Texas State student shot, killed through wall while sleeping; convicted shooter receives 90 days sentence

SAN MARCOS, Texas - A family is fighting for a Hays County judge to review the sentencing for the man who killed their son. Texas State student Austin Salyer was negligently shot by his neighbor through a wall.

Austin Salyer was a junior at Texas State University. He was studying criminal justice and military science. He had just signed a contract with the Army in September 2021.

"Austin texted me at 8:53 p.m. and said, 'I'm going to bed,' you know, ‘good night, sweet dreams. I love you.’ And I said, ‘ok, I love you too.’ And then I waited about three minutes and I said, ‘keep making us proud’ and that was the last text I got from him," Bonnie Salyer, Austin’s mom, said.

His mom said he was supposed to be up at 4:30 a.m. the next morning for his first road march with his new platoon. At around 6 a.m., Bonnie checked Austin’s location.

"I saw that his phone was still inside his apartment, and I thought, ‘oh my gosh, he overslept.’ And so I started calling him, I started pinging him," Bonnie Salyer said.

An hour and a half later, she still hadn’t heard from him.

Texas State student Austin Salyer was negligently shot by his neighbor through a wall. He had just signed a contract with the Army in September 2021.

"I thought maybe he just was in a hurry, he left his phone, which I knew in my heart that wasn't true because nobody leaves their phone behind, right, it's become part of our, literally part of our bodies. And so about 7:30 I kind of started to panic, panic started to set in," Bonnie Salyer said.

At around 11:15 a.m., Bonnie texted one of Austin’s friends.

"I can't get a hold of Austin, and I'd like to know if you can please go knock on his door, see if you can wake him up. He was all on it. He was like, oh, yeah, I'll go scare him," Bonnie Salyer said.

Instead, the friend saw Fire and EMS on the fifth floor, the floor Austin Salyer stayed on.

"A police officer called and said, you know, what's your son's full name? What's his date of birth? And then he said, I'm sorry to tell you over the phone, but we found your son deceased in his apartment this morning," Bonnie Salyer said.

Austin was shot through the wall while he was lying in bed.

Austin Salyer was a junior at Texas State University. He was studying criminal justice and military science. 

"It just terrifies us to think how long he might have laid their suffering with his neighbor next door and not getting any help for him," Rodney Salyer, Austin’s father, said.

Gabriel Brown, Austin’s neighbor, claimed at around midnight, he accidentally fired his gun while modifying it and talking on the phone with his father. He turned himself in but wasn’t arrested. Brown was indicted on criminally negligent homicide. His bond was set at $3,000.

"As a victim, you're so handcuffed and disadvantaged compared to what the criminal has available to them for loopholes. They get to control things, they get to hire whatever, defense attorney they want, whereas the victim is stuck with whatever judge, whatever prosecutor, whatever. You don't have any control over that at all. They don't have to provide any information back to you, but anything you provide has to be provided to them. It is so lopsided against the victim to be able to get any kind of justice," Rodney Salyer said.

The Salyers weren’t happy with the charges being presented.

"Everything gets diluted. You have to start up here just so by the time everything's diluted, there's some sort of punishment. In our case, they're starting down at the bottom. They're literally starting at the lowest felony that they could possibly start with," Rodney Salyer said.

Brown pleaded guilty to criminal negligent homicide. He was originally sentenced to 180 days in jail, and he’d report to jail for 18 days during Austin’s birthday and another 18 days on the date of the shooting for five years. Not even a month later, the sentence was changed to 90 days.

Gabriel Brown, Austin’s neighbor, claimed at around midnight, he accidentally fired his gun while modifying it. He turned himself in, but wasn’t arrested. Brown was indicted on criminally negligent homicide.

"We were like, how can that be? We weren't involved, nobody's told us anything about this. Well, the change to 90 days is this, the document was correctly typed up with 18 days. Someone scratched it out and wrote in nine. No, no initials. No, nothing," Rodney Salyer said. "If we didn't follow up with him, it would have just gone behind the scenes."

The Salyers said they asked for a hearing to review the sentencing change, but it was denied.

While Brown spends 90 days in jail, the Salyers are left with just memories.