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10 days later, mystery surrounds student's death

Posted at 10:09 PM, Sep 16, 2015
and last updated 2015-09-16 22:09:17-04

It has been 10 days since Bruce Kevin Rivera’s body was pulled from the Hillsborough River and family members still are waiting to learn how Rivera was killed and if anyone will face charges in his death.

“We are here to pray we are here to ask for justice,” Esther Vazquez said.  

Vazquez said there were three people with her grandson the night he died and she believes they had something to do with it.

“We know who did, we need to take those people from the street away from families,” Vazquez said.  

ABC Action News spoke with Rivera's father as well. He tells us Rivera was supposed to be running an errand on Saturday night, but never returned home.
 
"He was supposed to go to the store to get two 2-liter sodas and he never showed up back again," Jayson Rivera-Vazquez said.
 
Instead, three of Rivera's friends pulled up to the apartment complex where Rivera lived driving Bruce's car. His father says he was sitting outside when he saw the car pull up. Both he and his son's fiance asked the people who were in the car where Bruce Rivera was.
 
"He (the driver) said he didn't know, he wouldn't answer us," Rivera-Vazquez said.
 
"(The driver said) 'We were with him, we lost him, the car showed up here, now you need to go find him,'" Rivera's fiance, Kristina Costilow added.

“It hurts, he ended up here when his future was so bright he had so much to offer the world and it angers me that nothing is being done,” Dalia Rivera said.  Dalia is Rivera’s aunt.  She said Tampa Police have not been giving them updates on the case.

“Something is going to need to be done and soon,” Rivera said.  “At least call us and let us know what is the update. We are not detectives we can only do so much. We don't want to get in the way of their work but we don't know what they are doing.”

Family members said Rivera was a kind person who always helped others.  Dalia Rivera believes that is one reason why her nephew lost his life the weekend of Sept. 5.

“He just didn't see the bad in people and that was where his mistake was trusting people he should not have been trusting,” Rivera said.