Newly obtained files from the police investigation into the events leading up to college student Riley Strain’s death in Tennessee have revealed more details about his alcohol consumption before he died.
Strain is estimated by authorities to have consumed 12 to 15 alcoholic drinks before he vanished on March 8 and was found dead from accidental drowning two weeks later in Nashville, based on what Strain’s college fraternity brothers told the Metro Nashville Police Department, local TV station WSMV reports, citing the investigative file.
The body of the 22-year-old University of Missouri student was found in the Cumberland River in Nashville on March 22. The search for answers into what happened to him made national headlines for weeks. An autopsy report obtained by PEOPLE in June stated that his blood alcohol content was .228, with no foul play involved.
According to interviews conducted by the police with Strain’s fraternity, he had traveled to Nashville with Delta Chi by four buses for a formal, per WSMV. Two members told police that during the journey “the group was drinking,” despite there being a no-alcohol policy on the buses. One fraternity brother said in a police interview that Strain consumed at least five drinks, including two vodka shots and three beers, on the journey.
The group arrived in Nashville around 4:30 p.m. local time on March 8. An incident report from the Tennessee Alcohol Beverage Commission (TABC), previously obtained by PEOPLE as part of the agency’s investigation into whether Strain was overserved at any bars, states that from the hotel, Strain and other fraternity members went to multiple bars after Strain had been drinking on the bus.
Before 8 p.m., he’d also had a margarita at one establishment and then five or six drinks at another, the TABC incident report states. Around 8:30 p.m., at one of the bars, his roommate “got him two waters because Riley began slurring his speech,” according to what the roommate later told authorities. Once the “bartender heard Riley’s slurred speech, she informed [the] bouncer to eject Riley [from] roof top bar,” the TABC report states.
His roommate later said that Strain was supposed to go back to his hotel, and the two spoke on the phone “within 2-3 minutes of ejection of bar and Riley stated [that] he was a few blocks up on his way to hotel,” according to the report.
