Serialously with Annie Elise - 426: He Jumped From a Car, Then Vanished. Is There a Serial Killer in Houston? | Kenneth Cutting Jr.

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Starting point is 00:00:28 Houston, the Bayou City. We have about 2,500 miles of waterways. Their report, going back nearly a decade, shows more than 200 bodies recovered. I don't know if there's a serial killer, but the way they're dealing with these bodies is ridiculous. Today, the Houston Police Department told me the case is closed. But his family believes there's more to the story. Hey, true crime besties, welcome back to an all-new episode of Serialist Lee.

Starting point is 00:00:59 Hello, hello, hello, welcome back to an all new episode of Serialessly with me, your host, Annie E. Lees, and we have another case that we need to dive into together today because this one is so wild. It has like the question mark of, is a serial killer involved in this? Someone literally jumped out of a car. Like, there are a lot of different details that I feel like, okay, I just need to get on the mic. I need to talk with you guys. I need to break this down together.

Starting point is 00:01:45 and I really am going to ask you a favor ahead of time. Please give me your feedback in the comment section about what you think regarding this case and what you think like the truth is, the mode of it, all of the things, because I'm a little bit just kind of like not stumped, but like still, is that really it? Is it what I think it is? All of those questions that, you know, start entering your mind. And we talked directly with one of the family members who was heavily involved in this case. And I'm going to share pieces of that interview with you in today's episode because there are a lot of questions here. So let me just jump right in so that I can like, you know, give you the backstory here. It took place not very long ago, two years ago, in June of

Starting point is 00:02:27 24. It was Friday, June 28th in the city of Houston, Texas. Now, they were all ready to take on the weekend. And as I'm sure you know or can imagine if you've never been there, June in Texas, it gets pretty hot. So while everybody was so excited for the weekend, they also wanted to like duck into little bars and businesses to get some AC, cool off, and just like relax. So that meant that the downtown bar scene was going to be absolutely buzzing that night, not just that night, but that weekend. Now, if you've never been to Houston, downtown is a lot of fun. I want you to think tons of bars, tons of restaurants, tourists in town, hotels, really great happy hour spots, tons of places to then go after dinner and like keep the party going, get a nightcap. And a lot of that

Starting point is 00:03:13 is centered just a few blocks away from the Toyota Center, which is it's this along this long stretch of road called Fanon Street. So by the time, nighttime rolled around that Friday, Fanon Street was already getting super busy. People were heading from one place to the next. Friends were meeting up. People were bar hopping. Ubers were all lining up to shuffle everyone around from one place to the next. And basically, it was your typical Friday night. Now, Fanon Street was home to a popular place called Pete's Dueling Piano Bar. And this is tucked inside the Green Street Complex, this downtown shopping and entertainment hub that's kind of like a mall, but like strip mallee a little bit too, but not really,

Starting point is 00:03:55 where it has like all different types of businesses inside. Now inside Pete's, it was very, very loud, but not in like a dark clubby kind of way. It was bright and packed with people, people full of energy, people singing, happy, Like, good mood. If you've ever been to a piano bar or a dueling piano bar, you totally get the vibe. But if you haven't been to one, let me just describe it. It's basically two pianists on stage playing back and forth, taking requests from the audience, cracking jokes in between, just very high energy. A song, whenever I've gone to piano bars in the past, it's like, Journey. Don't stop believing. That one always is a request, a fan favorite.

Starting point is 00:04:34 Songs where people are all singing along, like Sweet Caroline, like Sweet Caroline, but you know what I'm talking about? And so it's just like good energy and a great time. And it's not just a place that you go to to listen to music. It's almost a place where you kind of become part of the show in a weird way because everybody's participating. So Pete's was a super popular place to go, to just hang out, to celebrate a birthday, maybe even a bachelorette party. And on Friday nights, it all was filled up super fast. Now, one of the people who was there that night was 22, year old Kenneth Cutting Jr. Kenneth was known as someone who was extremely creative, expressive, and just full of life. Kenneth's family said that his creativity was undeniable from very early on in

Starting point is 00:05:22 his life. He loved to draw. He was so talented, so much so that he earned a scholarship to the Glacelle School of Art in Houston at a very young age. He always found a way to share his art, too. Whether it was his passion for music, for art, for people, whatever it was, he just wanted to share it with the world. Kenneth had a short brown hair that he kept, you know, perfectly cropped on top of his head and buzzed on the sides, and he just had this very kind demeanor about him. And this is how Kenneth's cousin Lauren described him. Kenneth was the son of my mom's brother, and we grew up in an Italian house in Houston, Texas, and we lived in the same house together. I was 20 years old.

Starting point is 00:06:08 older than him, 20 years older than him. So when he was born, I was a senior in high school, and I helped raise him. Kenneth was just this very vibrant person. He had an amazing personality. He was kind. He was loving. He was fun and silly and happy. And he always wanted everybody around him to be happy. He just was one of those people that was one of those people that when he walked in the room, he lit it up. Now, aside from just being artistic and an overall great guy, Kenneth was also pretty open-minded, especially when it came to his personal life and those that he chose to share it with. Kenneth was openly gay.

Starting point is 00:06:56 And around January of 2024, he had moved in with two men who were in their mid-30s. And the three of them together were in a polyamorous relationship together. They shared a home, a routine, and a life. which for some of you listening who may not be as familiar with the term polyamorous, it basically means you are in a relationship with multiple people. It's not the same as polygamy where somebody has multiple wives. It's where you're all in a relationship together. And you have shared experiences, shared routines, you share your life together. And it's the belief that love doesn't necessarily need to be or should be monogamous. Okay. And just a little bit as a side note, I want to note for the

Starting point is 00:07:38 sake of the families involved in this case, that due to the current ongoing investigation, I am not going to name Kenneth's partners in today's episode. But my point is that from the way his family has described things, this was not at all necessarily anything chaotic or unstable. In fact, Kenneth's life seemed extremely stable, from the outside at least. Kenneth had a job working as a waiter at a restaurant, and his boyfriends both seemed extremely nice. He had a lot of friends, and it just generally seemed like he had a great life and had things together. So on Friday, June 28th, Kenneth and his boyfriends decided to go to Pete's piano bar for a group event, hoping to just, you know, have a few drinks, maybe do a little dancing, singing, and just have fun,

Starting point is 00:08:23 a totally normal Friday night. And for the first few hours, that's exactly what happened. Around 8 p.m., Kenneth and his two boyfriends arrived at Pete's dueling piano bar, and they stayed there until almost midnight. Now, for most of that time, everything appeared completely normal. They were ordering drinks, they were singing along to the songs, they were just having an all-around good time. But by the time they decided to leave the bar, something changed, something was up, the energy between the three of them had shifted. At some point, while they were in the bar that night, Kenneth had realized that

Starting point is 00:09:00 he lost his phone. And while he was trying to find it, apparently an argument broke out. Now, what exactly caused that argument is not entirely clear. It could have been the missing phone. It could have been that they all just had too much to drink and tensions were high. It could have been something maybe that started earlier that day that then carried into the night. We just don't know. But what we do know is that at around the time he started looking for his phone, things really seemed to escalate between him and his boyfriends. On security footage from that night, it was clear that Kenneth was seen visibly upset. Until Finally, after being so upset, he just headed down the escalator outside the bar and stormed out. He was yelling, angry, emotional, and directing that frustration toward one of his partners. And they followed him, eventually getting into the car that they all had arrived in and making him get in the car as well. And I also want to point out that by the time Kenneth got into the car, he did have his phone with him. So he must have found it or maybe one of the boyfriends found it for him or had it for him and he never even lost it in the first place. Who really knows? But a couple of hours later, at 1.29 a.m., Kenneth's dad, Ken Senior, received a text

Starting point is 00:10:13 message from one of Kenneth's partners. And in that message, they described Kenneth as acting, quote, crazy, saying that at one point, he had, quote, gone berserk. Now, in that moment, Kenneth's dad knew that something was up. Like, that's a weird text to get in the middle of the night. Your son has gone berserk, something's gone crazy. He knew something was wrong and that things weren't right, but he could not have possibly been prepared for just how bad things had gotten. According to that text that Ken Sr. had received from Kenneth's boyfriends, things apparently started going downhill fast, as soon as they left the piano bar, as a matter of fact. Kenneth's boyfriends went on to tell his dad that Kenneth had gotten extremely drunk,

Starting point is 00:10:57 that he was spilling drinks, acting sloppy, being annoying, so that tipped the boyfriends off to basically it'd be like, you know, it's time to call it a night. Let's wrap it up. This is not fun anymore. And apparently when his boyfriends said that they needed to leave and go home, Kenneth freaked out and stormed off, which if you've ever been with somebody who is intoxicated, drunk, having a good time, and maybe doesn't recognize that they're sloppy, you may be able to relate. I certainly know I have been not only on the giving end of that, but also the receiving end, where you're like, come on, it's time to go, you're all, I'm fine, I'm fucking fine, I'm having fun, leave me alone. You guys just don't want to have any fun.

Starting point is 00:11:33 storm off or whatever, been there more times than I care to admit. So Kenneth's boyfriend went on to tell Ken Sr. that when they found Kenneth after he had stormed away, he was allegedly, quote, screaming and throwing his hands up at a group of black guys. So at that point, his boyfriend started to get worried that things could escalate. So they decided to get Kenneth into that car to leave and go home, basically being like, bro, like, calm down. Let's get in the car. Get in the car. We're getting the hell out of here. But apparently when they were driving, they said that's when Kenneth went berserk. Once the three of them were inside the car, the situation apparently only got worse. According to them, Kenneth started getting physical. I'm talking kicking at the windows,

Starting point is 00:12:15 screaming, hitting, biting, hitting one of the other guys so hard that it knocked his glasses off, and they were just like trying to contain him and calm him down as they continued to drive eastbound on Interstate 10. But then things hit a breaking point. Because Kenneth's boyfriend said, that near Waco Street in Houston's fifth ward, Kenneth suddenly just jumped out of the moving car and then took off on foot running. According to the boyfriends, he also left his phone and his wallet behind. He just ran straight toward oncoming traffic, just took off and then just disappeared into the night. And after Kenneth jumped out of that car, there was no way to reach him. No way for him to call for help if he decided that he needed it. He left his phone behind. Now when Kenneth's dad woke up and

Starting point is 00:13:03 read that text message a few hours later, he immediately thought that what he was hearing did not match up with Kenneth's behavior at all. This was not like his son. His son has never had any sort of situation like that. It just wasn't how they knew him to act. And here's how Lauren described how he normally was. So it wasn't normal behavior. You know, teenagers, they definitely go through a period in time where they're learning. about themselves. Sometimes, you know, they get angry. But for the most part, like, just like any normal human, like he was never, he didn't really outburst a lot. I mean, yes, he got upset, but not anything to where he went crazy, hitting people, you know, nothing like that.

Starting point is 00:13:55 Then around 9 to 9.30 a.m. that morning, which would have been around 8 hours after Kenneth allegedly jumped out of that car, Kenney, Sr. called Lauren, and he told her that he thought that something was really wrong. He went on to tell her about the text messages that he had received and about what he had been told the night before. So Lauren immediately left her home to go meet up with Kenneth's mom, Tiffany, and with Ken Sr. And when Lauren got there, the three of them immediately started trying to figure out what had happened. Their first stop was Kenneth's house. They hoped that they would get some sort of answer from his boyfriend, some sort of indication of like, he's fine now, he made it home,

Starting point is 00:14:32 he's sleeping it off or, you know, we don't know where he is, but we think he might be at so-and-so's house, just something. I mean, really, any piece of information that they could try and understand what had led up to that moment on the freeway. But as soon as they walked in, they saw several black trash bags just lining the entire entry hallway, bags that were apparently full of Kenneth's personal belongings. I swear, there are certain flavors that immediately take you back to being a kid. And for me, anything like cinnamony and sweet and just like yummy, that's one of those. Like French toast on a lazy weekend morning or, you know, cinnamon cereal when you had absolutely nowhere to be, nothing to worry about. So when I saw that Kachava came out with cinnamon

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Starting point is 00:16:52 order, be sure to let them know I sent you. Select podcast in the survey and select my show in the drop-down menu that follows, but that's skims.com. When asked about what was in the bags, Kenneth's boyfriend said, well, that's stuff. We don't want him living here anymore after how he acted last night. Now, immediately, Kenneth's family felt like something wasn't adding up here. I mean, how do you get home at 2 a.m. after leaving your boyfriend somewhere alone in a dangerous part of town after fleeing on the freeway, clearly intoxicated, yet then you also come home and have all of their things packed up by 9 a.m. I mean, finding all of his stuff in trash bags less than 12 hours after he disappeared was obviously a pretty huge shock.

Starting point is 00:17:43 And as they were talking with Kenneth's boyfriends about what had happened the night before, they then started questioning parts of their story, things that weren't really making much sense to them. For starters, there was the whole missing phone thing, right? Remember how Kenneth was looking for his phone when they were at the bar, but then it was left behind in the car once he jumped out of the car and went on the freeway? Well, to the family, that detail felt a little suspicious. Thankfully, Kenneth's boyfriends did turn his phone over to the family when they went to the house so that they could, like, have that and potentially contact him or have it for when he contacted them. But the phone wasn't the only detail that Kenneth's family thought was a little weird. They also took issue with the fact that Kenneth allegedly had gotten out of that moving car.

Starting point is 00:18:27 And to be more specific, exactly where this jumping out of the car moment took place. According to his family, Kenneth lived about 45 minutes in the opposite direction from where he apparently got out of that vehicle. So at that point, they were really questioning, like, well, what were you doing in the fifth ward in the first place? That's not even anywhere near your home. Plus, there was another really big part in all of this. If the story that they were telling was true, why wouldn't they have called 911 if they truly thought that Kenneth had gone crazy and was in danger and running into oncoming traffic? I mean, how was that not an emergency? But even with all of those things that didn't make sense about the timeline and the story,

Starting point is 00:19:09 Kenneth's family didn't really learn anything that would help them in finding him. And at this point, he was still very much missing. So his family decided that they needed to fill out a missing person's report that same morning. And then after that, they immediately started searching for him. Kenneth's family got in the car and they began driving the streets around where they had been told Kenneth jumped out of the car, near I-10 East and Waco Street. Just going back and forth through that area for the next two to three hours, scanning the sides of the roads,

Starting point is 00:19:39 looking for any sign of him, any indication that he had dropped something, a clue, whatever. They hoped that maybe they would even find him walking somewhere or sitting nearby, and that maybe all of this could just be easily explained as some big misunderstanding. But as time continued to pass and there still was nothing, they knew that they needed to widen the,

Starting point is 00:20:00 search. So then they started going to hospitals, checking for John Doe's, walking in and asking if anybody had come in overnight matching Kenneth's description. Because at that point, they really didn't even know what to believe. And they didn't know if the story that they were receiving from the boyfriends was actually the full story and the truth. And shortly after all of that, Kenneth's story began hitting the news circuits. And police say they are looking for a 22-year-old man who has been missing for days after a night out with friends. That man's parents, that man's parents. are speaking exclusively with Matt Dordy tonight. Matt? Now Houston police say they were told the last place.

Starting point is 00:20:39 The 22-year-old Kenneth Cutting was seen was here in downtown early Saturday morning. Since then, nobody who knows him has seen him. 22-year-old Kenneth Cutting's parents tell us the video you see here are the last known images of their son. They say he had taken this video with friends at Pete's Piano Bar in downtown late Friday night into early Saturday morning. and texted the video to a relative. His father tells us he filed a missing person's report with HPD after getting a text from his son's friends, saying he'd had too much to drink that night.

Starting point is 00:21:15 And that at one point he jumped out of a friend's car along I10 East near Waco. He hasn't been seen or heard from since. I can tell you right now, my son's not out partying. He doesn't know anybody near there. He's not a street wise kid. He always had a place to live. He always had a place. He's never been on the street, never ran away, never disappeared. Now his parents have been enlisting the help of friends, family members, and volunteers to help put out flyers with the 22-year-old's face,

Starting point is 00:21:49 hopeful somebody out there might know where their son is tonight. By the time 24 hours had passed since Kenneth was last seen, his family wasn't just concerned anymore. They were scared. They still had no answers and even worse. than that, there had been no contact and no sightings of him anywhere. There was absolutely no context for where he could have gone after getting out of that car. I mean, he didn't know anyone in that area. He also didn't have his phone with him, if you remember. His family also said he didn't even know the area well enough to know where he was. So they continued their own search efforts, and they were doing everything in their power to get all eyes on Kenneth's case. They were

Starting point is 00:22:28 speaking out, raising awareness, posting flyers in the area all over social media too, trying to do anything that they possibly could. Now, things at this point started to kind of become a little bit of a blur for them, although one thing did become very clear. The family was receiving a ton of support from strangers in the community and friends and family, but they also realized that there were two people noticeably missing from all of this, missing from the search efforts, from the support, from, you know, everybody looking for Kenneth. And that was Kenneth's boyfriends. During all of this, they were practically nowhere to be found.

Starting point is 00:23:08 They weren't helping look for him. They weren't checking in. It was just silence. Then, at some point, right around that 24-hour mark of Kenneth being missing, his family learned another detail that was incredibly strange. Apparently, his boyfriends claimed that they did try to file a missing person's report. They said that on June 30th, they had attempted to report Kenneth is missing, but that when they called, quote, no one was listening to them. So they requested that an investigator called them back saying that they had additional information and photos from the night that he was last seen, but for whatever reason, the police never called them back. Now, this detail also struck the family as odd, and once again, the story that the boyfriends were

Starting point is 00:23:54 telling, it just was not lining up. Because when someone files a missing person's report, law enforcement is required to take that report. There's no waiting period, and reports are supposed to be documented when a person is believed to be missing. So why wasn't their follow-up and why wasn't there a report? So the family called to find out if another report had in fact been made. And based on the records that the investigators had, there wasn't anything. Which if a report truly was attempted earlier, why wasn't it officially documented at that time? And sure enough, as more news outlets began picking up Kenneth's story, theories started to emerge. And with them, a wave of speculation about what may have happened to him. And there were lots of questions, you know, how does someone

Starting point is 00:24:41 get out of the car on a freeway and then just disappear? Why would he even go there? Why was he even in the area? Why didn't his boyfriends follow him when he tried to run away and, you know, leave? and then all of those questions started taking on a life of their own and turned into something far more sinister. Police began pointing out other cases that were eerily similar to Kenneth's situation. It turns out that there had been several young men who had gone out, you know, for a night of fun, out in the area who were last seen near the bars and the nightlife areas, and then later they were each found dead in waterways in both Houston and in Austin in Lady Bird Lake. different parts of Texas, but within a three-hour drive of one another.

Starting point is 00:25:26 And the circumstances between the cases and what was known about Kenneth's at the time were eerily similar. Which, if you didn't hear that episode, we did cover all of the theories related to Lady Bird Lake in Austin in a previous deep dive. I will link it in the show notes for you. Definitely check that out. But while we're here, I do want to take a quick look at a few of those cases to just understand the bigger picture a little bit better.

Starting point is 00:25:50 The first story that had popped up that was similar to Kenneth's was that of Alejandro Torres. He was a 29-year-old man who went missing in late November 22. He had gone missing after last being seen at a bar on Washington Street in Houston. His truck was found in Buffalo Bayou two days later by a hiker, but his body was nowhere to be found. Then a week after his truck was found, his body was discovered downstream. His death was ruled as an accidental drowning. Less than a year later, it happened again. This time, it was 33-year-old Jonathan Honey.

Starting point is 00:26:26 He was last seen on Rainy Street in April of 2023 in Austin, Texas, and that was when he suddenly disappeared from a taco truck. His body was later found in Lady Bird Lake, and his cause of death ruled an accidental drowning. Then there was Delano Berks, a 26-year-old man who disappeared after a night out in November 2023 in Houston Heights neighborhood, only to have his body found in the Houston Ship Channel about 15 miles away. His cause and manner of death, both ruled as undetermined. So pretty quickly, people started realizing that all of those disappearances sounded pretty similar to Kenneth's. And that's when people started asking a much darker question. Was there somebody targeting these men?

Starting point is 00:27:11 Because a lot of people watching this unfold in real time, I mean, to them it didn't feel random. It felt like a pattern. So a theory started spreading online, a theory about a possible serial killer in Texas who was praying on younger men after having nights out, somehow then ending with them in the water. Now, like I mentioned, some of these deaths were ruled as drownings, but many others were ruled as undetermined.

Starting point is 00:27:36 But now, since Kenneth was still missing, his case started getting pulled into this conversation. Now, part of what was fueling that theory was exactly how many bodies were being recovered, covered in Texas waterways. I know I quickly ran through three cases, but the actual number is incredibly shockingly high. In 2022, there were 20 bodies recovered from Houston's bayous. In 23, that number climbed to 22, and then in 2024, it rose even higher. By the end of the year, 35 people had been found in Houston's waterways. And overall, since 2017, there have been over

Starting point is 00:28:16 200 bodies found in the Houston waterways alone. First tonight, new numbers from the Harris County Medical Examiner's Office, providing the most comprehensive look yet into all of those bodies found along Houston Bayou's. Their report, going back nearly a decade, shows more than 200 bodies recovered, and the deadliest years are this year and last. Yeah, the news you may recall sparked fears and questions about a possible serial killer. Ron Trevino, looking at these newly released numbers tonight. Ron? Len and Mia, at one point this year, seven bodies were found in less than a month. It did have

Starting point is 00:28:51 a lot of people questioning the safety around Bayou's. Well, now the Harris County Medical Examiner's Office has provided numbers going all the way back to 2017. Houston, the Bayou City, we have about 2,500 miles of waterways. And since 2017, more than 200 people were found dead along those Bayeus. Let's look at the numbers from the medical examiner's office showing that the deadliest years on this chart are 2024 and 2025, with 35 cases last year and 31 cases this year so far. When you look at the bayous themselves, the ones with the most cases this year, Buffalo Bayou with 10, Braves Bayou with 7, and White Oak with 3, many cases in the downtown area and east of downtown. And looking at the manner of death, this year, 18 are still ruled undetermined.

Starting point is 00:29:43 Nine accidental. Two suicides, one homicide, and one pending. Now, I will say this. Not all of these bodies found fit the theory of this crazed serial killer targeting the same type of person. Most of the bodies that were found were, yes, men, but not all of them. And the people found weren't always younger either. Some of the bodies that had been recovered were into their 60s. So, it did start to beg the question, was there really a pattern here? Or is this more of a coincidence? Some said that it was obvious, but others weren't so sure. For Kenneth's family, though, this wasn't a pattern or a theory. It was the reality that they were dealing with, because they were still searching, still calling, and still trying to piece together what had happened in those final moments.

Starting point is 00:30:31 Because at that point, they didn't have a bigger theory. They just had one question. Where was Kenneth? And more importantly, could he still be alive? This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. You guys have heard me talk all about BetterHelp for a long time. But one thing that I don't think we've ever really talked about is just how many people genuinely love the service after using it. BetterHelp has an average life therapy session rating of a 4.9 out of five based on more than 1.7 million client session reviews. That's a lot of feedback from people who have actually used it. And you don't have to take my word. word for it. You can actually go to betterhelp.com slash reviews and see what people are saying for yourself. The reviews are updated every day too, so you can see real feedback and decide whether it feels

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Starting point is 00:32:17 the investigators thought that they may need to start searching similar places and some waterways. So while the cops were carrying out their own search for Kenneth, across the city, his family was doing the same thing. His cousin Lauren was sitting with Kenneth's parents, Tiffany and Ken Sr., in a hospital waiting room, just doing what they had been doing for the last three days, checking for John Doe's, asking questions, hoping for anything that may tell them where Kenneth was. And while they were waiting, Kenneth's dad got a phone call. It was the missing persons detective that they had been in contact with, and they were calling with

Starting point is 00:32:52 devastating news. Someone had reported finding a body along an area called the Buffalo Bayou. This was near Sweeney Street in the 5th Ward, which is about a mile away from where Kenneth was last seen. Now, when police arrived and made their way toward the edge of the water, they found what was believed to be the body of Kenneth, though the state of his remains told the officers that he had likely been deceased for days by that point. But he was officially pronounced as dead that day at 4.59 p.m. As police officers worked to secure the scene, they noted a few key details. First of all, when Kenneth was found, he was not fully clothed. He was wearing jeans, a brown belt, and one earring. But he had no shirt,

Starting point is 00:33:37 no shoes, no socks, and the Apple Watch that he had been wearing that night was gone, which raised a lot of questions because that's not how he left, at least not as far as anyone knew. Also, after three days of being in the water, in that kind of heat, his body showed clear signs of decomposition, so he ended up formally being identified through his fingerprints. But the way that they had found Kenneth, it didn't explain how he got there. The area that Kenneth was found in was only about a mile from where he had been last seen getting out of the car on I-10 and Waco Street, which on paper, that really doesn't feel very far, right? But when you think about everything that had happened over the last three days and everything that his family had been trying to do to find

Starting point is 00:34:22 him, it does start to feel a lot different because his family had already searched that exact same area just a few days earlier. So because of that, I mean, the red flags immediately went up for Kenneth's family. They said that there was absolutely no way he went into the bayou on his own, and that for him to even get there, he would have had to walk through a very rough part of town in an area that he had never even been in, in the middle of the night. And it wasn't a straight shot from where he got out of the car to this bayou, so I mean getting there, it would have been incredibly complicated. To them, this wasn't just a case of a drunk man ending up in this unfortunate drowning incident. It was something way worse. But they weren't sure what that was.

Starting point is 00:35:04 With so many unknowns about what had happened in the hours and the days before Kenneth was found, his family decided to request that an autopsy be performed. And when they got the results back, Kenneth's talks report didn't find any drugs in his system. So right away, that removed one of the easiest explanations as to how he could have ended up dead in the water, or why things even escalated to that point. Because if substances were involved, he could have been disoriented, he could have wanted to cool off, there could have been a multitude of reasons, but there were no drugs found in his system. And if substances weren't a part of the explanation, then what was?

Starting point is 00:35:42 Now, when it came to physical trauma, the autopsy didn't note anything definitive either. There were no clear signs of blunt force trauma, no documented evidence of strangulation, no general injuries that immediately pointed investigators toward foul play, and in cases where violence is involved, there are usually indicators. I mean something that suggests a struggle or some show of defensive wounds or force. And in Kenneth's case, there wasn't anything here that clearly established that. And of course, the condition of Kenneth's body, it just made things even more complicated. After three days in the water in 90 to 100 degree heat, decomposition had definitely started setting in,

Starting point is 00:36:23 which means that even if something had happened, there was a possibility that not everything would be visible or identifiable. So for Kenneth's family, that made all of this feel even more unclear. After the autopsy was done, the medical examiner ruled that Kenneth's cause of death and manner of death were undetermined. Now, what that usually means is that there wasn't enough evidence to definitively choose one explanation over another. And without that, the investigation didn't really have a clear direction to follow. So instead of getting those gaps filled in, they just stayed there.

Starting point is 00:36:57 And Kenneth's death was no longer being investigated as any. anything suspicious. That was until his family started looking at things a little more closely than the police did. When Kenneth's family first started reading through the autopsy report, they were, of course, trying to make sense of everything, trying to figure out if they could piece together what had happened. But the more that they read, the more that the details didn't quite seem right. And as they kept reading, they found things that were impossible to ignore. First, the report listed him as being four feet eight inches tall. But Kenneth was 5'3.

Starting point is 00:37:36 It went on to list his weight at 89 pounds, but he was around 120 pounds when he went missing. And not to get too graphic here, but the weight was based on what was left of him, considering the decomposition. But that said, a 30-pound swing is significant. Now, whatever the case, some of the details were still wrong, and there were even more problems that his family had noticed beyond just that. The street where Kenneth was found had also been misspelled. Then Kenneth's family saw something else that really through them. The medical examiner had noted that Kenneth had some sort of, quote, medical hardware in his neck. And the

Starting point is 00:38:17 problem with that was that Kenneth had never had surgery on his neck. In fact, he hadn't had any surgery ever, which I mean, what was going on here? Was it the wrong body? Was it the wrong identification? like what is happening? So not only did this autopsy report not bring any closure to this family, but it left them with even more questions than they had going in. And when you're already dealing with the death that has been ruled undetermined, if those other details are off, it's hard to not wonder what else could be wrong. And that's the question that Kenneth's family started asking. They gave his phone to the police and they asked if they were able to track it. You know, what can you pull? What forensic and digital evidence can you pull off of his device? Because at that point,

Starting point is 00:38:59 the phone could have at least confirmed what his boyfriends had been saying all along, right? Or possibly could show something else that no one even knew yet. But according to Lauren, that's not what happened. So basically what happened was is we turned, the phone was given back to my uncle the morning after he was missing. So the boyfriends gave him his, his cell phone and his wallet, can a cell phone and wallet to his father. The cell phone was then later given to the police when we were pushing for an investigation to be opened. At that time, they went through text messages and they went through emails and social media.

Starting point is 00:39:46 As far as I know, the phone was never tracked, meaning they didn't ping locations or get geolocation data from where the phone traveled to. They just went in and looked at text messages, emails, social media, and things of that nature. Lauren said that the police did go through Kenneth's phone, but not in the way that the family had expected. They looked at emails, text messages, social media, but they didn't pull any location data. They also didn't analyze pings from the phone's signal to map where it had traveled, which means that one of the most critical pieces of evidence was never even fully used. And that wasn't the only thing. The family also asked for additional surveillance footage to be checked, things like Department of Transportation cameras all around the city,

Starting point is 00:40:37 near the freeway, near the area where Kenneth could have passed through, anything that might show where he went after getting out of that car. But according to the family, those requests, they weren't acted on either. And I think it's important to point out here that, surveillance footage is not kept forever. Typically, at some point, it does get overwritten, and when that happens, it's gone forever. So, when a homicide detective finally did get on the case, about eight months later, around March of 2025, after Kenneth's family kept pushing for answers, the response now that they got was, you know, too much time passed. Those videos aren't even available anymore. So feeling like they were hardly getting any help from the police when it came to

Starting point is 00:41:21 Kenneth's death and what happened, his family decided that they were going to take matters into their own hands. They felt like if they were going to get clarity, it was going to have to come from doing their own work. So they shifted their focus to where that night actually began. At Pete's dueling piano bar. Kenneth's family asked the manager for surveillance footage from the night that Kenneth disappeared. And to his credit, he agreed. However, what they were given was extremely limited and it was only from the entrance camera. But even with that, his family was able to get a clearer picture of some of the things that happened that night.

Starting point is 00:41:56 The footage showed Kenneth arriving at the bar at around 8 p.m. And there were no visible issues, no signs that anything was wrong, just a normal start to the night. It even seemed like Kenneth was in a good mood. Then, hours later, the footage showed him leaving at around 11.45 p.m. And at that time, it was very clear that Kenneth was not happy. He was visibly upset. His body language, the way he was moving, the energy around him, something had clearly shifted. And there was also another moment in that footage that really stood out to his family. Because at one point, Kenneth is seen talking to the bouncer and to the bouncer's friends who were two complete strangers to him. Kenneth then asked to use one of their phones. Because remember, at this point, his phone was missing. So they said yes and gave him a phone, which if you've ever lost yours, you know, you'll call it, you'll try to find it, hope. it rings if it's not on silent and like find your phone. So for the next few minutes,

Starting point is 00:42:51 you can see Kenneth standing there at the entrance using that borrowed phone. You can see him making calls over and over and over again, pacing the area in front of the bar, and the family learned that during these few minutes, Kenneth was in fact calling his own phone, trying to figure out where it was, maybe hoping that someone inside the bar would see it lighting up and would pick it up. And then, while he is still there making these calls, one of his boyfriends comes out of the bar and says that he has Kenneth's phone, which immediately this set Kenneth off, whether it was something his boyfriend said or the way he said it, who knows, but Kenneth was clearly angry. So they start arguing. And at one point, Kenneth turns his back to him. And instead of

Starting point is 00:43:34 going back inside, he heads toward the escalator to the lower level, moving very quickly and visibly upset. And as he's going, he's yelling back, back toward his partner just saying, fuck off, fuck off. So my question with that is, did the boyfriend find the phone? Or did he have the phone the entire time? After that part in the footage, Kenneth disappears from view. So now Kenneth's family was left with one obvious question. Where did he go after that? I feel like Salt and Stone is one of those brands where once you start using it, suddenly your basic everyday routine just feels way more elevated. And their deodorant, I've told you, I am obsessed. It smells so good that it genuinely feels more like wearing a fragrance than putting on deodorant. And apparently, I'm not alone,

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Starting point is 00:45:20 Kenneth was found in the fifth ward. And they basically, took the entire investigation into their own hands. The only problem that they were facing was the fact that months had passed at this point. So it's safe to say that the scene where his body was found, it was no longer secured at all. Still though, they ended up doing something that the police hadn't done yet. They ended up going to every single business in the fifth ward and asking employees if there were cameras that had been recording from that night. They wanted to know if Kenneth could have possibly passed through and maybe shown up in their footage. I mean, if he had, obviously it would be hugely helpful for piecing together those last few hours of his life. Sadly, though, no business could offer

Starting point is 00:46:01 them anything. They either didn't have cameras or the footage that they did have had already been written over at that point. So now, with the details that the investigators missed, got wrong or simply didn't look into whatever your opinion is on that, it started to feel like justice for Kenneth may never come. Feeling like they at this point had done everything that they could possibly do to try and solve what had happened to him, Kenneth's family now turned their mission to sharing his story. To them, Kenneth's life was never something that they were willing to let fade into the background, especially when there were still so many questions that didn't have answers. Plus, the explanations that they got from investigators just never really sat right with them. And that belief, it didn't come

Starting point is 00:46:43 out of nowhere. It came from everything that they had seen, everything that didn't add up, and everything that had been overlooked. We 100% think that there was out play involved. And there was actually a point where a homicide detective called me. And I said, so what would you do if this was your family member? And the phone got quiet. I said, so you're telling me, you're, we'll never know what happened to my cousin. And his response was, yes, ma'am, that's what I'm telling you. there's a good chance you'll never know what happened. And that made me sick. So with the hope of getting some closure and keeping Kenneth's name out there, his family began telling his story over and over and over again to anyone who would listen.

Starting point is 00:47:27 They gave interviews, spoke to local news, reached out to some national networks, and they answered the same questions again and again walking through the last night of Kenneth's life, hoping that somewhere in all of that someone would see something and know something. or at the minimum, take a closer look. And eventually, they did finally see some change in the way that Kenneth's case was being looked at. In October of 2025, nearly a year and a half after Kenneth's body was found in the water, the medical examiner admitted that there were, in fact, mistakes made in his autopsy. According to the amended autopsy, Kenneth's height and weight were wrong because of a, quote, error during initial measurement.

Starting point is 00:48:13 But it was more than just typos or wrong measurements, because if you remember, they said that Kenneth had medical hardware in his neck, even though he never had surgery. And as it turns out, that information was from a completely different body. And it was then accidentally put on Kenneth's autopsy report. Yeah, so I had been making phone calls to the medical examiner's office here in Houston. and I made a phone call, I think it was last Friday. Yes, last Friday. And I kind of was firm about it.

Starting point is 00:48:48 I was like, I need to talk to somebody. So finally, the medical examiner himself called back. And I approached the situation and said, hey, I'm trying to make ends meet here. Your report says that he has medical hardware in his neck. And we know 100% that he never had surgery a day in his chest. life. Can you please explain that to me? And he kind of stumbled and he says, you know, I did two autopsies that day. And that was information out of the second body's autopsy. And I said, what? He goes, yeah, it was a mistake. It was just, you know, I accidentally put it in his report.

Starting point is 00:49:30 So I just kind of left it at that at that point. In a statement to the local news agency, the Harris County Institute of Forensic Science said, this was a clerical error that had no impact on the findings or the cause and manner of death. The error occurred during the report editing process after the post-mortem exam was already completed. The pathological findings and conclusions in the report are correct and supported by the forensic pathologist notes, x-rays, and over 50 photographs taken during autopsy. Which you can imagine the frustration here, right? I mean, to Kenneth's family, the medical examiner basically said, oh yeah, that was a mistake. It was information from a body that was done after Kenneth's, and it was accidentally put on Kenneth's report. Our bad, but it's okay,

Starting point is 00:50:16 sorry, like, no big deal. It's not a big deal, which how does that even happen? Like, literally someone died and you're the person responsible for trying to make sense of it and figure out how, and you mix up the charts? Like, it seems like an easy admin situation to me, but, you know, what do I know? Now, Kenneth's family had all right. been outspoken about how they believe this whole case had been mishandled from the jump. And this, it only fueled their fire more. I mean, after all, if the autopsy was wrong, how could they trust anything that the investigator said? For nearly two years now, they have been searching for answers. And while the Houston Police Department says that the case will not be reopened,

Starting point is 00:50:56 Kenneth's family is showing no signs of slowing down anytime soon. They're continuing to follow up with investigators, push on social media, request records, and doing everything they possibly can do to get people to pay attention. And at times, that has not been very easy. They've said that they've struggled to get updates, that communication hasn't always come unless they were the ones reaching out first and hounding for it, and that even getting basic information like the initial autopsy report took repeated requests over the course of months. Yet despite the difficulties, Kenneth's family never stopped. And that's how the justice for Kenneth movement began.

Starting point is 00:51:37 But as much as this started with Kenneth, it didn't end with him. Like I said earlier, in 2024 alone, there were 35 bodies pulled out of waterways in Houston. And through all of this, there's something that Kenneth's cousin, Lauren, keeps coming back to. For her, it's not okay for these people

Starting point is 00:51:55 to just become another headline. If there's one thing that I want people to know, I want them to know that each one of these bodies that are found in Houston byuse, they are all a person. It doesn't matter the race, the sex, it doesn't matter if they're homeless or if they have a family. They are all people. And my cousin included, it doesn't matter that he was gay. It doesn't matter that he was in a polyamorous relationship. All it matters is that he was human.

Starting point is 00:52:23 He was a human being that's life was taken from him way too early. And what I also want people to know is that there are 200 plus families just like my family that are looking for answers of their loved ones here in Houston because their family member or their loved one was found in, you know, a bayou in Houston. And there's no answers. To this day, Kenneth's family is still looking for answers. And they're hopeful that one day they will be able to uncover the truth of what happened to Kenneth. what actually happened that night. But for now, there's still unanswered questions. And I'm curious to know from you guys. That's why I said at the top of this episode, please, please comment, or if you're listening to the audio version, leave a review on Apple and let me know what you think.

Starting point is 00:53:14 What do you think happened here? And do you think someone's responsible? Because here's the truth. I can see it two different ways. One, I can see that he got super drunk that night at the piano bar, that he was maybe being annoying, he was drunk. One of the boyfriends took the phone so that he wouldn't either like drunk dial or do whatever or maybe he had dropped it and Kenneth had dropped it and he had picked it up for him for safekeeping. Then Kenneth, you know, when you're drunk, you're not all super rational. So when he got the phone back, he like yelled, fuck off, fuck off. Leave me alone.

Starting point is 00:53:47 I'm fine. We don't need to go home and like stormed off. And that he was just being drunk and combative and annoying. Then possibly if the boyfriends are telling the truth, once they got in the car, he's still as drunk, he's fighting them, thinking they're the enemy, again, just not being rational and jumps out of the car being like, fuck this, I'm going to walk home or like, I don't want to be around you guys. Then they get home and they're like, we got to break up with this guy, which is kind of weird off, if I'm saying it out loud, like a one-off incident,

Starting point is 00:54:16 but maybe where they're like, we're done with this. It was out of line, uncalled for. Let's throw all of shit in these bags and let's line them up at the front door. Let's wash our hands of him. like, fuck him. We're not going to help with the searches. We're not going to do anything. Possibly. Very cold, yes, but possible. However, because I've been covering true crime for so long, I can also see a flip side to this. And I'm not trying to implicate anybody. I'm just theorizing here. None of this is evidence. None of it has been proven. So don't go for anybody. Form your own opinion. But I could also see a world in which if he was at the bar, drunk and annoying, maybe he lost his phone. Maybe he they took his phone. Maybe they were annoyed with him. Maybe everything still panned out that way. I don't think

Starting point is 00:55:03 they went to the piano bar with any sort of sinister intentions and took his phone so that he couldn't communicate with people, possibly, but I don't know because then they gave it back to him. But once they get out in the car, I could see them being so annoyed that they pull over and say, you're, you know, you're punching at us or you're kicking. Get the fuck out of the car. Get out. Get out. And then not him jumping out, but then pushing him out. Then them going home and being like, we're going to put all of his stuff in bags, whatever. The thing, though, that sticks out to me is that the Apple Watch was missing. I don't think that the shirt being off is really like a big thing for me, not at all, but the Apple Watch, because like, did somebody not want his movements tracked with the Apple Watch? Did they not want to see any phone history? I don't know. There's something within all of it that doesn't feel right. And I'm not trying to say that the boyfriends are directly involved or responsible. But I feel like, there's maybe a nugget of truth that has not been shared. And I think that that lies within how Kenneth got out of the vehicle and what happened in the fifth ward, especially if he wasn't familiar with that area. And then again, to so cold and callously have all of his stuff in

Starting point is 00:56:10 trash bags the next morning, not participate in the search, then when they recovered his body, the Apple Watch not being on there. There's something, and I can't quite pinpoint it, but that feels like it isn't full, the details are not fully being, you know, I don't want to be shared, but like, I don't think people have fully been transparent. That's what I mean. Because think about it too. I get that people get pissed off and they argue and they fight and they break up. But if somebody who you were with and loved went missing and you don't even participate in

Starting point is 00:56:43 the searches, and if you're throwing all their stuff in a bag before they're, which maybe you thought like he'd come home in the morning. hungover, remorseful, and you're like, your shit's on the curb, get out, we're done. Fine. But then when you realize, oh, no, he actually is missing, to not even participate in the searches, there's just something, some sort of distance that's being created with the story and with those actions that I personally don't love. And look, that's not to say they're involved. Maybe they're not. Maybe they're great guys. And this was just Kenneth being drunk and belligerent and unfortunately an accident, but there's something weird I cannot pinpoint on my own about this.

Starting point is 00:57:23 And that's why I want to know what you guys think. So again, let me know in the comment section if you're watching this on YouTube or in the review section on Apple, do you think that this was accidental? Or do you think that there's more to the story? Thank you for tuning into another episode of Serialously. I will be back with you on Thursday with headline highlights, breaking down everything happening this week in the true crime world. Until then, be nice. Don't kill people. Don't leave anyone abandoned on the side of the road. And, oh, yeah, and not to say, like, hey, they didn't even file a missing person's report, right?

Starting point is 00:57:55 Like, yeah. So file missing persons report if somebody goes missing. Okay. All right. Bye. There's no shortcut for saving time. But saving money is simple. Just combine your car and home insurance with Bel Air Direct and save.

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Serialously with Annie Elise - 426: He Jumped From a Car, Then Vanished. Is There a Serial Killer in Houston? | Kenneth Cutting Jr.

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