Now his family is calling for the investigation to be reopened.

HOUSTON — The family of a 22-year-old man found dead in Buffalo Bayou last year is demanding answers after the Harris County Medical Examiner’s Office acknowledged making an error in his autopsy report.

Note: The video above is from October 23, 2025.

Kenneth Cutting, Jr. went missing in June 2024 after a night out at Pete’s Piano Bar in downtown Houston. Three days later, his body was discovered floating in Buffalo Bayou.

Police said at the time there were no signs of foul play, and the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences later ruled his cause of death “undetermined.” The case has since been closed.

But Cutting’s cousin, Lauren Freeman, said she recently learned that part of his autopsy report contained information from another person’s case.

“The doctor that did his autopsy said, ‘Oh, that was a mistake. It was for the body I did after that, but it was accidentally put in his medical report,’” Freeman said. “I don’t know how something like that is mistaken. Somebody has died and the information in the report has to be right.”

Freeman said the report includes several inconsistencies, including medical hardware reportedly found in the body’s neck, even though Cutting never had surgery. She also noted discrepancies in the listed height and weight: the report stated Cutting was 4-feet, 8-inches tall and weighed 89 pounds, though his family says he was 5-foot-4 and 125 pounds before his death.

In a statement to KHOU 11, the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences confirmed the mistake but described it as a clerical error.

“This was a clerical error that had no impact on the findings or the cause and manner of death,” the office said in an email. “The error occurred during the report editing process, after the postmortem exam was already completed. The pathological findings and conclusions in the report are correct and supported by the forensic pathologist’s notes, x-rays, and over 50 photographs taken during autopsy.”

Freeman disputes that explanation and is calling for the Houston Police Department to reopen Cutting’s case.

“Did the police even have the right information to investigate it correctly?” she said. “The case needs to be reopened.”

Freeman said she wants a full review of the investigation, including potential surveillance footage and geolocation data from the night Cutting disappeared.

“I’m furious,” she said. “I want everything to be looked at.”

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