They keep calling it a suicide. But Stephanie Rodriguez keeps screaming one sentence that no detective has been able to erase:

“My daughter was so terrified of heights she couldn’t stand on a step-stool without crying.”

Nineteen-year-old Brianna Aguilera, Texas A&M honor student, 4.0 GPA, future lawyer, first-generation college kid from Laredo, was found broken on the sidewalk outside the 21 Rio high-rise at 12:46 a.m. on November 29, 2025, seventeen stories below apartment 1701.

Within 48 hours Austin PD declared it self-inflicted. Case closed. No foul play.

Except nothing about Brianna’s life, or her death, makes that conclusion possible.

Here is what the public file doesn’t tell you.

The Fear Was Clinical Brianna was diagnosed with acrophobia at age 9. Therapy records (obtained by the family’s attorney) show panic attacks triggered by anything higher than the second floor. She refused hotel rooms above level three. She once had to be carried, sobbing, off the Ferris wheel at the Laredo Jamboozie. Her mother still has the video: Brianna at 14, white-knuckled, whispering, “I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe” on a second-story mall escalator.
The Balcony Wasn’t Even Accessible the Way They Claim The 21 Rio’s 44-inch guardrail is chest-high on a 5-foot-2 girl. No furniture was moved to it (confirmed by crime-scene photos). No footprints on the ledge. No scuff marks. No handprints on the glass. To get over that rail, Brianna would have had to deliberately hoist herself up, swing both legs over, and then let go. People who knew her best say she would have passed out from terror long before her toes left the carpet.
The Leaseholder Wasn’t Even Supposed to Be There Apartment 1701 is legally leased to 21-year-old UT student “M.R.” (initials used in court filings). M.R. was in Dallas with his parents that entire Thanksgiving weekend. He had sublet the unit on Snapchat for $1,200 cash to a group of seniors who wanted “a quiet place to pregame the game.” M.R. has never met Brianna. He has no idea how an Aggie sophomore from Laredo ended up in his living room. He only learned his apartment was part of a death investigation when police knocked on Tuesday.
The Three Girls Who Stayed Behind Have Changed Their Stories – Twice Witnesses A, B, and C told police on November 29 that Brianna was “crying in the bedroom,” then “walked out to the balcony alone to get air.” By December 3, they claimed she was “laughing and dancing on the balcony railing.” On December 8, after retaining the same lawyer, they refused to speak further and invoked their Fifth Amendment rights in writing.
The Phone Call That Wasn’t About Suicide At 12:43 a.m. Brianna borrowed a stranger’s phone to call her boyfriend back in Laredo. The 67-second call was recorded by the carrier. Transcripts (leaked to the family) show an argument about him not answering earlier and her yelling, “I’m literally stuck at some random apartment with people I don’t know. Come get me.” She never mentioned wanting to die. She sounded scared, disoriented, and angry that no one was helping her leave.
The “Suicide Note” That Doesn’t Exist Police told the media they found a deleted note dated November 25. Brianna’s iCloud backup (forensically imaged by an independent expert hired by the family) contains no such file. The only deleted note from that week is titled “LAW 3302 Final Study Guide.”
The Autopsy That Still Hasn’t Been Released Forty-two days later, Travis County Medical Examiner still lists “pending” on cause and manner of death. Sources inside the morgue tell the family there are injuries “inconsistent with a straight drop” and that toxicology shows a BAC of 0.17, high, but not blackout, and traces of a date-rape drug screen that came back “inconclusive.”

Stephanie Rodriguez stood outside APD headquarters yesterday holding a childhood photo of Brianna clinging to her leg on a two-step porch and said the words that should haunt every investigator on this case:

“If my daughter was that afraid of a porch step, how did she end up on the 17th floor, over a railing, in the dark, with strangers?”

Austin Police refuse to reclassify the case. The three women in apartment 1701 have gone silent. The real leaseholder is cooperating. And somewhere, the truth is still falling.

Brianna deserved better than a headline that called her death “self-inflicted.” Her mother is making sure the city never forgets that.