The mystery of Riley Strain‘s disappearance continues to perplex investigators, and now things are only getting more strange.
The 22-year-old University of Missouri student vanished on the night of March 8 after being kicked out of Luke Bryan‘s bar in Nashville. Surveillance video shows him very drunk, stumbling around as he made his way down Gay Street where he’d eventually vanish. Residents of a homeless camp nearby claim to have seen him right before he vanished — in the same area where his bank card was discovered. Other than that… No one has seen, heard from, or found any leads to locate him, with all trails cutting off at around 10 p.m. that Friday night.
It’s a scary case, and now it’s getting weirder.
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According to family friend Chris Dingman, speaking to NewsNation, the night Strain disappeared he sent a final drunk text message to a woman he was seeing at the time. She had texted him that night and asked how he was doing, to which the young man responded:
“Good lops.”
Sorry… what? If you’re wondering if that’s some kind of gen Z term or local slang, you aren’t alone. The girl who got the message didn’t recognize it either. She apparently even asked social media what he meant when she couldn’t decipher it. Odd. We do know he was drinking quite a bit. Could it just be a typo he was too drunk to fix? If not, we are clueless about what it could mean.
The missing man’s mother Michelle Whiteid also talked to the outlet in a separate interview. When told about the text message, she admitted she’s “not sure” who the girl her son texted even is:
“He’s got several friends that are female, male. I don’t know the individual he talked to at that time.”
Hmm. That must be so tricky. We mean, it’s not unusual for college kids to hold back info from their parents. It would be nice if everyone was on the same page — but who expects to go missing like this??
Sadly, the family really seems to be struggling. Strain’s dad Chris Whiteid described to the outlet how they’re getting “frustrated” over not hearing any news from the case. He said they only got to see some surveillance footage by last Friday because they asked:
“We had not seen anything or really heard from them too much throughout the week the previous week. So we were getting frustrated, we wanted to see what they had … We’ve heard multiple people that have tried to call crime-stoppers and leave tips and been told they don’t know anything about a Riley Strain case. So, lots of confusion. We’re struggling. We’re 10 days in, you know? It’s disheartening.”
So, so sad…
We continue to hold out hope Riley is found safe soon. We can’t imagine what his family and loved ones are going through.
[Image via WSMV 4 Nashville/YouTube/Metropolitan Nashville Police Department]
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