The Travis County Medical Examiner's Office has ruled that Brianna Aguilera, the 19-year-old Texas A&M student who fell from a 17th-floor balcony in Austin last November, died by suicide. Her cause of death: blunt force trauma. Her mother isn't buying it.
Aguilera fell from the 21 Rio apartment complex in the early morning hours of Nov. 29, 2025, while visiting Austin's West Campus area to cheer on the Aggies at the Lone Star Showdown against the Longhorns. Three other young women were inside the apartment unit at the time. None of them has come forward publicly.
That silence sits at the center of this story — and at the center of a $1 million civil lawsuit filed by Aguilera's mother, Stephanie Rodriguez, through Houston attorney Tony Buzbee.
At a Dec. 4 press conference, Austin Police laid out a timeline built on phone records and witness interviews. Lead homicide detective Robert Marshall described the final minutes:
"Witnesses heard Brianna arguing on the phone with her boyfriend, which was also confirmed later by the boyfriend. Phones from both the phone Brianna used and the boyfriend's phone have confirmed through call logs that that call did occur. Now, this call occurred at approximately 12:43 to 12:44 a.m., [for] approximately one minute. This is two minutes before the 911 call of the body found down below on the pavement."
Aguilera had borrowed a friend's phone to make the call. Two minutes later, someone dialed 911.
Police said they interviewed witnesses — some multiple times — and recovered a deleted digital suicide note from Aguilera's phone dated Nov. 25, four days before her death. The note was written to specific people in her life. Sgt. Nathan Sexton offered the department's conclusion plainly:
"In every investigation, we have to rely on the evidence, and all evidence in this case is indicative of suicide."
Rodriguez has been vocal since the beginning. She told PEOPLE on Feb. 13 that the ruling changed nothing for her:
"My thoughts haven't changed when it comes to, in regards to the cause of death, the manner of death, of course, they were going to rule it a suicide."
She described the official process as a delay tactic and made clear the civil lawsuit will proceed regardless of the medical examiner's findings:
"They were just trying to buy time. Our lawyers … are very well aware of the ruling, but we still are going to move forward with the civil suit case so we can get those roommates that were there with my daughter that night to talk because no one has come forward."
That last point — "no one has come forward" — is Rodriguez's sharpest argument, and the one that resonates most with the public. Three young women were in the apartment. A neighbor claimed to have heard shouting. Rodriguez says her daughter had been arguing with another girl over her boyfriend. Yet no one present that night has spoken publicly, as People reports.
"I know that someone must know something that night because if there was nothing to hide, someone would come forward, and the neighbor heard the disagreement, the argument, which I was already well aware of that day, leading up until that night."
Rodriguez has also hired a private medical examiner to conduct an independent autopsy. That report is currently with Buzbee, and no findings have been disclosed.
This is, by any measure, a devastating story. A 19-year-old woman is dead. Her mother is searching for answers that the official record says have already been provided — but that leave her unsatisfied. There is no villain-of-the-week here. There is a family in agony and a set of facts that point in one direction, while a mother's instinct pulls in another.
The evidence Austin Police have presented publicly is not trivial:
Rodriguez, for her part, has not presented counter-evidence publicly — only her conviction that her daughter was not suicidal, and the fact that the other witnesses have stayed silent. That silence is unsettling. It is not, however, the same thing as evidence of foul play.
This is where the public conversation around the case has grown complicated. Rodriguez told PEOPLE flatly:
"It doesn't matter what the people are saying or what the medical examiner's saying."
That's a mother's grief talking. It deserves compassion. But it also illustrates the difficult reality that official findings — built on forensic evidence, phone records, and witness statements — don't stop mattering because a family disputes them.
The civil lawsuit is the mechanism Rodriguez is banking on. A civil proceeding operates under a different burden of proof than a criminal investigation, and — critically — it can compel testimony. The three women in that apartment may finally have to answer questions under oath. That alone could be worth more to Rodriguez than any settlement.
Buzbee, a prominent Houston trial attorney, is not the kind of lawyer who takes cases for the press conferences alone. His involvement signals that Rodriguez's legal team believes there is enough to pursue, even if the criminal investigation has effectively closed.
Rodriguez acknowledged as much:
"The investigation and Austin PD has died down. Of course, we knew from the beginning they weren't going to do anything else. They just didn't like the backlash from the public and yeah, just, I am still not supporting 100% at all that this was a suicide."
The full autopsy report was expected to be released on Feb. 13. Whether its details shift the public narrative or reinforce the existing conclusion remains to be seen. The private autopsy — still under wraps with Buzbee — is the wild card.
For now, the official record says one thing. A mother says to another. And three young women who were in the room that night have said nothing at all.
