Riley Strain’s parents slam his frat brothers for continuing to party after he went missing

Riley Strain’s grieving parents slammed his fraternity brothers at the University of Missouri for continuing to party after he went missing — calling their nonchalant behavior “appalling.”

Strain’s mom Michelle Whiteid, his father Ryan Gilbert and their spouses described how the members of the Delta Chi fraternity waited until the following afternoon to alert police of their son’s disappearance, and then went to their formal instead of helping his family search Nashville, Tenn. for the missing 22-year-old in an interview with NewsNation.

“We weren’t really happy with them say the least. It’s appalling,” Gilbert told the outlet.

Strain’s devastated mother had been texting her son throughout the night on March 8, and said she was startled when she received a phone call from one of his fraternity brothers the next day asking if she had heard from him.

“I said, ‘What do you mean, he’s with you? Why would I? What do you mean you can’t find him?’” she recounted asking the college student.

“[The brother] goes ‘Well he’s not in the hotel and we can’t find him.’”

She then told the student to call police, but said the fraternity brothers waited another two hours to alert authorities of their friend’s disappearance.

“Why wouldn’t they have called the police when they got back at 3:15 in the morning and didn’t see him then? Why didn’t they call the police? I don’t know,” Whiteid said.

Following the phone call, she, her husband Chris Whiteid, and Gilbert raced from Missouri to Tennessee to get answers.

Once they arrived, the family members gave a statement to the police who were still finishing up their report.

“The boys stayed out for a while, and then they disappeared,” Whiteid told NewsNation between tears.

They had apparently gone back to their hotel to get ready for their formal later that night, while the family frantically searched the city for Strain.

“We spent the next four, four and a half hours, searching every emergency room to see if he was in the hospital,” Chris Whiteid recounted.

“We come back, and they’re coming back — some of them — from the party and they’re waving at us as we’re sitting in the truck.”

Strain had vanished shortly after he was kicked out of a downtown bar, Luke’s 32 Bridge Food + Drink.

He was later seen by witnesses and in surveillance footage stumbling around and appearing “very, very intoxicated.”

After a lengthy search, Strain’s body was found in the Cumberland River in West Nashville on March 22. He was missing his pants, belt, wallet and cowboy boots he had been wearing earlier in the night.

Though investigators have ruled out foul play and a preliminary autopsy report lists his death as accidental, the college student’s family members say they have doubts.

“If he fell and truly fell in the water, and you can prove that to me, show me. I’ll accept it,” Chris said to NewsNation.

“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,” he said.

The family requested a second autopsy after it was revealed that Strain had no water in his lungs, as is typical in drowning cases.