What happens when a person goes missing? Riley Strain's case was unusually public

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — The national attention Riley Strain’s disappearance received on the news and on social media brought up some questions about missing persons cases and how they are investigated.

The missing persons unit in Metro Nashville’s Police Department sees 600 to 700 cases a year, according to Detective Matthew Filter from Metro Police's Cold Case-Homicide/Missing Persons Unit.

So why did Riley Strain get so much attention?

“We’ve had some much more high profile missing persons cases in Nashville involving somebody truly famous and didn’t get the attention that Riley did,” Filter said. “For whatever reason people just picked up on it and just started talking about it, and it just caught on.”

People just decided to start talking about Riley, according to Filter. But, this doesn't mean all Police resources are suddenly dedicated to the one high profile case, he continued.

“When you have a high profile case like Riley Strain’s, a lot of the times we’ve still got other missing persons cases coming in that we've got to deal with as well. There’s a lot of wheels turning all the time, not just with the one investigation, but with other cases coming in," he said.

How do these missing persons cases get solved?

I looked into the process the Police go through in Nashville when someone goes missing. Most of them, Detective Filter says, are resolved within 3 to 5 days.

But what about the ones that aren’t?

Here’s the process, step by step:

1. Patrol officers take a preliminary report. Hospital checks, jail checks, address checks. Phone ping requests (in special cases). 
2. If these steps don’t solve it, it moves to the cold case office, where Detective Filter works. 
3. Then, it’s about recontacting people who first made the report. Filter says a lot of the time, cases resolve themselves before police can even investigate. 
4. However, if the cases don’t solve themselves, it’s then about checking the reports, looking at social media and other open internet sources, making phone calls asking ‘where were they last seen?’ and tracking down their last steps.

If the person is still missing after a longer amount of time, it usually moves into the cold cases unit. Here, the cases receive regular reviews, especially when they know there’s foul play.
“Sometimes there’s evidence that we’ll see, you know, maybe there’s some new technology out there that we are able to use, much like with the cold case homicides,” Filter said.

They may also get placed on several websites designed specifically to keep their information alive.

Why don’t we see these cases on social media more often? 

Filter said there is a big difference between the attention Riley Strain received on social media and the typical daily work police are doing on these missing persons cases — credibility.

“TikTok was huge with Riley Strain case. You’ll get so many people that are putting information out there, and the problem is is that a lot of the information that they’re putting out there isn’t accurate information. They’re really just putting out theories, and people are taking these theories and running with them as though they are facts,” he said.

Filter made it clear, though, that they don’t want to discourage people from calling or giving police information if they have any knowledge of the case. He said the important part of trying to help is paying attention to what Police are saying.

“We don’t want to discourage people from calling in. Getting information from the public is oftentimes what helps us solve these cases,” Filter said. “But at the same time, when you start getting all these theories and misinformation, and we get people calling us with information that isn’t accurate or is misconstrued, it can sometimes take us away from following up on a lede we really need to be following up on.”

There are 18 outstanding missing persons cases right now in Nashville. If you want to learn more about them, you can read about them online.