LIVE OAK, Texas — A body was found in an underground drainage tunnel in Live Oak on Sunday morning, Live Oak Police said.
They received a call at 10:30 a.m. Sunday morning for a deceased person found at 12400 block of Judson Road.
Officers arrived on the scene and upon walking through an underground tunnel discovered a deceased male, according to the release.
No other information was provided on identification by police. However, family members on scene believed the body belongs to Keith Hammond.
Rex Hammond said a family friend found the body of his younger brother about 80 yards from where police found his girlfriend Laura Cavazos Briseno dead last month.
On Sept. 19, Briseno's body was also found in a drainage ditch across from a hospital at Judson and Toepperwein Road. Rex said the couple was last seen alive visiting his mother at a nearby hospital, and believed they later entered the ditch.
"We think they came down here [to the tunnel] to do some drugs," said Rex Hammond.
Family members said the couple were drug users and speculate they overdosed inside the ditch. However, they aren't sure how officers overlooked Keith's body back when they found Briseno's.
Officers determined he was on the run and named him a person of interest of Briseno's death.
However, Rex said a lingering odor coming from the tunnel led him to believe his brother's body still may be inside. Rex said he and two other family members asked the detective assigned to the case to return to the tunnel three different times.
"Live Oak [police] said they were going to follow up on it and obviously didn't," Hammond said.
He called the police department's investigation frustrating, but the assistant chief told KENS 5 they followed every lead so far in the case.
We also followed up with Briseno's daughter Asya Stokes after she learned a body had been found. The 18-year-old said she was shocked to find out her mother's boyfriend had been found near where her mother died.
She apologized for initially blaming him for her mother's death.
"We all blamed him for it and now I feel really bad about that," Stokes said.
Stokes admitted her mother struggled with drugs but she doesn't believe her mother died from a drug overdose speculated by the Hammond family.
"I think they got into trouble with someone and it ended badly," she said.
Previously, police told KENS 5 the autopsy for Briseno had been completed, but they do not have a manner or cause of death yet.
Both families are seeking answers, but for now, Rex's anger lies with the police on behalf of his brother.
"He wasn't the best person around but he didn't deserve to lie in a ditch for a month just because the police don't want to come and look," he said.
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