‘He knew how to swim’: Family rejects ‘accident’ as Houston bayou death mystery deepens

The mysterious Houston bayou death of Kenneth Cutting Jr. will require more investigation than the medical findings alone can provide, according to experts who reviewed the autopsy report.

“I agree with their assessment,” Dr. Priya Banerjee, a board-certified forensic pathologist, said of the autopsy performed by Dr. Edward Kilbane, of the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences. “There’s nothing definitive at autopsy to say why he died and if it was before or after the body entered the bayou.”

She declined to speculate about what may have happened and said the answer Cutting’s family is seeking “hinges on investigation.”

A Houston police spokesperson told Fox News Digital she would look into the case last week.

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The official autopsy lists Cutting’s cause and manner of death as undetermined. Although he had fluid in his lungs, Dr. Banerjee said there’s no way to know whether it was present before his death, making the assertion that he had accidentally drowned impossible to confirm medically.

Food particles in his throat but an empty stomach were consistent with normal decomposition, Dr. Banerjee said. It happens naturally as the muscles relax.

“I think his electronic footprint is more important,” she said.

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Cutting was last seen alive on June 28, 2024, according to his family. Although he lost his cellphone earlier in the evening, his roommates had it in their possession after he went missing, relatives said. It was later given to police for a forensic analysis, but his father, Kenneth Cutting Sr., said detectives came back with no answers.

Surveillance video reviewed by Fox News Digital places Cutting at Pete’s Dueling Piano Bar in downtown Houston roughly between 8 p.m. and 11:45 p.m. He was with two roommates — and he shouted at one of them to “f— off” as he stormed away from the venue.

They later reunited, however, but for reasons that remain unclear, Cutting never made it home.

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The roommates sent his father a 2 a.m. text message stating he’d gone “crazy” and demanded to be let out on Interstate 10 in Houston. He was later found dead in the Buffalo Bayou, which is part of the city’s 2,500 miles of waterways.

Kevin Gannon, a retired NYPD detective who monitors water deaths around the country, said Cutting’s death doesn’t fit the pattern of the controversial “Smiley Face Killers” theory — but it still seems suspicious.

“I don’t think this young man drowned, though it’s possible,” he told Fox News Digital. “Believe me, this is a tough one.”

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Cutting’s father agrees.

“Police told me that they think it was an accidental death, and I said, I don’t think my son fell in the bayou and drowned,” Cutting Sr. told Fox News Digital last week. “First of all, he knew how to swim. Second of all, he shouldn’t have been nowhere near that bayou.”

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He said his son didn’t appear to be blackout drunk in the surveillance video and noted that the toxicology report found no drugs in his system.

“Houston police need to do further investigation,” said Lauren Freeman, Cutting’s cousin. “They need to ping his phone the night he went missing, to see where his location was.”

Houston leaders have been publicly downplaying concerns of a potential serial killer with 16 dead in the city’s bayous so far this year, including five discovered in a one-week span last month.

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But Mayor John Whitmire’s explanation, in which he blamed homelessness and substance abuse, prompted Cutting’s family to blast the excuse as “gaslighting” and call for thorough investigations into all of the deaths.

Whitmire slammed misinformation and “wild speculation” online and from political candidates surrounding the cases at a news briefing on Sept. 23.

“We do not have any evidence that there is a serial killer loose in Houston, Texas,” he said, calling the number of deaths “alarming” and urging patience from the public.

“Undetermined means kick back to the investigators for more information so that the medical examiner can make a better informed decision,” said Joseph Giacalone, a retired NYPD sergeant and criminal justice professor at Penn State Lehigh Valley. “You treat it like a homicide until proven otherwise.”