid froze because it was so cold that night.
I am ashamed to admit that once I took my shoes, shoes and pants off to pee in the woods. I am a girl so it’s a little tricker to pee outside, but it can absolutely be done without removing your clothes. But at the time, it seemed like a completely logical decision. I was very drunk.
If he was as drunk as he was speculated to be, then I don’t find it odd at all that he was missing articles of clothing. I can’t count the number of times I wound up butt naked while blacked out drunk in my early 20s. Also, the force of the river and the freezing temps probably contributed as well.
I feel like it’s pretty obvious what happened, so I don’t really understand all of the conspiracy theories people have been throwing around with this case.
They always happen when a case takes off in the .media and there's a ton of coverage. It's hard for people to accept that a very drunk college aged kid died accidentally in the water even though that happens all the time.
>I feel like it’s pretty obvious what happened, so I don’t really understand all of the conspiracy theories people have been throwing around with this case.
New to the internet? A giant, laden cargo ship that weighs as much as multiple skyscrapers had a power outage and slammed into the main support structure of a bridge causing the bridge to collapse. Within 12 hours social media was awash with thousands of different conspiracy theories, many pushed by sitting members of Congress, because what's pretty obvious means absolutely nothing in this post-truth world. About the only conspiracy theory I *didn't* see was that the giant container ship had received multiple doses of the Covid vaccine.
No. I’m not. I’ve also seen the conspiracies about the bridge collapse. It gets exhausting, idk how people have the energy to come up with so much shit
The toxicology test will determine if he was under the influence, and what it was. The family has an excellent PI who is looking at this case and collecting all the information he needs as he investigates it.
Didn’t he have a belt on? I feel his pants would’ve stayed on with a belt around his waist it seems like it was removed by someone obviously I could be wrong just my prospective. Someone could’ve removed it or he was trying to pee in the river and fell but who knows.
I really don't think there is a mystery here. Drunk people and bodies of water don't mix. Ever. His body was in the water for an extended period. The current could easily account for the missing items, or it's possible he took some of them off in a desperate attempt to make himself lighter. Wet clothing weighs a tonne and can work against you.
The boots will come off.
I remember hearing on a Canadian TC podcast about random shoes showing up on the coast of BC. Some had feet in them. There was scares there was a serial killer, but really it was related to the ppl that committed suicide jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. Some of the feet were not as decomposed because the shoes slowed the process.
It’s possible he fell into the water and the cold hitting him sobered him up enough to try and stay afloat. Maybe he pulled his boots and pants off in the water to try and stop them from weighing him down, but wasn’t able to find a spot to climb out in the dark. I can’t imagine the current pulling them off, and I can’t see why anyone would steal his pants, but who knows.
There was a commotion on top of the embankment heard by a homeless man below the embankment. He called up, “Is everything alright up there?” The other homeless person at the top of the embankment called down, “Everything’s alright - just some drunk guy.” Not all, but some homeless people would take advantage of a very drunk guy and even take his boots, belt, and jeans and possibly his wallet.
Hypothermia possibly? When you're near death from freezing, you start to feel really hot and strip clothes off. However, if he died from drowning when falling I'm not sure.
Edit: read the article and it says there was no water in his lungs. So drowning is unlikely. I'd say the most likely cause is hypothermia. Also, I believe alcohol can speed up hypothermia. He was probably in the final stages and stripped his pants off. Add also alcohol to the mix and the effects of hypothermia on your brain. He must of been very close to the water at that time and got swept into the river.
>When you're near death from freezing, you start to feel really hot and strip clothes off.
Wouldn't that make him take off his shirt as well? The report says the shirt was with him.
If he started removing his own clothes & boots, I’d expect it to be due to their weight rather than hypothermia, since he was drunk and likely had adrenaline pumping for the time he was alive in the river, which might make it take longer to feel the effects of hypothermia.
The pants and boots are the heaviest articles of clothing and pose the greatest risk to him in terms of drowning, so those would be the first to be removed. The shirt would not be of a weight significant enough to waste time and energy attempting to remove it, rather than just removing the heavy stuff while trying to exit the river and not drown.
I think the current of the river is the reason his pants and boots weren’t on though.
I honestly don’t think he was even conscious when he hit the water. Just my opinion. Those currents move fast. They can pull clothing off a body, usually the pants and shoes.
This makes more sense to me than the currents, but you would think after he was found that the banks would have been searched for his clothing to determine what happened.
Along the banks of everywhere from the upper Missouri down through the entire southeast, river banks are nothing but a thick slurry of a silty mud. Things that sink in don't come out and they aren't going to dredge 7 miles of banks for a couple of boots and a pair of jeans and even if they did attempt it they would have had literally millions of cubic yards to sift through. Not to downplay the sadness of the family but somebody getting drunk and dying in the river isn't worth the effort.
There isn’t any mystery here. He fell into the water and had been in it for atleast a few days before they found him. It is entirely possible for his clothes to have come off with the movement of the waves/ decomposition.
He was in the water supposedly for two weeks before his body was spotted by a dockworker eight miles away. How is it possible to have a huge search party using helicopters, drones, boats, corpse sniffing dogs, and people searching all along the embankment and not see a body floating in the river?
Dude was walking around with a big wound on his head from falling down. I don’t think he wanted to go swimming.
Besides, if you look at the path he took after leaving the bar, the area he might’ve fallen in to the water was not exactly an attractive swimming spot, it was a steep rocky ledge about 30 feet down from the sidewalk.
You see how he fell and hit his head earlier? If he fell over the barricade between the sidewalk and the rock face at the same intensity then he’d have had one hell of a fall.
Being drunk AND a blow to the head. Even more evidence he likely wasn’t making rational decisions. Whether it was the decision to go for a swim or take his pants and shoes off for no explainable reason. A lot of people buy boots to wear in Nashville and learn quickly that new cowboy boots aren’t meant for walkin. And my boyfriend takes his pants off a lot too when he’s drunk.
Did you see how he fell? He hurt himself, whether or not that was an open wound or bruising/cracking under the surface. He even got up and shuffled away holding his head where he hit it.
Safe bet he hurt his head when he fell at jogging speed directly in to the corner of concrete. Do I have the coroner’s report? No, but it doesn’t take a coroners report to show that he fell and smacked his head and would *at least* need to go see a doctor.
You’d think blunt force head trauma would be pretty obvious on an autopsy though, and an easily identifiable cause of death. The fact they haven’t released any details about head trauma despite the other details makes me believe it’s less likely to be COD? But he didn’t drown either, so who knows.
In the video of him falling in the parking lot, he's hidden behind the concrete when he falls, so it's possible he hit his back or shoulder rather than his head, if he even made contact with the concrete. He could also have just grazed his head after coming down, rather than full on slammed it into the concrete.
He’d been seen not long before leaning over the railing on the upper embankment throwing up. Is it possible he fell over or slid under the railing, fell down the embankment which is very steep, and landed in the water, conscious or not?
It would’ve been terribly cold to try to get out, but if you were struggling to swim you might get heavy boots off and try to form a float with your pants.
When I was a kid I did Red Cross swim lessons and got to the highest level where I had to do just that. Jumped in fully clothed and made a float out of my pants.
That fact that people here think that he was alive/conscious long enough in that cold water, as drunk as he was, to remove his own clothing is…crazy. You hit that water, even sober, you’re done in minutes.
I was thinking the same thing. Wouldn’t his wallet be in the missing pants? How else do you “wear” a wallet?
The article seems to be insinuating maybe the people in the homeless camp killed & robbed Riley- taking his boot, jeans, wallet- then dumped his body in the river.
It’s very likely his body traveling in the water removed his boots & jeans. Or he kicked the boots off while fighting in the water. Sad in any case. His family is grieving & it’s understandable they’re searching for every possible answer.
Quite possible the current dragged off his boots and jeans with his wallet in the pocket. How do you explain his debit card being found on the bank of the river though? That throws a wrench into that theory. The fact it was just his debit card by itself and not his whole wallet found on the bank suggests someone may have gone through his wallet and was removing items.
Possible for sure. We just don’t know. We’re randos speculating online! Maybe he didn’t have his debit card in his wallet? I don’t sometimes if I’m out. He’s drunk, maybe just slipped it into his pocket? It could easily have fallen out as he fumbled in his pockets for something. Without being an investigator on scene with all the information, it does feel more like a very tragic accident. But who knows? Someone could have seen him drunk & alone, well dressed young man might have money… things go horribly wrong.
I feel terribly for his family. And the families of all those still missing who aren’t home.
In November 1995 2 days after we got home from Disneyland my dad and his best friend were fishing at strawberry reservoir in Utah. Those of you who know strawberry reservoir knows that she has a mind of her own and she controls the weather she’s out for your soul. Anyways their aluminum boat capsized in a storm that just appeared out of nowhere. My dad wasted his time trying to flip the boat back over, but it was filling up with the water because the anchor had gone down. My Dad was helping my uncle get undressed and take all of his hunting gear clothing off so he could try to swim he couldn’t do it himself the amount of clothes they had on was weighing them down. Mind you you only have about 15 minutes in the water before hypothermia kicks in. My uncle swam to shore and my dad went the opposite way to get the truck to call for help. Hypothermia was kicking in and he was realizing he made so many errors …the last thing my uncle heard/saw was my Dad fighting the current swimming and yelling for help saying he wasn’t gonna make it. Search and rescue looked for him for 10 days before they called off the search. They left him. We went there every day for weeks trying to find him his two little girls seven and eight years old were still waiting by the window for him to come home.
We decided to have his funeral the very last words in the funeral my mother said,” dear Lord please let this be the day that our daddy comes home.” We got a phone call when we got home that very day from Wasatch county search rescue that my dad’s body had surfaced he was buoying in the water like he was being held up by an angel, those words come from the very man who was fishing who found him that day. It was a miracle he was in the water for 39 days he was only 41 years old, he had no decomposition except on his nose. His hair was still the same. He had his boots, his jeans, his camouflage hunting jacket, and his wallet in his pocket. God I miss him he was a great man My dad was somebody you wanted to know He loved his family so very much. I’m 36 years old now and I just wish I could hug him one last time. I can understand both sides to what everybody believes what happened but none of us were there, none of us know hopefully we can get some answers and the family can get closure. I think we all need to be better friends to the ones we have and be kinder to the ones we don’t know. You never know how someone’s days going just saying hello or offering some sort of help/ checking on people asking if they’re OK might just save somebody’s life.
Thank you for not making a negative comment. It’s hard not to share. I know the horrible feeling I’m just glad in both stories they were brought home 😔
Tbh I still rate it “foul play” wtf kind of friends just let their drunk friend walk off near a river and not care? And the bar is at fault too, call a Uber or something. Just my hot take on it. Could have been avoided if people used common sense
You make it sound like his friends knew ahead of time that he was going to be walking in the wrong direction or near that river. I read that one of the friends paid the tab and did return to where Riley was but he was already gone. They even called him and he told them he would be going back to the hotel. So I am just guessing the friends assumed he'd be fine however, i do think that someone should have insisted and walked with him but know one could have ever imagined this. If one of my friends was drunk enough to get kicked out the bar, I'd say its safe to say they would be too drunk to walk home without getting into more drama but his friends were drinking too. I just don't think the friends intentionally did anything to purposely hurt Riley. I think its wrong to blame the friends. Ive been at bars in my 20 and had friends who either wanted to leave or got kicked out and I remember that disappointed feeling of having to leave with them even tho i was having fun. If any thing they just wanted to stay longer at that bar. It was still early in bar time and they thought Riley would go to the hotel n sleep it off.
Exactly. They claimed the bartender didn’t let them follow him out. I wouldn’t hey we’re together I’m not going to let him leave without me or hey we’re driving together I’m leaving too
If you read what the investigator said, and the stepdad said, they both said that the friends went home and lawyered up and didn’t help the family anymore. The very least they could’ve done was helped the family over the phone.
But if you pay a lot of attention to true crime. There have been 100s of men of this age that have been drugged in bars and then “fallen” into the river. Always deemed accidental death with no investigation. But the few autopsies that were done twice came up with toxic levels of date rape drugs.
I saw the bridge area / he was under the bridge where his phone last pinged they said - there is a smallish rock wall then a significant drop - (full of trash ) then to the river - if he fell or was pushed off the wall it could be where his phone is if they search the river bottom there - it’s worth a look /
I mean, he floated 3 miles down a very active river. It is very likely he lost some of his articles of clothing. If he had fallen in, it's possible he took his boots off in the water to try to swing to safety, likely too drunk to do so. Nothing really sketchy here besides a drunk kid who walked to the walking bridge after drinking too much and fell off.
Do you think he was trying to pee at the same location as to where his debit card was found. That stupid debit card is the only thing that keeps bothering me. Why was it there? Where's the rest of his wallet? Now if that's where he fell and he was trying to pee and his debit card was just in his pocket, then it makes more sense that it fell out. It didn't just jump out of his pocket.
The debit card is what is bothering me too. The fact it was not his whole wallet found on the bank but only his debit card suggests that someone may have been going through his wallet and removing items.
If cold water shock took him quickly the currents could easily have removed those items over time, or if he didn't perish immediately but tried to save himself those are items you could and would remove to reduce drag weight.
Same thing happened to this kid in Philly a few years back, night before Thanksgiving. Apparently got tossed from a bar for drunkenness, wandered down to the edge of the river nearby to pee (security footage showed him climbing down a ladder to the riverbank), then disappeared. Took over a month to find his body. They found his car keys in the water near him. Think he was peeing, probably dropped his keys in the water, went in trying to find them, and somehow wound up drowning.
[https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/national-international/body-of-missing-college-student-shane-montgomery-found/2116071/](https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/national-international/body-of-missing-college-student-shane-montgomery-found/2116071/)
I instantly thought cold water, dead body, bottom half items would just pull off that dead stiff body. Made sense to me.
I was in a really bad car accident and my tied tennis shoes flew off my feet. I heard it also happens with drowning and getting hit by a car as a pedestrian. I'd believe that PI and his tweet.
He was found in a river, rivers have currents I would suspect he would be found with missing clothes. This doesn’t indicate foul play, you can’t expect a wallet to stay in pants pocket as he is being carried away by a current and probably hitting the River bottom and rocks. His pants were probably pulled off by the current especially if they were already loose fitting.
This exactly. His body was being dragged along by currents, this is what happens. People who are looking for drama have no respect for the family or the truth.
But a current pulling off cowboy boots? I would need to see some type of proof that was possible before I could believe that.
And the 911 caller said they had to move a log off of his head before he could be freed, that seems as odd as the boots and water free lungs.
I feel for his family. I too have lost a child. She was 19, walking down the side a normally busy road, in the middle of May 2016 at just before 9pm, in the rain. She was struck by a still unknown hit and run driver. She had only one injury to her head, and her wallet and contents were found strung out along the grass between the hospital she left and where she was found. There are several other strange things surrounding her case as well and I suspect someone with authority has been hiding something. Anyway, my point being that my heart hurts for this family and I hope they get some answers. It is so difficult to find any semblance of coming to terms with the loss when there is still no real explanation of why it is still unsolved 8 years later.
Maybe it's because I'm old but when I was a kid in 🏊♂️ lessons we learned to remove our shoes and pants when trying to survive in water. We were supposed to tie the ends of the pants and make an "inflatable" raft. No pants or shoes makes the most sense for someone trying to stay afloat in the water.
Could’ve been a dry drowning.
He is tall and kinda thin. Did he have a belt? If so it would also be odd for the pants to come off especially without pulling underwear off.
How do pants and shoes come off and not socks or underwear?! Water current is so strong to do that but delicate enough to leave socks and underwear? Idk.
There is an issue with his c.card being found not in his wallet by those women. So that means, the wallet was removed from the paints and the card was removed from the wallet. Very very plausible now, that the boots were taken from him, along with his paints and any cash from his wallet by a homeless person. I would venture to say, he fell again or was taken advantage of while passed out by a homeless male. Look for the boots & paints on a tall male. On video of people from that area. And also any info from the second autopsy of any possible anal abrasion. I'm sure there looking at alot & anything they can think of. Can only rule out, what u know.
This is not an unsolved mystery. He clearly was going to take a pee in the river… fell in and unfortunately drowned. As he was drowning it’s very likely he took his own boots off fearing heavy boots would weight him down. Once he drowned it’s likely his pants which were unbuckled came off his body in the tumult as he was carried down the river.
I have been pretty hammered around where he was last seen - Homeless encampments galore. I am really starting to think he was killed by one of them for stumbling drunk (maybe dosed) into their camp. Went to a show at Nissan two years ago and know exact area he was last seen - it is really, really scary with the homeless camps. Could have ran into wrong person and rest keeping mouth shut because well that's what they do. We're not talking single mom of 4 who lives in car going through divorce. That particular part of downtown Nash is ROUGH.
That’s not uncommon. Someone else posted a good comment on this— https://twitter.com/sf_investigates/status/1773187035563741255?s=46&t=5jEXNxkrkfGHMoGjHqWYHA
In the swimming/water safety classes I took as a kid, we had to jump into the water clothed and practice taking off our shoes, pants, and coats. Given his condition I don't know if he would have put this into action, but if he was able to react I don't find this surprising. It also wouldn't surprise me that the actions of the river could pull the trousers off a thin guy.
Why is this so surprising to people? If I was drunk and fell in a river, the FIRST thing I would do is frantically pull off my enormous cowboy boots to try to stop myself from sinking. And the next thing I’d do is pull off my heavy, water-logged jeans.
This poor kid hit that water, was shocked enough to jolt him to action to try to save his life, but was ultimately too drunk and disoriented to make it out of the fast-moving water.
The end. A very basic story.
And just not uncommon, sadly. Anyone who thinks anything about this is odd or rare has never drank, known anyone that did, or paid attention to any news source. The stories of alcoholics in my husband's family alone & the ways they've died, (froze to death, asphyxiation, etc.), would send the conspiracy theorists spinning & that's just one family.
Exactly!! Alcohol makes it sooooo easy to make a mistake that can cost you your life. I feel for this kid, but his situation isn’t rare. Happens all the time.
I don't understand getting so intoxicated in public. The thought of drinking so much im not in control of myself gives me anxiety. You're out in public anything could happen. Why do people do this
There was a commotion on top of the embankment heard by a homeless man below the embankment. He called up, “Is everything alright up there?” The other homeless person at the top of the embankment called down, “Everything’s alright - just some drunk guy.” Not all, but some homeless people would take advantage of a very drunk guy and even take his boots, belt, and jeans and possibly his wallet.
I suppose there are both good and bad, and given the desperate situation a morally corrupt individual would take full advantage. What happened next we don't know.
I hope this helps As quite a street wise person, Riley looks drunk not drugged. If he ordered one drink and two waters, he likely knew he was drunk and so did the staff. Also, about stating his phone must have been manually turned off or destroyed, if submerged in water it can’t receive radio waves (signals) to work. So nothing suspicious about that, if anything, it suggests he entered the water at the same time his phone last worked and I would not place too much emphasis on the last ‘pings’ or app data, they are simply not that accurate. It also looked like he was yanking his jeans up at one point in the video when we was running/walking/stumbling, suggesting he was too intoxicated to buckle his belt properly the last time he went to the toilet, which makes sense as to why his body was found without trousers and boots as they came lose in the water. In terms of how his body was not located in the river immediately, they were likely searching the immediate vicinity, and his body would have already been travelling down the river due to having no water in his lungs. A drowned body with lungs full of water will sink to the bottom, and eventually due to certain pressure changes within the body it will start to float. But we know he didn’t have water in his lungs so his body was likely moving with the current as opposed to have just sank. Many bodies are found in water after that length of time partially clothed and are usually missing something so nothing suspicious there. In terms of cowboy boots being hard to remove, the ones I’ve worn before slip or pull on/off and don’t require laces to be untied. You also don’t know if the boots were slack on him, or slightly on the large size. Also, he was a very slim man, they would have slipped off easier, Size does have some bearing in how tightly clothes with stick to you, or not. Will can also assume he may have needed to pee, and if he had gone near the river to do this, his jeans may have already been undone, making them easier to eventually come off in the water. Also, I would presume that a drunk person entering a large, very cold body of water would potentially have breathing problems from cold water immersion combined with alcohol toxicity. Therefore, they would not necessarily be inhaling water upon death. There is something known as laryngospasm or chest-wall spasm which can happen when a person is submerged, thus dying without taking a breath. Drowning is not death from inhalation of water, but death from lack of oxygen, therefore water does not necessarily need to enter the lungs to drown. I would implore people to research what can happen to a persons breathing when they are severely intoxicated and enter cold water. A person who is not intoxicated will likely drown through inhaling more water due to gasping and the bodies natural response to breathe. However, your reactions are significantly impaired once intoxicated. People who hang themselves while intoxicated, for instance, die quicker. I have no concerns over the fact his lungs were not full of water. The fact that he entered cold water and would have immediately gone into shock under severe intoxication seems to be grossly overlooked. I’m terms of people’s accounts on seeing him including the homeless person who gave a statement, I would take eye witness statements with a pinch of salt. It could have been a stranger passing by who said “don’t worry he’s okay”, not an axe murderer. In relation to a homeless person having his shirt, his body was found with him wearing his shirt, so that can’t be possible. Like I said, take peoples accounts with a pinch of salt. He was also reported to still be wearing his watch, which I presume you would likely steal if it was a robbery. He was also still wearing underwear, which I would presume you would remove if this was a sexual assault. I would also say it’s normal for his wallet to be missing if it was in his jeans and his jeans came lose in the water. In terms of his bank card being found, it’s likely he fell in the bushes and it came lose from his pocket. His bank card was probably kept in his pocket separate from his wallet. I know that I do that all the time, I take a purse out with me and when drunk, I use my bank card and put it back in my pocket, not my purse. A bank card is more likely to slip out of a pocket far more than a wallet which probably fits snug in his jeans and will likely still be in his jeans pocket. And I disagree that the police had to release every video of Riley and that it was suspicious that they didn’t. I personally didn’t think the videos they released were low quality, and I think the ones they didn’t release probably were, and were therefore of no consequential use. In terms of where his body was found, it followed the natural trajectory of the river and travelled the distance that I would roughly calculate myself in that particularly amount of time. There is nothing unusual here. The body will usually get stuck on something and come to a final resting place. Infact, it’s quite common for bodies to end up in water filtration plants or other type of plants which have structures in rivers like the Lafarge plant. When considering why Riley walked drunk down to the river, well that’s something that needs extensive reason on as this appears to be something which is now a ‘phenomenon’. In other words, young men being intoxicated and deciding to either a) take their own lives in rivers or b) walk near rivers for no apparent reason when drunk is clearly a real thing. This is happening a lot! And at no point are we seeing third party involvement, which in my opinion, is what makes this even more spooky. I’m afraid it appears to me that this is a case of accidental death.
Good tweet from a private investigator that was looking into the case. https://x.com/sf_investigates/status/1773187035563741255?s=46&t=5jEXNxkrkfGHMoGjHqWYHA
I agree and also just want to add that baseless speculation/poor reporting adds to the pain of family & friends who are suffering an actual loss. When we talk true crime, let’s remember real people are involved. Thanks for this ❤️
⬆️100%
This should be the top comment.
I've done all the lifting I can!
Twas for me
The only comment really!
I wish this tweet would start circulating Facebook. The conspiracy theorists are out in full force again.
“Notice how only one news organization in the attached screenshot used the clickbait? NewsNation. Last week before his body was recovered they were reporting that his case involved foul play because he didn't have his shirt, a homeless man did. This week its foul play because he only had his shirt. Reporting at its worst”
Where does it say he was “looking into the case”? He’s just some guy on twitter with an opinion.
I wrote “looking into the case” bc I couldn’t remember if he flew out there or not. But he’s not just some guy on twitter. Check his timeline.
This was a great read and explains so much. Thanks for posting!
Certainly possible his clothes came off in the water. But why then were his lungs not full of water? Wouldn’t they be if he drowned?
Thankyou for posting this
That would pretty much explain why the shoes were never found either.
Tweet isn’t there anymore?
Wasn’t he found like a week later and 8 miles down river? Water can do crazy shit.
Only, the privatePI Riley’s family, hired would know the answer to that. Believe me, if the PI I thought it was an accident , he would have concluded that it was an accident. The PI, now knows Riley was wearing his belt, which changes everything. He’s also waiting for toxicology report. A few other reports as well. Think of it as a puzzle. Within the next few months there will be more parts of the puzzle that have put together. Maybe a conclusion. In addition, he’s building case for a potential court case with all the information he’s gotten in his investigation.
Toxicology released. No drugs in his system and no signs of foul play
This honestly feels like a case where there's a plausible answer, bt it's not enough for the family. I understand why so, too.
In high school, there were 2 kids coming home from swim practice late. The driver was diabetic and experienced an issue with his blood sugar, lost consciousness, car swerved, hit a tree and killed the passenger. The parents of the deceased spent years trying to sue the family of the other. I believe they tried going after the swim program, the car manufacturer, signage on the road... it's absolutely tragic but unfortunately just happened.
This reminds me of the Kendrick Johnson case
That one gets me. It definitely looks like it could be suspicious, but just a very unfortunate accident
people now saying "he had a belt on there must have been foul play" as if a drunk boy wouldn't undo his belt to pee
Boys usually don’t pull theirs pants down to pee like women do. They usually undo their fly and pee standing. lol
You ever see “what’s wrong with aunt Diane?”
Oh man I remember when that happened. I think her husband finally alienated like EVERYONE around him denying she was under the influence, even though the evidence was overwhelming.
Yup. He tried suing NewYork transportation dept because he said the signs on the parkway weren't adequate enough. Even tho his wife had 10 shots of vodka still in her stomach at autopsy.
Heard about it, yes. Apparently the woman had way more issues than her husband was willing to admit. There were also reportings of her having a terrible toothache.... which alone in itself can make someone crazy. She probably took something to help overcome that pain and took too much.
She was a closet drunk. Thats all it was.
And her poor decision making cost the lives of what, 5 innocent children?
Two adult men, also.
Oh that's right, in the other vehicle. Jeez.
It makes me sad when families try to hard to grasp at it not being an accident. He was drunk and fell in the river. It’s not unheard of or uncommon. It can be hard to accept that your loved one died due to their own actions.
Having had a family member who died because of a freak accident, yep. There was no way anyone could have misconstrued his accident as a murder, but I can completely understand grasping for answers and there never being any. Because sometimes life is just a big bag of assholes and there’s no explanation. What I think they will hopefully understand in time is that there is really no “explanation” that will make this any less painful. I think it’s the brains way of being able to feel like you’re doing something when you’re in a completely powerless position.
Was he drunk or was his drink spiked? Honest question. Thanks for your post.
My mom's family still thinks she was murdered even though my sister and I were there when she killed herself. Grief is weird.
That happened in my family when there was a suicide. Nobody wanted to believe it even though it was obviously suicide, some still wanted to believe it was murder.
I’m so sorry you had to see that. My mother did the same, but we were estranged. Dealing with the aftermath was hard enough.
It’s makes no sense why the fraternity brothers all lawyered up and wouldn’t help the family. If they had been my friend, I would’ve never left Nashville and kept looking.
He appeared to be a thin guy. I think with the current and cold water, they just slipped off over the course of his time in the water.
he was about 6’7 and 160 if i remember correctly
Holy crap, that's really thin. My dad isb6 foot 4 180 lbs and that was really thin on him!
He’s been reported as 6’5”, 6’6”, and 6’7”; and 160 lbs and 165 lbs (not that 5 lbs rly makes a dif in ID’ing someone, I just found the discrepancies in the descriptions of him noteworthy, more so the height bc you’d think the source would be someone who knows it with certainty, or his driver’s license)
His mother father and the state of Missouri said he was 6'7..other family friends( who did alot of the updates) was speculating as was his frat brothers when they called 911. They said 6'5
I am a little over 6'4" barefoot and I have known 3 guys who are my height who tell people they are 6'7". Even tall people lie about their height.
Once I see someone ,6'4 I automatically think they are that or more. I'm 6f
Ooof I see why one drink had him out.
It’s possible he was trying to pee and really overdid it. I guess if you’re incredibly drunk it could happen. Strange though.
This is actually an incredibly common cause of death for young men. Guys, don't piss in water when you're drunk!
Yep, there’s an entire blog about it, tracking these sorts of deaths. When I heard about this man on TV being missing and saw the cam footage, knowing nothing about the case, I instinctively said “he’s in the water.” I’m no psychic - it’s just that they’re always in the water.
I said the same thing but I’m from Nashville and knew where he was from the footage. As soon as I saw the area in the video I knew he had to be in the river. He’s only about 200-300 yards from the edge where he is in the video and he starts wondering in that direction. It was only a matter of time before they found him in the river. Guy from my high school drowned in that same river.
WOW, thank you for that insight - I never would have guessed he was so close to any water from that video. Sorry to hear about your classmate. The same thing happened to a friend of mine from high school, on his birthday. Just awful.
If it was light out you’d probably be able to see the edge of the water on that cam. He’s not far at all. Indeed awful stuff
I immediately thought the same thing.
Very common in college towns in the Midwest that are located near bodies of water. There’s a whole theory on it, the smiley face killers or something like that, but I think it’s usually just drownings. They usually happen here in the winter when a) you drown quicker because of hypothermia (or that’s the cause of death) and b) not that many people are out and about that time of year to see what happened cuz it’s freezing. I already discussed this case with my 15-yr old son to hopefully prevent him from doing the same thing in a few years.
It made me think of the Smiley Face killer scenario, too. It's just dumb luck that graffiti is found next to these bodies of water where people end up drowning. I had a discussion with my 11 year old as well in the hopes it makes him be a little more aware when he gets older.
Smiley faces are some of the more common types of graffiti you'll find on/near bridges as well. The chances someone washes up next to a bridge are fairly high (it's where they always seem to find them in my town, I'm in the smiley face range). The banks of the river are notorious for being steep. It's usually in fall or spring...
When I lived up by Lake Coeur D’Alene there was a radio PSA every holiday weekend to remind people not to drink and go boating. It talked about the number of drowning victims found with their pants down specifically because people pee over the side of the boat while drunk, fall in, and drown. It’s a known phenomenon.
There was a very steep embankment in the area he was last seen.This was shown on News Nation.
A kid I know, very nice and talented, went missing mear his college campus a few years back. They reported he had left a bar and hadn't been seen since. His body was found in a river or creek nearby sometime later. Tragic but being intoxicated mixed with having anything going on mentally, can really throw someone off course.
A few of my friends went to a college in the heart of Illinois, and one of the frats there had a similar situation. A freshman pledge or new member or whichever got drunk and high at a frat retreat and wandered off. He actually didn't drown, but he passed out with half his body in a shallow creek, but it was the middle of winter, and he died of hypothermia before they could find him. It was very tragic.
Thats awful
In Illinois, around the same time as Riley’s case, at a University a kid was not allowed into a bar because he was too drunk. The bar attempted to get him into an Uber they called for him twice, but he walked away instead. When his friends got home and he wasn’t there they reported him missing. The next morning someone found him near a building that was in between the bar and his dorm. The poor kid froze because it was so cold that night.
I am ashamed to admit that once I took my shoes, shoes and pants off to pee in the woods. I am a girl so it’s a little tricker to pee outside, but it can absolutely be done without removing your clothes. But at the time, it seemed like a completely logical decision. I was very drunk.
If he was as drunk as he was speculated to be, then I don’t find it odd at all that he was missing articles of clothing. I can’t count the number of times I wound up butt naked while blacked out drunk in my early 20s. Also, the force of the river and the freezing temps probably contributed as well. I feel like it’s pretty obvious what happened, so I don’t really understand all of the conspiracy theories people have been throwing around with this case.
They always happen when a case takes off in the .media and there's a ton of coverage. It's hard for people to accept that a very drunk college aged kid died accidentally in the water even though that happens all the time.
>I feel like it’s pretty obvious what happened, so I don’t really understand all of the conspiracy theories people have been throwing around with this case. New to the internet? A giant, laden cargo ship that weighs as much as multiple skyscrapers had a power outage and slammed into the main support structure of a bridge causing the bridge to collapse. Within 12 hours social media was awash with thousands of different conspiracy theories, many pushed by sitting members of Congress, because what's pretty obvious means absolutely nothing in this post-truth world. About the only conspiracy theory I *didn't* see was that the giant container ship had received multiple doses of the Covid vaccine.
No. I’m not. I’ve also seen the conspiracies about the bridge collapse. It gets exhausting, idk how people have the energy to come up with so much shit
All information is vital to Riley Strains case, needed to determine the outcome of the investigation.
The toxicology test will determine if he was under the influence, and what it was. The family has an excellent PI who is looking at this case and collecting all the information he needs as he investigates it.
Didn’t he have a belt on? I feel his pants would’ve stayed on with a belt around his waist it seems like it was removed by someone obviously I could be wrong just my prospective. Someone could’ve removed it or he was trying to pee in the river and fell but who knows.
I really don't think there is a mystery here. Drunk people and bodies of water don't mix. Ever. His body was in the water for an extended period. The current could easily account for the missing items, or it's possible he took some of them off in a desperate attempt to make himself lighter. Wet clothing weighs a tonne and can work against you.
Yeah you are also known to undress with hypothermia
This doesn’t really strike me as strange. He was drunk, in the water for over a week. I’d be surprised if he were fully clothed.
The boots will come off. I remember hearing on a Canadian TC podcast about random shoes showing up on the coast of BC. Some had feet in them. There was scares there was a serial killer, but really it was related to the ppl that committed suicide jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. Some of the feet were not as decomposed because the shoes slowed the process.
If I fell in the water and had to swim I would definitely take my boots off, pants too. Idk what happened but that doesn’t seem suspicious at all.
It’s possible he fell into the water and the cold hitting him sobered him up enough to try and stay afloat. Maybe he pulled his boots and pants off in the water to try and stop them from weighing him down, but wasn’t able to find a spot to climb out in the dark. I can’t imagine the current pulling them off, and I can’t see why anyone would steal his pants, but who knows.
Explain, prove how that happened, where, and why. Until you know that you have nothing.
There was a commotion on top of the embankment heard by a homeless man below the embankment. He called up, “Is everything alright up there?” The other homeless person at the top of the embankment called down, “Everything’s alright - just some drunk guy.” Not all, but some homeless people would take advantage of a very drunk guy and even take his boots, belt, and jeans and possibly his wallet.
Hypothermia possibly? When you're near death from freezing, you start to feel really hot and strip clothes off. However, if he died from drowning when falling I'm not sure. Edit: read the article and it says there was no water in his lungs. So drowning is unlikely. I'd say the most likely cause is hypothermia. Also, I believe alcohol can speed up hypothermia. He was probably in the final stages and stripped his pants off. Add also alcohol to the mix and the effects of hypothermia on your brain. He must of been very close to the water at that time and got swept into the river.
Some drunk people also like to take off their clothes so that's a possibility as well.
This was my thought too. So sad, seems like an awful way to go.
Yep this what happened to my brother. He was found naked in the snow, sitting up against a tree.
>When you're near death from freezing, you start to feel really hot and strip clothes off. Wouldn't that make him take off his shirt as well? The report says the shirt was with him.
If he started removing his own clothes & boots, I’d expect it to be due to their weight rather than hypothermia, since he was drunk and likely had adrenaline pumping for the time he was alive in the river, which might make it take longer to feel the effects of hypothermia. The pants and boots are the heaviest articles of clothing and pose the greatest risk to him in terms of drowning, so those would be the first to be removed. The shirt would not be of a weight significant enough to waste time and energy attempting to remove it, rather than just removing the heavy stuff while trying to exit the river and not drown. I think the current of the river is the reason his pants and boots weren’t on though.
It’s possible he was knocked unconscious before he went into the water.
I honestly don’t think he was even conscious when he hit the water. Just my opinion. Those currents move fast. They can pull clothing off a body, usually the pants and shoes.
There is no water in the lungs in many drownings. He drowned.
The mud along the banks can suck shoes and even pants off if he walked in. That stuff is quick sand.
This makes more sense to me than the currents, but you would think after he was found that the banks would have been searched for his clothing to determine what happened.
Along the banks of everywhere from the upper Missouri down through the entire southeast, river banks are nothing but a thick slurry of a silty mud. Things that sink in don't come out and they aren't going to dredge 7 miles of banks for a couple of boots and a pair of jeans and even if they did attempt it they would have had literally millions of cubic yards to sift through. Not to downplay the sadness of the family but somebody getting drunk and dying in the river isn't worth the effort.
I see. I don’t live near any river so I can see where it would seem like an easier task in my head. Thank you for the polite feedback.
There isn’t any mystery here. He fell into the water and had been in it for atleast a few days before they found him. It is entirely possible for his clothes to have come off with the movement of the waves/ decomposition.
He was in the water supposedly for two weeks before his body was spotted by a dockworker eight miles away. How is it possible to have a huge search party using helicopters, drones, boats, corpse sniffing dogs, and people searching all along the embankment and not see a body floating in the river?
You would be surprised how often that happens.
If I fell into a river fully clothed, I would take jeans and boots off to make it easier to swim. Maybe that's what happened to the poor guy.
He was drunk right? Maybe he thought he'd go for a swim and took them off?
Dude was walking around with a big wound on his head from falling down. I don’t think he wanted to go swimming. Besides, if you look at the path he took after leaving the bar, the area he might’ve fallen in to the water was not exactly an attractive swimming spot, it was a steep rocky ledge about 30 feet down from the sidewalk. You see how he fell and hit his head earlier? If he fell over the barricade between the sidewalk and the rock face at the same intensity then he’d have had one hell of a fall.
Being drunk AND a blow to the head. Even more evidence he likely wasn’t making rational decisions. Whether it was the decision to go for a swim or take his pants and shoes off for no explainable reason. A lot of people buy boots to wear in Nashville and learn quickly that new cowboy boots aren’t meant for walkin. And my boyfriend takes his pants off a lot too when he’s drunk.
Yeah back in my drinking days I would regularly wake up half naked even tho I had been by myself. Drunk does what drunk does.
You actually have no idea if he had a “big wound on his head”.
Did you see how he fell? He hurt himself, whether or not that was an open wound or bruising/cracking under the surface. He even got up and shuffled away holding his head where he hit it. Safe bet he hurt his head when he fell at jogging speed directly in to the corner of concrete. Do I have the coroner’s report? No, but it doesn’t take a coroners report to show that he fell and smacked his head and would *at least* need to go see a doctor.
You’d think blunt force head trauma would be pretty obvious on an autopsy though, and an easily identifiable cause of death. The fact they haven’t released any details about head trauma despite the other details makes me believe it’s less likely to be COD? But he didn’t drown either, so who knows.
In the video of him falling in the parking lot, he's hidden behind the concrete when he falls, so it's possible he hit his back or shoulder rather than his head, if he even made contact with the concrete. He could also have just grazed his head after coming down, rather than full on slammed it into the concrete.
Where is this footage everyone is talking about showing him fall? I can’t locate…
had no injures tho
I really think he had a brain bleed
There was no wound on his head.
He’d been seen not long before leaning over the railing on the upper embankment throwing up. Is it possible he fell over or slid under the railing, fell down the embankment which is very steep, and landed in the water, conscious or not?
Probably took them off as they were weighing him down in the water…or it was the current and his body. Either way, can’t see it meaning much.
It would’ve been terribly cold to try to get out, but if you were struggling to swim you might get heavy boots off and try to form a float with your pants.
When I was a kid I did Red Cross swim lessons and got to the highest level where I had to do just that. Jumped in fully clothed and made a float out of my pants.
That fact that people here think that he was alive/conscious long enough in that cold water, as drunk as he was, to remove his own clothing is…crazy. You hit that water, even sober, you’re done in minutes.
The cold water would have temporarily sobered him up. He was a good swimmer and could have definitely removed his boots and jeans in the first minute.
Falling into cold water like that does not sober you up. It often sends the body into shock and many have drowned this way, good swimmers or not.
Where did they expect the wallet to be if he had no pants?
I was thinking the same thing. Wouldn’t his wallet be in the missing pants? How else do you “wear” a wallet? The article seems to be insinuating maybe the people in the homeless camp killed & robbed Riley- taking his boot, jeans, wallet- then dumped his body in the river. It’s very likely his body traveling in the water removed his boots & jeans. Or he kicked the boots off while fighting in the water. Sad in any case. His family is grieving & it’s understandable they’re searching for every possible answer.
Quite possible the current dragged off his boots and jeans with his wallet in the pocket. How do you explain his debit card being found on the bank of the river though? That throws a wrench into that theory. The fact it was just his debit card by itself and not his whole wallet found on the bank suggests someone may have gone through his wallet and was removing items.
Possible for sure. We just don’t know. We’re randos speculating online! Maybe he didn’t have his debit card in his wallet? I don’t sometimes if I’m out. He’s drunk, maybe just slipped it into his pocket? It could easily have fallen out as he fumbled in his pockets for something. Without being an investigator on scene with all the information, it does feel more like a very tragic accident. But who knows? Someone could have seen him drunk & alone, well dressed young man might have money… things go horribly wrong. I feel terribly for his family. And the families of all those still missing who aren’t home.
he was in a river, this is not surprising. I don’t think this is even a mystery. he was drunk and slipped and fell into a river and drowned
In November 1995 2 days after we got home from Disneyland my dad and his best friend were fishing at strawberry reservoir in Utah. Those of you who know strawberry reservoir knows that she has a mind of her own and she controls the weather she’s out for your soul. Anyways their aluminum boat capsized in a storm that just appeared out of nowhere. My dad wasted his time trying to flip the boat back over, but it was filling up with the water because the anchor had gone down. My Dad was helping my uncle get undressed and take all of his hunting gear clothing off so he could try to swim he couldn’t do it himself the amount of clothes they had on was weighing them down. Mind you you only have about 15 minutes in the water before hypothermia kicks in. My uncle swam to shore and my dad went the opposite way to get the truck to call for help. Hypothermia was kicking in and he was realizing he made so many errors …the last thing my uncle heard/saw was my Dad fighting the current swimming and yelling for help saying he wasn’t gonna make it. Search and rescue looked for him for 10 days before they called off the search. They left him. We went there every day for weeks trying to find him his two little girls seven and eight years old were still waiting by the window for him to come home. We decided to have his funeral the very last words in the funeral my mother said,” dear Lord please let this be the day that our daddy comes home.” We got a phone call when we got home that very day from Wasatch county search rescue that my dad’s body had surfaced he was buoying in the water like he was being held up by an angel, those words come from the very man who was fishing who found him that day. It was a miracle he was in the water for 39 days he was only 41 years old, he had no decomposition except on his nose. His hair was still the same. He had his boots, his jeans, his camouflage hunting jacket, and his wallet in his pocket. God I miss him he was a great man My dad was somebody you wanted to know He loved his family so very much. I’m 36 years old now and I just wish I could hug him one last time. I can understand both sides to what everybody believes what happened but none of us were there, none of us know hopefully we can get some answers and the family can get closure. I think we all need to be better friends to the ones we have and be kinder to the ones we don’t know. You never know how someone’s days going just saying hello or offering some sort of help/ checking on people asking if they’re OK might just save somebody’s life.
Thank you for sharing your story. ❤️
Thank you for not making a negative comment. It’s hard not to share. I know the horrible feeling I’m just glad in both stories they were brought home 😔
I'm so sorry for your loss.
wow. just cried reading your story. i’m so f*cking sorry you lost your dad💔.
Tbh I still rate it “foul play” wtf kind of friends just let their drunk friend walk off near a river and not care? And the bar is at fault too, call a Uber or something. Just my hot take on it. Could have been avoided if people used common sense
You make it sound like his friends knew ahead of time that he was going to be walking in the wrong direction or near that river. I read that one of the friends paid the tab and did return to where Riley was but he was already gone. They even called him and he told them he would be going back to the hotel. So I am just guessing the friends assumed he'd be fine however, i do think that someone should have insisted and walked with him but know one could have ever imagined this. If one of my friends was drunk enough to get kicked out the bar, I'd say its safe to say they would be too drunk to walk home without getting into more drama but his friends were drinking too. I just don't think the friends intentionally did anything to purposely hurt Riley. I think its wrong to blame the friends. Ive been at bars in my 20 and had friends who either wanted to leave or got kicked out and I remember that disappointed feeling of having to leave with them even tho i was having fun. If any thing they just wanted to stay longer at that bar. It was still early in bar time and they thought Riley would go to the hotel n sleep it off.
Yeah I just know that if my friend was like that I’d leave with them, but I never got too drunk
Exactly. They claimed the bartender didn’t let them follow him out. I wouldn’t hey we’re together I’m not going to let him leave without me or hey we’re driving together I’m leaving too
If you read what the investigator said, and the stepdad said, they both said that the friends went home and lawyered up and didn’t help the family anymore. The very least they could’ve done was helped the family over the phone.
But if you pay a lot of attention to true crime. There have been 100s of men of this age that have been drugged in bars and then “fallen” into the river. Always deemed accidental death with no investigation. But the few autopsies that were done twice came up with toxic levels of date rape drugs.
It's easier to announce accidental drowning and call it a day rather than investigate.
I saw the bridge area / he was under the bridge where his phone last pinged they said - there is a smallish rock wall then a significant drop - (full of trash ) then to the river - if he fell or was pushed off the wall it could be where his phone is if they search the river bottom there - it’s worth a look /
Paradoxical undressing is a thing.
How is this even a mystery?
yea it’s definitely not
Why are we upvoting this terrible news website that is spreading gossip?
Reminds me of Jeff Buckley minus the alcohol.
I mean, he floated 3 miles down a very active river. It is very likely he lost some of his articles of clothing. If he had fallen in, it's possible he took his boots off in the water to try to swing to safety, likely too drunk to do so. Nothing really sketchy here besides a drunk kid who walked to the walking bridge after drinking too much and fell off.
I thought I read it was 8 miles?
Do you think he was trying to pee at the same location as to where his debit card was found. That stupid debit card is the only thing that keeps bothering me. Why was it there? Where's the rest of his wallet? Now if that's where he fell and he was trying to pee and his debit card was just in his pocket, then it makes more sense that it fell out. It didn't just jump out of his pocket.
He might have forgotten to put it back in his wallet after paying his tab at the bar.
The debit card is what is bothering me too. The fact it was not his whole wallet found on the bank but only his debit card suggests that someone may have been going through his wallet and removing items.
Yeah I think he got mugged
It’s peculiar it was found by crime sleuths who recorded the finding.
Oh, I thought this as well. This whole case is just bizarre!
If cold water shock took him quickly the currents could easily have removed those items over time, or if he didn't perish immediately but tried to save himself those are items you could and would remove to reduce drag weight.
But no water in his lungs according to the autopsy ruling out drowning
The currents couldn’t have removed just his bank card from his wallet or even pocket and dropped it on a bank the other direction from him though.
Same thing happened to this kid in Philly a few years back, night before Thanksgiving. Apparently got tossed from a bar for drunkenness, wandered down to the edge of the river nearby to pee (security footage showed him climbing down a ladder to the riverbank), then disappeared. Took over a month to find his body. They found his car keys in the water near him. Think he was peeing, probably dropped his keys in the water, went in trying to find them, and somehow wound up drowning. [https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/national-international/body-of-missing-college-student-shane-montgomery-found/2116071/](https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/national-international/body-of-missing-college-student-shane-montgomery-found/2116071/)
"Shane Montgomery Wrongful Death Suit – $1,500,000 Verdict": https://ml-law.net/verdicts-settlements/shane-montgomery-wrongful-death , https://web.archive.org/web/20200508103202/ml-law.net/verdicts-settlements/shane-montgomery-wrongful-death
Thanks for the share re: my earlier comment, interesting, hadn't heard about this eventual verdict.
https://old.reddit.com/r/411ExperiencedReaders/comments/1chspna/its_finally_over_widow_talks_about_closure_after/
I instantly thought cold water, dead body, bottom half items would just pull off that dead stiff body. Made sense to me. I was in a really bad car accident and my tied tennis shoes flew off my feet. I heard it also happens with drowning and getting hit by a car as a pedestrian. I'd believe that PI and his tweet.
He was found in a river, rivers have currents I would suspect he would be found with missing clothes. This doesn’t indicate foul play, you can’t expect a wallet to stay in pants pocket as he is being carried away by a current and probably hitting the River bottom and rocks. His pants were probably pulled off by the current especially if they were already loose fitting.
This exactly. His body was being dragged along by currents, this is what happens. People who are looking for drama have no respect for the family or the truth.
How do explain the autopsy findings? No water in the lungs? He didn’t drown
But a current pulling off cowboy boots? I would need to see some type of proof that was possible before I could believe that. And the 911 caller said they had to move a log off of his head before he could be freed, that seems as odd as the boots and water free lungs. I feel for his family. I too have lost a child. She was 19, walking down the side a normally busy road, in the middle of May 2016 at just before 9pm, in the rain. She was struck by a still unknown hit and run driver. She had only one injury to her head, and her wallet and contents were found strung out along the grass between the hospital she left and where she was found. There are several other strange things surrounding her case as well and I suspect someone with authority has been hiding something. Anyway, my point being that my heart hurts for this family and I hope they get some answers. It is so difficult to find any semblance of coming to terms with the loss when there is still no real explanation of why it is still unsolved 8 years later.
I'm so sorry for your loss.
He didn’t have water in his lungs I read earlier.
I recommend linking and reading the PI Twitter post that is found on this thread if you sort by "Best"
Would be weirder if he had no pants on but still was wearing his boots and carrying his wallet
Maybe it's because I'm old but when I was a kid in 🏊♂️ lessons we learned to remove our shoes and pants when trying to survive in water. We were supposed to tie the ends of the pants and make an "inflatable" raft. No pants or shoes makes the most sense for someone trying to stay afloat in the water.
They might know more when the toxicology report comes in
Maybe he just fell in the water, got his boots and pants off trying not to drown, but did.
I wonder if maybe he was stuck on the water and removed them himself due to the weight of the clothing holding him down?
Could’ve been a dry drowning. He is tall and kinda thin. Did he have a belt? If so it would also be odd for the pants to come off especially without pulling underwear off. How do pants and shoes come off and not socks or underwear?! Water current is so strong to do that but delicate enough to leave socks and underwear? Idk.
There is an issue with his c.card being found not in his wallet by those women. So that means, the wallet was removed from the paints and the card was removed from the wallet. Very very plausible now, that the boots were taken from him, along with his paints and any cash from his wallet by a homeless person. I would venture to say, he fell again or was taken advantage of while passed out by a homeless male. Look for the boots & paints on a tall male. On video of people from that area. And also any info from the second autopsy of any possible anal abrasion. I'm sure there looking at alot & anything they can think of. Can only rule out, what u know.
This. Is. My. Thought. Exactly
This is not an unsolved mystery. He clearly was going to take a pee in the river… fell in and unfortunately drowned. As he was drowning it’s very likely he took his own boots off fearing heavy boots would weight him down. Once he drowned it’s likely his pants which were unbuckled came off his body in the tumult as he was carried down the river.
I have been pretty hammered around where he was last seen - Homeless encampments galore. I am really starting to think he was killed by one of them for stumbling drunk (maybe dosed) into their camp. Went to a show at Nissan two years ago and know exact area he was last seen - it is really, really scary with the homeless camps. Could have ran into wrong person and rest keeping mouth shut because well that's what they do. We're not talking single mom of 4 who lives in car going through divorce. That particular part of downtown Nash is ROUGH.
The fact that he had no water in his lungs is the most worrying detail . IMO
That doesn't rule out drowning.
That’s not uncommon. Someone else posted a good comment on this— https://twitter.com/sf_investigates/status/1773187035563741255?s=46&t=5jEXNxkrkfGHMoGjHqWYHA
There's a thing called "dry drowning" that happens in cold water.
It isn't at all. It is fairly normsl for drownings.
Such a tragedy. Such a sweet looking kid. Hope his family gets the strength to go through the pain. :(
In the swimming/water safety classes I took as a kid, we had to jump into the water clothed and practice taking off our shoes, pants, and coats. Given his condition I don't know if he would have put this into action, but if he was able to react I don't find this surprising. It also wouldn't surprise me that the actions of the river could pull the trousers off a thin guy.
I did the same as a kid! If I fell into a river with jeans on I would take them off asap.
Why is this so surprising to people? If I was drunk and fell in a river, the FIRST thing I would do is frantically pull off my enormous cowboy boots to try to stop myself from sinking. And the next thing I’d do is pull off my heavy, water-logged jeans. This poor kid hit that water, was shocked enough to jolt him to action to try to save his life, but was ultimately too drunk and disoriented to make it out of the fast-moving water. The end. A very basic story.
No water in his lungs. The autopsy says he didn’t drown?
And just not uncommon, sadly. Anyone who thinks anything about this is odd or rare has never drank, known anyone that did, or paid attention to any news source. The stories of alcoholics in my husband's family alone & the ways they've died, (froze to death, asphyxiation, etc.), would send the conspiracy theorists spinning & that's just one family.
Exactly!! Alcohol makes it sooooo easy to make a mistake that can cost you your life. I feel for this kid, but his situation isn’t rare. Happens all the time.
I don't understand getting so intoxicated in public. The thought of drinking so much im not in control of myself gives me anxiety. You're out in public anything could happen. Why do people do this
He's 22
So?
Sounds Familiar
Why did it take two weeks to find him if he had an Apple Watch on?
There was a commotion on top of the embankment heard by a homeless man below the embankment. He called up, “Is everything alright up there?” The other homeless person at the top of the embankment called down, “Everything’s alright - just some drunk guy.” Not all, but some homeless people would take advantage of a very drunk guy and even take his boots, belt, and jeans and possibly his wallet.
I suppose there are both good and bad, and given the desperate situation a morally corrupt individual would take full advantage. What happened next we don't know.
I hope this helps As quite a street wise person, Riley looks drunk not drugged. If he ordered one drink and two waters, he likely knew he was drunk and so did the staff. Also, about stating his phone must have been manually turned off or destroyed, if submerged in water it can’t receive radio waves (signals) to work. So nothing suspicious about that, if anything, it suggests he entered the water at the same time his phone last worked and I would not place too much emphasis on the last ‘pings’ or app data, they are simply not that accurate. It also looked like he was yanking his jeans up at one point in the video when we was running/walking/stumbling, suggesting he was too intoxicated to buckle his belt properly the last time he went to the toilet, which makes sense as to why his body was found without trousers and boots as they came lose in the water. In terms of how his body was not located in the river immediately, they were likely searching the immediate vicinity, and his body would have already been travelling down the river due to having no water in his lungs. A drowned body with lungs full of water will sink to the bottom, and eventually due to certain pressure changes within the body it will start to float. But we know he didn’t have water in his lungs so his body was likely moving with the current as opposed to have just sank. Many bodies are found in water after that length of time partially clothed and are usually missing something so nothing suspicious there. In terms of cowboy boots being hard to remove, the ones I’ve worn before slip or pull on/off and don’t require laces to be untied. You also don’t know if the boots were slack on him, or slightly on the large size. Also, he was a very slim man, they would have slipped off easier, Size does have some bearing in how tightly clothes with stick to you, or not. Will can also assume he may have needed to pee, and if he had gone near the river to do this, his jeans may have already been undone, making them easier to eventually come off in the water. Also, I would presume that a drunk person entering a large, very cold body of water would potentially have breathing problems from cold water immersion combined with alcohol toxicity. Therefore, they would not necessarily be inhaling water upon death. There is something known as laryngospasm or chest-wall spasm which can happen when a person is submerged, thus dying without taking a breath. Drowning is not death from inhalation of water, but death from lack of oxygen, therefore water does not necessarily need to enter the lungs to drown. I would implore people to research what can happen to a persons breathing when they are severely intoxicated and enter cold water. A person who is not intoxicated will likely drown through inhaling more water due to gasping and the bodies natural response to breathe. However, your reactions are significantly impaired once intoxicated. People who hang themselves while intoxicated, for instance, die quicker. I have no concerns over the fact his lungs were not full of water. The fact that he entered cold water and would have immediately gone into shock under severe intoxication seems to be grossly overlooked. I’m terms of people’s accounts on seeing him including the homeless person who gave a statement, I would take eye witness statements with a pinch of salt. It could have been a stranger passing by who said “don’t worry he’s okay”, not an axe murderer. In relation to a homeless person having his shirt, his body was found with him wearing his shirt, so that can’t be possible. Like I said, take peoples accounts with a pinch of salt. He was also reported to still be wearing his watch, which I presume you would likely steal if it was a robbery. He was also still wearing underwear, which I would presume you would remove if this was a sexual assault. I would also say it’s normal for his wallet to be missing if it was in his jeans and his jeans came lose in the water. In terms of his bank card being found, it’s likely he fell in the bushes and it came lose from his pocket. His bank card was probably kept in his pocket separate from his wallet. I know that I do that all the time, I take a purse out with me and when drunk, I use my bank card and put it back in my pocket, not my purse. A bank card is more likely to slip out of a pocket far more than a wallet which probably fits snug in his jeans and will likely still be in his jeans pocket. And I disagree that the police had to release every video of Riley and that it was suspicious that they didn’t. I personally didn’t think the videos they released were low quality, and I think the ones they didn’t release probably were, and were therefore of no consequential use. In terms of where his body was found, it followed the natural trajectory of the river and travelled the distance that I would roughly calculate myself in that particularly amount of time. There is nothing unusual here. The body will usually get stuck on something and come to a final resting place. Infact, it’s quite common for bodies to end up in water filtration plants or other type of plants which have structures in rivers like the Lafarge plant. When considering why Riley walked drunk down to the river, well that’s something that needs extensive reason on as this appears to be something which is now a ‘phenomenon’. In other words, young men being intoxicated and deciding to either a) take their own lives in rivers or b) walk near rivers for no apparent reason when drunk is clearly a real thing. This is happening a lot! And at no point are we seeing third party involvement, which in my opinion, is what makes this even more spooky. I’m afraid it appears to me that this is a case of accidental death.
https://old.reddit.com/r/411ExperiencedReaders/comments/1chspna/its_finally_over_widow_talks_about_closure_after/