LAREDO, Tex. (KGNS) – A Laredo mother is demanding answers after her 19-year-old daughter was found dead after attending the UT vs. Texas A&M tailgate in Austin on Friday, Nov. 28.<\/p>\n
Brianna Aguilera, a Texas A&M junior who was set to turn 20 in January, was found dead after her mother contacted Austin Police when she could not locate her daughter.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was excited to be in Laredo for the holiday weekend, we had just celebrated our first Thanksgiving together I hosted in our home,\u201d said Stephanie Rodriguez, Brianna\u2019s mother.<\/p>\n
Rodriguez said Brianna had taken her younger brothers to see the movie \u201cWicked\u201d before traveling to Austin for the tailgate event.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was definitely most excited to see the A&M game vs UT. Not attend the game, the tailgate,\u201d Rodriguez said.<\/p>\n
Mother contacted police before notification<\/p>\n
Rodriguez said she began trying to contact her daughter and Austin Police hours before she was notified of Brianna\u2019s death.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one reached out to me, I was the one who had to place several calls to Austin PD because I couldn\u2019t locate her,\u201d Rodriguez said. \u201cWhat 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 \u2018location on\u2019 and answer her text to at least let me know she was ok. That stopped happening around 6 p.m.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rodriguez said Austin Police told her she could not file a missing person\u2019s report because it had not been more than 24 hours. She said officers told her they could not check the scene where her daughter\u2019s phone was pinging by a creek.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhich scared me the most, because all these murders have been coming out in Austin and bodies have been found in creeks,\u201d Rodriguez said.<\/p>\n
The next morning, Saturday, Nov. 29, Rodriguez said the phone was still at the same location.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhich made me more scared that\u2019s when I started putting pressure on Austin PD into having a search team going to the area and search for her because I couldn\u2019t locate her and none of her friends were answering,\u201d Rodriguez said.<\/p>\n
Body discovered by bystander<\/p>\n
Rodriguez said she received the news at 4 p.m. Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cUntil finally, at 4 p.m. I get a call from an officer from Austin PD telling me my daughter was found in the morgue,\u201d Rodriguez said.<\/p>\n
A bystander discovered Brianna and called Austin Police. Her body was positively identified through fingerprint analysis.<\/p>\n
Rodriguez said authorities told her Brianna\u2019s autopsy was performed Sunday, Nov. 30, with results still pending as of Monday, Dec. 1.<\/p>\n
Family disputes police theory<\/p>\n
Rodriguez said police told the family they believed it was either a suicide attempt or accidental death.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what enraged me because I know my daughter. My daughter loved life, she was so close to graduating we were going to order her Aggie ring next semester,\u201d Rodriguez said. \u201cShe was really looking forward to taking her LSAT\u2019s, she was looking forward to applying to law school. She had a 4.0 GPA at A&M; she was very studious.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Dec. 1, Brianna\u2019s family traveled to Austin and spoke to the lead investigator.<\/p>\n
\u201cI 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 17th floor, down to her death,\u201d Rodriguez said.<\/p>\n
Rodriguez said police provided little information about who was with Brianna before her death.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey 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,\u201d Rodriguez said. \u201cThey 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rodriguez said police did not go to the apartment or question anyone in the apartment complex.<\/p>\n
Rodriguez is asking anyone with information about what happened to Brianna to come forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo see her gone so soon, gone so soon and not have answers and not have anyone take accountability for what happened that night in that apartment,\u201d Rodriguez said.<\/p>\n
A GoFundMe has raised over $17,000 to help Brianna\u2019s family during this time.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy 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,\u201d Rodriguez said.<\/p>\n
According to KSAT, Austin police stated that Aguilera\u2019s death is not currently being investigated as a homicide since the investigation has not revealed any suspicious details.<\/p>\n