Aggie mom travels to Austin to meet with police about her daughter’s fatal fall

Stephanie Rodriguez traveled to Austin on Monday to speak with detectives about her daughter’s fatal fall.

AUSTIN, Texas (KBTX) – A Laredo mother is demanding answers after her 19-year-old daughter was found dead Saturday after attending the UT vs. Texas A&M tailgate in Austin on Friday, Nov. 28.

Brianna Aguilera, a Texas A&M junior who was set to turn 20 in January, was found deceased after her mother contacted the Austin Police Department when she could not locate her daughter.

“She was excited to be in Laredo for the holiday weekend. We had just celebrated our first Thanksgiving together, I hosted in our home,” said Stephanie Rodriguez, Brianna’s mother, to KBTX’s sister station, KGNS in Laredo.

Rodriguez said Brianna had taken her younger brothers to see the movie “Wicked” before traveling to Austin for the tailgate event. At the event, she became intoxicated, Rodriguez told KEYE-TV in Austin.

“She was definitely most excited to see the A&M game vs UT. Not attend the game, the tailgate,” said Rodriguez, who also told KEYE-TV on Monday that police said Brianna was later kicked out of the tailgate and ended up back at her friends’ apartment, where she was staying.

Rodriguez said she began trying to contact her daughter and the Austin Police hours before she was notified of Brianna’s death.

“No one reached out to me. I was the one who had to place several calls to Austin PD because I couldn’t locate her,” Rodriguez said. “What was weird to me and skeptical was that 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. That stopped happening around 6 p.m.”

Rodriguez said Austin Police told her she could not file a missing person’s report because it had not been more than 24 hours. She said officers told her they could not check the scene where her daughter’s phone was pinging by a creek.

“Which scared me the most, because all these murders have been coming out in Austin and bodies have been found in creeks,” Rodriguez said.

The next morning, Saturday, Nov. 29, Rodriguez said the phone was still at the same location.

“Which made me more scared. That’s when I started putting pressure on Austin PD to have a search team go to the area and search for her because I couldn’t locate her, and none of her friends were answering,” Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez said she received the heartbreaking news on Saturday afternoon.

“At 4 p.m. I get a call from an officer from Austin PD telling me my daughter was found in the morgue,” Rodriguez said.

A bystander discovered Brianna at 2101 Rio Grande Street just before 1:00 a.m. near the UT campus and called the Austin Police Department. Her body was positively identified through fingerprint analysis, and she was pronounced deceased at the scene, according to a report from CBS affiliate KEYE-TV in Austin.

Austin police stated that Aguilera’s death is not currently being investigated as a homicide since the investigation has not revealed any suspicious details, but authorities are waiting for an autopsy report to help determine the exact cause of death.

Rodriguez said police told the family they believed her 17-story fatal fall was either a suicide attempt or accidental death.

“That’s 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,” Rodriguez said. “She was really looking forward to taking her LSATs, and she was looking forward to applying to law school. She had a 4.0 GPA at A&M; she was very studious.”

On Monday, Dec. 1, Brianna’s family traveled to Austin and spoke to the lead investigator.

“I asked and demanded that another detective 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,” Rodriguez said.

TX: TEXAS A&M STUDENT FOUND DEAD AT UT
KEYE, STEPHANIE RODRIGUEZ, GOFUNDME, CNN

Rodriguez said police provided little information about who was with Brianna before her death.

“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 who 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.”

Rodriguez said police did not go to the apartment or question anyone in the apartment complex. She is now asking anyone with information about what happened to Brianna to come forward.

“To 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,” Rodriguez said.

A GoFundMe has raised over $29,000 to help Brianna’s family during this time.

“Brianna graduated from United High School in Laredo, TX, where she was a seasoned cheerleader and received honors of Magna Cum Lade. She was pursuing her dream of becoming a lawyer and was attending The Bush School of Government & Public Service at Texas A&M. Her dream was to always be an AGGIE! She was a year shy of attaining her Aggie ring,” the GoFundMe page says.

“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.