I've been following the trail over the last several weeks of the curious case of Riley Strain. Down the rabbit hole of the missing student kicked out of a bar that his frat brothers were at, then wandering out of it through the darkened streets of Nashville, Tennessee.
As I watched frame-by-frame videos searching for clues, I couldn't help but be reminded of the search for Gabby Petito. In both cases we all hoped for the best until the sad results were revealed in the end.
What shocked me about the videos of Riley staggering towards whatever ended up happening to him on the heights above the river, were the people walking and driving past him without offering any kind of assistance. That is, until we learned of the heartwarming story of the one couple who did stop and ask if he was alright.
According to the shop owner who also witnessed him stumbling past, it's an all-too-common sight to see drunk people making their way past his business on their way home from the bars. So he thought nothing of it when he saw Riley doing the same.
During the search for him, I ran into numerous people online (and off), who thought he was alive somewhere in the area. But I countered that with both his watch and phone stopped sending signals at the EXACT SAME TIME right next to the river, the realization was that he had to be in it.
Sadly he was.
The latest news that he was found without his pants, boots, phone or wallet on him, was disturbing. Since his bank card was found along the riverbank by the two TikTok girls, I'm assuming that the phone and wallet fell out of his pockets as he tumbled down the steep sides into the water.
But the pants and the boots not being on him is yet another potentially ominous mystery. Did he simply fall over the edge as he passed the homeless encampment, or was he pushed? The family spokesman says that none of his accounts show any money being withdrawn from them, but he also says that more answers may be found among the homeless people who were likely the last ones to see him alive.
the family will make an announcement sometime this coming week after asking for a second autopsy to be performed, as they wanted more answers than the first one gave them.
What In The World Is Going On In The Bars Of Nashville, Tennessee?
Since this whole thing started, I've read countless reports from visitors to the city reporting that either they or a loved one were served spiked drinks at many of the bars in Nashville. Some of the locals know to avoid them like the plague, but the out-of-town tourists are sitting ducks.
Accounts are rife in Nashville of people having a drink, stumbling out of the bar, being followed by someone, then coming to many hours later with both money and valuables gone. Some area residents think that some bartenders are in on it with spotters who tail the drugged drinker once he leaves in order to rob the person afterwards.
Me? I don't know. I've never been to Nashville, I don't drink, and sure as hell wouldn't have so much as a soda in one of those bars after hearing about these reports of drinks being spiked.
Where there's smoke, there's usually fire, and all of these people reporting the exact same thing happening can't all be lying. Something is happening to some patrons of bars and "honky tonks" (whatever THAT is), in Nashville, the question is what?
If anything can be said of something good coming out of this, its the Mayor of the city proposing to build some kind of retaining barrier along the spot where Riley fell into the Cumberland river, to prevent others from doing the same in the future.
From everything I read about Riley, he was a person with a good heart, and like Gabby Petito, positively affected almost everyone he met. After reading about what happened to the bodies of the people who were thrown into the icy-cold waters when the Titanic sank, I hope his suffering if any, was short.
I've read about what happens to people when they die. The darkness you can almost feel followed by the passage through a long tunnel that for the blessed, has a light at the end. Beings of light provide an escort to Riley to the comforting arms of our Lord Jesus.
But for the rest of us still trapped on this prison planet called Earth, stay the hell away from bars in Nashville. Better yet, stop drinking PERIOD! I don't drink, and I can't stand the stench of alcohol, and am puzzled by the attraction to it. But if you're planning on visiting Nashville, Tennessee, if this tragedy isn't a wake-up call for you nothing will be. If you MUST drink there, use the buddy system, and buy your booze from a liquor store.
When I lived in Germany, my British classmate talked me into trying a pint of Guinness. Like I said, I don't drink, but I wanted to see what all the fuss was about when it came to this supposedly magical-tasting elixir.
As I quaffed that first gulp down, a taste of extreme bitterness filled my mouth and my eyes began to water. In short, it tasted like cold piss and was absolutely awful. I put it down and thanked "Johnny from Liverpool' for his effort and ordered a glass of soda instead. Who knows, maybe you have to have it in Britain to get the real deal, but that was enough for me.
Spiking drinks is "a thing" in certain areas. One of my buddies went to a well-known gay bar in town one night. An alcoholic and broke (or "skint" as they say in the UK), he was invited by a "patron" promising him free drinks.
Some straight people go to this bar when they have no money, because they know if someone likes them, they will buy them a round of drinks. But I know from having worked in a "feeder" industry, that the place is known for spiking drinks, and I've warned my friends to stay away.
I warned him too, but he didn't listen.
He goes there, dude buys him drinks and then they head out supposedly to take him back home. We get reports that he was seen with "the patron" on a bus shouting nonsense and saying over and over in apparent surprise "I'm fucking horny!" Instead of being taken home, he was instead taken to the home of "the patron" where he awoke the next day in bed with the guy completely nude with no memory of what happened in that bed or how he got there.
He'd never done anything like that before...
So watch yourself, because that shit happens. Don't let it happen to you.
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You'd think these bars would get enough bad reviews of people having their drinks spiked that no one would go there anymore...
In my buddy's case, he's an alcoholic. He likes to get black-out drunk, but doesn't always have the money since he likes to get high as well. He was ashamed as a straight guy at waking up nude in bed with a strange man he didn't know. He only told me because he knew I would honor his request not to spread it around the neighboorhood.
I didn't know about the Nashville problem until I saw the news story about Riley Strain. I'm guessing this is happening mostly to tourists who drop in for a day or two then head back home like my friend, too ashamed to tell anybody.
The only reason I knew about this local gay bar spiking drinks is because I used to work in an adult bookstore, and someone calling himself a checker" came in one night. Turns out these "checkers" drop into the stores looking for the "right" guy to bring back to the bars with an offer of free drinks.
Kinda like ladies night where women get in free to drum up businness, only in this case, it's men. The bartender is in on it and is paid to spike the free drinks of the target. The target gets woozy and is taken to the home of one of the regulars, something happens, and he wakes up the next day with no memory of what was done to him overnight.
I told my friend to press charges against the guy, but I think he'd rather die first then have everyone know he may have been "buggered" while he was blacked out.
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