HOUSTON — The body of a missing man was found in Buffalo Bayou on Monday. His family members were told on Wednesday, a day after KHOU 11 reported on his disappearance.
Houston police said they're not investigating his death, for now. They're waiting for the medical examiner to determine Kenneth Cutting's cause of death.
Cutting's parents had been worried since their 22-year-old son went missing after a night out with his roommates last Friday. His father said he got a text from his son's roommates saying he had too much to drink that night. They told him Cutting jumped out of their car along I-10 east near Waco Street in the Fifth Ward.
Cutting and his roommates lived in the Barker-Cypress area. The roommates weren't there when KHOU 11 reporter Matt Dougherty went by to talk to them on Wednesday. They also didn't respond to calls or text messages.
The last known images of Cutting, according to his parents, were in a video taken by himself with his roommates at Pete's Dueling Piano Bar downtown late Friday night into Saturday morning.
"I can tell you right now my son's not out partying. He doesn't know anybody. He's not a street-wise kid. He's always had a place to live. He's never been out on the street, never disappeared," his father, Kenneth Cutting Sr., said in an interview with Dougherty on Tuesday.
Here's Dougherty's report:
As it turned out, Cutting's father was right.
On Monday, Houston police said they recovered a body from Buffalo Bayou along Swiney Street, which is just north of the bayou and south of the intersection of US-69 and I-10, about a mile-and-a-half from where the roommates said Cutting hopped out of their car.
At least two of Cutting's family members told KHOU 11 News they had been notified by the medical examiner's office that it was Cutting's body. Police also confirmed it was his body that was found.
Dougherty spoke with Cutting's father on Wednesday. He said none of what he's been told is adding up.
"He was the biggest thing in my life," Kenneth Cutting Sr. said. "I only have one son and I didn't have him until I was 45 years old, and yeah, I'm past the point of being upset."
He was one of the family members who got the call on Wednesday that his son's body had been found.
"When I got that telephone call, I dropped to my knees and screamed," he said.
The circumstances surrounding Kenneth Cutting's death don't add up with his mother, either.
"There's no way that my son's in a bayou and he threw himself in there," Tiffani Bruno said.
The parents are hoping to find out what happened to their son.