Riley Strain death: Luke Bryan wants to ‘talk to the family,’ personally offer condolences, family friend says

Nashville police have reportedly ended their formal investigation into University of Missouri senior Riley Strain’s death. The 22-year-old vanished in Nashville after being thrown out of Luke’s 32 Bridge, which is Luke Bryan’s downtown bar, on March 8. His body was later recovered from the Cumberland River.

Riley Strain death: Luke Bryan wants to ‘talk to the family,’ family friend says (Chris Whiteid via AP, lukebryan/Instagram)

Now, weeks after his death, Luke Bryan would like to personally offer his condolences to Strain’s family, a friend of Strain’s family has revealed. Chris Dingman told The Pascal Show that Bryan reached out to the family through his manager. “Luke has sent his empathy towards the family and everything, as far as that goes. Wants to possibly talk to the family,” Dingman said.

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“Understands with what’s going on right now with Riley and trying to get information toxicology and stuff, you know, it’s pretty much just left at that point right now. But they did reach out to the family which I thought was nice, the family thought that was nice too,” he added.

Family’s doubts

Dingman said that the family never received information indicating that “something bad happened” to Strain in Bryan’s bar. Chris Whiteid, Strain’s stepfather, claimed that the bartender cut off the student after he was overserved. However, the bar maintained that he was served just one alcoholic drink.

Police have said that Starin’s death appears to be “accidental.” However, his family is not convinced. Chirs, in fact, recently claimed that he believed someone helped Strain into the water. “If he truly fell in the water, and you can prove that to me, show me,” he said.

“I’ll accept it. But I can tell you from all the stuff that we’ve done as far as searching, looking, taking pictures — I don’t feel like it’s really possible to happen. He may have fallen. Somebody helped him in the water,” he added.

After conducting an autopsy, the medical examiner said that there was no water in Strain’s lungs. There were no bruises and cuts on his body either, reports claimed. Chris believes that if Strain fell into the water from an inclined terrain, he would have certainly hurt his head or suffered other wounds.