Riley Strain’s mother, Michelle Whiteid, disclosed that her son texted her on the night he went missing, expressing concern about the taste of his drink. In an interview with NewsNation, Whiteid shared the chilling messages from March 8.

According to Whiteid, the 22-year-old Strain messaged her during a night out in Nashville, where he and his fraternity brothers were enjoying themselves. He mentioned that his rum and coke didn’t taste right, describing it as having a strange flavor.

“I go, ‘Well that sounds awful,’” Whiteid recounted her response. “He said, ‘Well, it sounds good, but it’s not.’”

Later that evening, Strain was ejected from Luke’s 32 Bridge Food + Drink, a downtown bar, and subsequently went missing. Whiteid is now troubled by those seemingly innocuous texts, wondering if there was something amiss with the drink.

“Maybe there was something in it that shouldn’t have been,” she speculated to NewsNation.

Eyewitnesses and surveillance footage depict Strain as highly intoxicated, stumbling around after being ousted from the bar. His body was discovered in the Cumberland River in West Nashville on March 22, less than a fortnight after his disappearance. Notably, he was found without his pants, belt, wallet, and cowboy boots he had on earlier that night.

While investigators have ruled out foul play and labeled his death as accidental in a preliminary autopsy report, Strain’s family harbours doubts. His stepfather, Chris Whiteid, expressed skepticism, stating, “But I can tell you from all the stuff that we’ve done as far as search and looking, taking pictures — I don’t feel like it’s really possible that happened. He may have fallen, but someone helped him in the water.”

Given the absence of water in his lungs, contrary to typical drowning cases, the family has requested a second autopsy to unravel the mysteries surrounding Strain’s demise.