The mother of a Texas A&M cheerleader who was found dead Saturday is challenging authorities who say she died either by suicide or an accidental fall.
Brianna Aguilera, 19, a Texas A&M University junior, was found dead outside of an apartment complex. Her mother, Stephanie Rodriguez, expressed frustration with the police investigation into her daughter's death.
"This was not accidental someone killed my brie," she wrote in a Facebook post. "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."
Authorities believe that Aguilera died sometime after attending the UT vs. Texas A&M tailgate in Austin on Friday, Nov. 28, KGNS news reported. Her mother had reached out to Austin police when she was unable to reach her.
Rodriguez said she was told that she could not file a missing person report because it had not been 24 hours since her last contact with her daughter.
"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. That stopped happening around 6 p.m.," Rodriguez told the station.
She said that when she saw her daughter's phone pinging by a creek she became scared.
"Which scared me the most, because all these murders have been coming out in Austin and bodies have been found in creeks," Rodriguez told the station.
KSAT reported that Aguilera's body was found by a passerby at around 1 a.m. Saturday near the apartment complex. The station reported that police have told Rodriguez that her daughter fell 17 stories to her death.
The station reported that authorities released a preliminary report that stated the death was not being investigated as a homicide. Travis County Medical Examiner's Office ruling on the nature of Aguilera's death is pending.
