Growing up, River and his sister Joss' parents ran a small farm but like many small

farms, it
eventually went out of business as larger corporations took over the farming process. In turn, his
parents took to running a grocery store and the family of four lived in the apartment area above
it.[2]

One day, some drugged up thugs broke in looking for cash and, when they didn't find any in the
store, went into the living quarters and demanded money from the father, who swore they didn't
have anything else. Not liking this response, one of the thugs killed River and Joss' father and
then put a gun in River's hand and had him point it at his own mother's head, demanding he shoot
and kill her. River stalled, terrified, to the point the thug gave up trying to bait the child and took
the gun and killed their mom himself before the thugs ran off, leaving River and Joss alive but
now parentless. The siblings were then sent off to an orphanage to be cared for but the NCPD
never caught the thugs who killed their parents. With this lack of justice, River saw this as
complete incompetency regarding the NCPD and made it his goal to become a detective to solve
cases like what happened to his family.

Adult Years

Sometime prior to 2077, River had become an NCPD detective and was first partnered with
Jamie Sheen, but Jamie later committed suicide over his frustration with how the top brass cared
more about bribes rather than upholding the law. River continued serving as a detective though
and sometime later was partnered with another detective, Harold Han, and even worked with
well-established people like Jefferson Peralez.

Meanwhile his sister, Joss, had married an Aldecaldo with whom she had three children with:
Randy, Dorian, and Monique. With his brother-in-law not being much of a father figure, River
would step in and help take care of the children, particularly when he once caught his brother-in-
law with one of his young sons, Dorian, at a dive bar in the middle of the night, so the detective
took his nephew home much to his brother-in-law's ire. When his brother-in-law later died, River
continued to try and help support Joss and her children like buying them a new trailer to live in,
which resulted in Randy taking over the old one as his own place. However, River and Joss
eventually had a falling out sometime before 2077 over River's driven desire to bring justice for
his victims' cases to the point it was all he could talk and think about, with little regard for his
own family issues.

At one point in 2077, he got a solid tip that Mayor Lucius Rhyne's life was in danger and had set
out to speak with the mayor's security when a cyberpscyho, Péter Horváth, attacked right after
River got there. River managed to incapacitate the would-be attacker before they could find and
kill the mayor and the deputy mayor, Weldon Holt, but Rhyne ended up dying anyways later that
day from a separate heart problem. This odd coincidence didn't go unnoticed to River, but he had
no way to really link the two incidents, especially as his superior ordered him to drop the case
and even his partner, Harold, warned him to not re-open it.

If V completes I Fought the Law:

River got a call soon after from V, who was being tasked by the Peralezes to find out
what really happened to Rhyne as they had their own suspicions about his untimely
death. Together, River and V tracked down the Red Queen's Race, an invitation-only sex
club that Rhyne had visited on the night of his death. They learned that Rhyne had died in
the club from a virus-spiked braindance, and Deputy Mayor Weldon Holt had ordered
Detective Han to cover it up. While V reported the findings to the Peralezes, River
decided to try to re-open the inquest into Rhyne's death. However, when he confronted
Han about his own actions in the coverup, he was told once more to drop it. Undeterred,
he decided to take it up with his superiors but ultimately got suspended from the force
instead.[2]
While still suspended, he came to believe that his missing nephew, Randy Kutcher, had
been abducted by Anthony Harris, the man behind the "Peter Pan" child abductions, after
seeing a video where Anthony was being chased by NCPD before being shot while one
of his newer victims in the video had Randy's shoes on. However, while Anthony was
still alive, he was comatose, preventing the NCPD from determining where his other
victims were kept. Dismayed that the Peter Pan case was assigned to Detective Gonaghal,
who was unlikely to pursue it seriously, River asked V to help him so that he could
rescue Randy, conveniently leaving out that he'd been suspended from the force.[2]
If V agrees to help with The Hunt:
Together, they infiltrated a NCPD-contracted medical lab in The Glen which had been
experimenting with scrolling braindances of dreams for therapeutic and investigative
purposes, hoping to examine any braindances of Anthony's dreams. They were
confronted by Dr. Yawen Packard, a longtime friend of River's, who revealed that
Anthony was not dreaming due to his condition. With no other leads, River decided to
break the news that Randy had been abducted to Joss and search Randy's room for clues
to his whereabouts leading up to his disappearance, as well as any sensory stimulus that
could be used to make Anthony dream. They found Randy had a new laptop and had
come into contact with Anthony through a secret website hidden on a false website for
people looking to kick their drug abuse habits. Thanks to a cartoon that Randy had
downloaded from the site, Yawen was able to trigger Anthony's dreams.[2]
If not enough clues were found and guessed the wrong farm:
Unfortunately, despite River and V working together, they weren't able to locate the right
farm in time and failed to rescue Randy, who ended up dying.
If enough clues were found or guessed the right farm to locate Randy but V abandoned
the search:
With V's help, River was able to deduce that Anthony must have been using Edgewood
Farm to hold his victims, but V chose to not go any further in assisting River. In turn,
River headed out on his own to rescue Randy but, ill-prepared for the defenses Anthony
had set up around the farm, he was summarily killed and wasn't able to save Randy.
If enough clues were found or guessed the right farm to locate Randy and V didn't
abandon the search:
With V's help at analyzing the braindances, River was able to deduce that Anthony must
have been using Edgewood Farm to hold his victims. The two set out to the farm, which
was now heavily armed, but managed to get through the defenses and rescue Randy and
several other victims that Anthony had been force-feeding and injecting with hormones
via equipment designed for livestock.
While they'd managed to rescue his nephew, River still felt that Anthony should die for
what he did to all his victims. With this in mind, he went to the hospital where the
comatose murderer was being kept and put his gun against the man's head, intent on
killing him. As he stood there though, he had flashbacks to his childhood when the thug
tried to make him shoot his mother and realized he'd be no better than that thug if he went
through with the execution. With that, he left the hospital, letting Anthony live. A short
time later, River invited V over for a dinner with his family.