Riley Strain, a missing college student, was sighted by two homeless camps the night he disappeared, according to a family friend interviewed on News Nation’s Banfield.
Moments before a candlelight vigil in Springfield, Missouri, family members told Chris Dingman about the homeless camps where the missing 22-year-old University of Missouri student was discovered on March 8, after he was kicked out of a bar and spotted on surveillance camera appearing intoxicated and lost in Downtown Nashville.
Dingman, who was also interviewed by WSMV4 on Wednesday, said family members in Nashville informed him that a homeless person had seen Strain in the neighborhood.
“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,” Dingman told me.
“This now makes two people who have completed confirmation. These are the spots where the camera has stopped. We do not have any footage. Basically, the places where his phone stopped pinging. We now have ocular confirmation from two homeless camps that Riley was in the area.
Still, there have been no recorded sightings of the Mizzou student since the night he vanished.
Boats searched the Cumberland River for Strain on Wednesday night, as the Metro Nashville Police Department announced that detectives were moving their focus to studying security footage. Around 9:47 p.m., he was last seen on CCTV crossing First Avenue North at Gay Street near the river.
His phone was last detected near Public Square Park on the Cumberland River.
“The sad part about this situation is that we get new leads every day and pursue different avenues,” Dingman told WSMV4’s Brendan Tierney. “We’re going to get there, but it also opens up more doors on what could’ve possibly happened.”
Dingman stated that they traveled along the riverbank and stopped at various homeless camps. One individual recognized Strain from a photograph but could not recall where he went.
“Police are doing their job 100%,” Dingman stated. “We simply want to find Riley and bring him home. Get him to his parents, get him to campus, and get him back to having fun at MU.”
Police are asking anyone who knows what happened to Strain to contact police.