How did Texas A&M student fall 17 stories to their death? Police say Brianna Aguilera’s death was accidental, but new details raise questions.
The mom of a Texas A&M cheerleader found dead after a football game has revealed that her daughter’s phone was on ‘Do Not Disturb’ mode on the night of her death — which was ‘weird’ for the teen.
Brianna Aguilera, 19, an Agee sophomore was discovered dead outside an apartment complex around 1 a.m. Saturday after attending Friday’s UT vs Texas A&M tailgate in Austin.
Despite claims from the college junior’s family that the girl’s death was suspicious, San Antonio police re-affirmed on Tuesday that Brianna’s death was not being investigated as a homicide case.
Austin Police reiterate that they are not investigating Texas A&M’s student death as a homicide
‘At this time, there is no evidence of any suspicious circumstances, and this case is not being investigated as a homicide,’ a spokesperson told MySA.
Aguilera’s mom, Stephanie Rodriguez, in the hours before her daughter’s death had attempted to reach out to Brianna only to get a ‘Do Not Disturb,’ message.
‘What was weird to me and skeptical was her phone was on Do Not Disturb. We always had this rule that if she was going to go out, she had to have her phone on ‘location on’ and answer her text to at least let me know she was ok,’ the parent told KGNS.
‘That stopped happening around 6 p.m.,’ Rodriguez who hails from Laredo, Texas, told the outlet.
Rodriguez called the Austin Police Department after failing to get in touch with her daughter, only to be told she couldn’t file a missing person’s report until at least 24 hours had passed.
Her daughter’s phone was pinging by a creek, but cops reportedly told her they couldn’t check the scene, ‘which scared me the most, because all these murders have been coming out in Austin and bodies have been found in creeks,’ Rodriguez told KGNS.
Aguilera’s phone was still in the same location on Saturday morning, Rodriguez said.
What do Brianna Aguilera friends know? Or have chosen not to share?
Perhaps Aguilera had anticipated her mother would be trying to reach out for her and she was amidst ‘partying’ with friends and didn’t want to be found out as some on social media suggested. Or as some also suggested, someone else had set it to, ‘Do Not Disturb.’
Brianna’s body was found by a passerby later that day, with police calling Rodriguez at 4 p.m. Saturday to let her know the body was in the morgue.
The daughter was positively identified through fingerprint analysis.
Rodriguez maintains that her daughter was killed, after police reportedly telling the family the 19-year-old’s death may have been accidental or suicide.
‘This was not accidental. Someone killed my Brie and gave all the group of friends a lot of time to come up with the same story. My daughter would not jump 17 stories from a building, and to be labeling this as a suicide is insane. My daughter loved life and was excited to graduate and pursue her career in law,’ Rodriguez wrote in a Facebook post on Monday.
Have police investigations been forthcoming?
On Monday, the family traveled from Laredo to Austin to speak with the lead investigator on the case.
‘I asked and demanded for another detective to be assigned to the case, and they said no. They even told me their geometric system was broken. That they were eyeballing the distance where my daughter fell which is the 18th floor, down to her death,’ Rodriguez said.
She claimed police had provided her with little information about who was with Aguilera when she died, and hadn’t gone into the apartment or questioned anyone in the building.
‘They told me that they saw a group of friends going into the apartment and they saw a group of friends leaving but my daughter was not there,’ Rodriguez said.
‘They interviewed the girls that were with her in the apartment. But they interviewed them a whole day later. They interviewed them at 1 p.m. that Saturday instead of investigating at the time of the scene,’ she added.
Autopsy and toxicology results hold key
Rodriguez believes one of the 15 people in the apartment at the time of her daughter’s death knows something.
‘There was a fight that happened between my daughter and another girl, and they were all staying in the same apartment that I have actual text messages of, and the detective just disregarded them,’ Rodriguez told KSAT.
While insisting her daughter was murdered, Rodriguez has stopped short of saying that Brianna Aguilera was pushed to her death from the 17th story apartment. And if so, by whom and why? Or whether the girl had ‘accidentally’ fallen to her death after a night out, partying?
Police have said their investigation into the teen’s death is ongoing. Toxicology results could take months before being released.
A GoFundMe to support Aguilera’s family has so far raised over $33,000. ‘My daughter had such a beautiful impact on the community of Laredo. We were both born and raised in Laredo. She wanted to come back to practice law in Laredo,’ Rodriguez said.
