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A former federal prosecutor said police in Austin, Texas, should be taking a closer look into the death of a Texas A&M University student who was found dead after a rivalry football game.
Brianna Aguilera, 19, was found dead at 12:47 a.m. on Saturday at 21 Rio Apartments in Austin after the Texas A&M University vs. University of Texas football game. Police in Austin said her death isn’t being investigated as a homicide and said no foul play was suspected, but her mother, Stephanie Rodriguez, believes someone killed her.
While she said detectives told her that Aguilera fell from a 17th floor balcony, and her death was accidental or a suicide, she doesn’t believe that.
“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,” Rodriguez wrote on Facebook. “My daughter would not jump 17 stories from a building and to be labeling this as a suicide is insane.”
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Image provided by the family of Texas A&M student Brianna Aguilera, who was found dead in Austin over the weekend. (GoFundMe)
Rodriguez told KSAT that there was a fight between Aguilera and another girl before her daughter’s death.
“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 said.
Rodriguez, who said her daughter was drinking that night, said she became suspicious after she saw her daughter’s phone was on “Do Not Disturb,” according to KGNS.
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Brianna Aguilera was found dead in an apartment hours after attending a tailgate party. (FACEBOOK/Brie Aguilera)
“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 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 “Fox & Friends” on Wednesday: “They found my daughter’s phone eventually in her friend’s purse that was thrown in the woods.”
Former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani told Fox News Digital that Austin police should be giving Aguilera’s death a “closer look,” saying that some elements don’t add up.
“Police should be giving this case a closer look,” Rahmani said. “Either Brianna fell accidentally, she committed suicide, or this was a homicide. Any of them are possibilities.”
“And the fact that there are reports that her phone was on Do Not Disturb, was in a friend’s purse, and that purse was inside the woods, that’s not typical or consistent with just an accident,” he added.
Rodriguez told People she thinks someone threw her over the balcony.
“I’m thinking either someone shoved her over the balcony, or when my daughter does drink, she has the tendency [to fall asleep], and she’s so thin and frail, she cannot handle alcohol,” Rodriguez said. “And I think that maybe either it might’ve been that, and they probably got scared and threw her over the balcony, or they shoved her off.”
The Austin Police Department in a statement on Tuesday said “there is no evidence to suggest or support any suspicious or criminal circumstances surrounding Ms. Aguilera’s passing.”
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Brianna Aguilera holds a sign congratulating her on her acceptance to Texas A&M. (INSTAGRAM/brie.aguilera)
“Every loss in our community is taken seriously, and every life is deserving of care, dignity, and a complete investigative process. Austin Police extends our heartfelt condolences to Brianna Aguilera’s family, friends, and all who are grieving her loss,” the Austin Police Department wrote.
While a death investigation remains open, a staffer at the Travis County Medical Examiners office, where her body was sent, said that an autopsy takes 90 days or longer.
Fox News Digital reached out to the Austin Police Department for comment.