Senior Associate Athletics Director Billy Pickard came to work Tuesday morning at Kyle Field to make a shocking discovery: blood spatters on the tunnel wall of Kyle Field. Pickard quickly called the University Police Department (UPD) and, after a search of the building, they found junior civil engineering major Bryan Heiner unconscious and bleeding in a bathroom stall, surrounded by blood-soaked paper towels.
The investigation into the events surrounding Tuesday morning is ongoing.
“We talked to him and everyone (Heiner) associated with that night,” said UPD Director Bob Wiatt.
The timeline assembled by UPD so far reveals that Heiner spent several hours at Northgate Monday night and into Tuesday morning. According to friends, several hours after midnight, Heiner discovered his credit card was missing and became upset. He was last seen by his friends leaving his dorm room in Crocker Hall.
“We’re assuming at this time that the northwest ramp gate was left open and that (Heiner) entered through there. Lots of people have access to that gate and it could have been left open,” Pickard said.
Heiner has no memory of what happened to him that morning or how he got the head wound that put him in the hospital. He told police that he may have fought with several people, but was not sure, according to the police report.
Investigators have concluded that because of the pattern of blood splatters found in the tunnel, it is more likely that Heiner fell and hit his head.
After spending the rest of the week with his family in Beaumont, Heiner returned to campus for classes on Monday, Wiatt said.
Heiner declined to comment.