They look like any other college love story you’d double-tap on Instagram: Brianna Aguilera, Texas A&M cheerleader with the megawatt smile, wrapped in the arms of her high-school sweetheart Alex Rivera at the Laredo fairground last spring. Cotton-candy skies behind them, his letterman jacket over her shoulders, her Aggie pom-poms tucked under one arm while she plants a kiss on his cheek. “Forever my ride or die,” she captioned it. Seven months later, those same lips were screaming into a borrowed phone at 12:28 a.m. in a 17th-floor Austin apartment: “Stop threatening me… you’ll regret it if you come here!” Sixty seconds after the call ended, Brianna was dead on the grass below, and the fairy-tale photos became evidence in a nightmare.

The last known images of Brianna alive were snapped on November 28, 2025, hours before everything shattered. In the first, timestamped 4:17 p.m., she’s glowing at the Austin Rugby Club tailgate: maroon crop top, white cowboy hat tilted back, arms flung wide in an Aggie “Gig ’em” while friends pour champagne over her head. Her smile is pure senior-year energy, the kind that made her the heartbeat of the Texas A&M co-ed cheer squad. The second photo, taken at 9:11 p.m., tells a darker story. A friend’s Snapchat story shows Brianna alone on a tailgate bench, mascara streaked, phone to her ear, mouth open mid-yell. The caption, quickly deleted but screen-captured by half of Greek Row: “when bae won’t stop blowing up your phone.” That “bae” was Alex Rivera, 21, back in Laredo, three hours away, allegedly raging over texts that she was “acting single” at the Texas-Texas A&M rivalry tailgate.

Investigators now have the full call log. Between 9:03 p.m. and 12:29 a.m., Alex and Brianna exchanged 47 missed calls, 112 texts, and two screaming matches. Screenshots obtained by the family’s attorney Tony Buzbee include:

10:22 p.m. Alex: “Post another story with those guys and see what happens”
10:47 p.m. Brianna: “We’re DONE fighting tonight. I’m safe with the girls.”
11:59 p.m. Alex: “Safe? Bet. Keep playing.”
12:27 a.m. Alex: “I swear if you don’t answer I’m pulling up.”

That final text landed while Brianna was inside Unit 1704 at 21 Rio Apartments with three acquaintances who insist they “dozed off” and woke to find the balcony door open. The borrowed Samsung she used for the fatal 56-second call shows the argument escalating:

Brianna: “You said you’d ruin my life if I went out without you… stop, Alex, you’re scaring me.” Alex: “You think I’m playing? Watch what happens.” Brianna: “Someone’s at the door… baby, please don’t—” Call ends 12:29:03 a.m.

At 12:30:11 a.m., a passerby heard the impact.

The fairy-tale photos hurt the most because they were real. Brianna and Alex had been together since junior year at Martin High in Laredo: homecoming king and cheer queen, quince court, promise rings, the whole border-town romance. Her mom Stephanie still has the framed 2023 prom picture on the mantel: Brianna in emerald-green satin, Alex dipping her dramatically while the photographer caught the laugh. But friends say the cracks started senior year: Alex’s jealousy over her A&M acceptance, deleted Instagram stories, screaming matches in the Whataburger parking lot. Brianna confided to her cheer captain in October: “He grabs my phone, tracks my location, says if I ever leave him he’ll make sure no one else wants me.” She filed for a protective order but never served it; “I still love him,” she texted a friend the day she withdrew the paperwork.

Now those same photos are Exhibits 14–29 in the growing criminal file. Prosecutors have Alex’s phone pinging off a tower just 4.7 miles from 21 Rio at 12:26 a.m., despite his claim he was “asleep in Laredo.” His Uber Eats order was placed from an account logged in on a second device. The balcony railing is taller than Brianna’s 5’2″ frame; forensic engineers say an intoxicated person her size would need assistance to clear it.

While the Texas Rangers take over the investigation, Stephanie scrolls through the old photos nightly: the fairground kisses, the prom dip, the tailgate champagne pour. “That was my daughter’s whole world in one smile,” she told reporters outside the Laredo courthouse, clutching a printout of the final screaming Snapchat. “And in seven months it turned into the reason she was screaming for her life.”

From cotton-candy sunsets to a concrete ending in under a year. The fairy tale is over. The fight for truth is just beginning.