Teen's Death After Brick Party Under Investigation

BRICK, NJ — The family of an Ohio teenager is searching for answers after their son was taken to an emergency room following a party and died Friday.

Austin Siler, 19, was pronounced dead at Ocean Medical Center, Brick, at 8:21 a.m. on Friday after friends brought him to the emergency room, said Al Della Fave, spokesman for the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office. Della Fave said hospital staff attempted life-saving procedures but they were unsuccessful.

The determination on cause of death is pending a final report from the medical examiner's office that is awaiting full toxicology results, Della Fave said.

Brick Township police, who were called by hospital staff, the Ocean County Sheriff's Department and Detective John Carroll from the prosecutor's office are investigating, Della Fave said.

"There is no evidence to suggest that the decedent’s death is connected to any criminal activity," Della Fave said.

Jenny Siler said her son was in Brick, where the family had lived for nine years, visiting friends and family and to attend the funeral of George Reilly, who had been one of Austin's football coaches. Reilly, who had coached in both Brick and Lacey, died July 29, according to his obituary on the Layton Home for Funerals website.

Austin Siler had arrived in New Jersey last Tuesday, Jenny Siler said. "He was supposed to come home today." Now friends are helping to raise funds for the family to transport his body home through a GoFundMe campaign. As of Tuesday afternoon it had raised $6,500.

But at 8:33 a.m. Friday she got the phone call informing her that her son had died.

In the days since, Jenny Siler said, she has been able to piece together some of what happened Thursday night from conversations with Austin's friends and social media postings.

Jenny said she last spoke to her son Thursday evening while he was having dinner with friends at TGI Friday's.

"I said, 'I love you, behave yourself,' " she told her son before they hung up the phone. Later that evening, he attended a party held at a friend's home, Jenny Siler said. How many people were present was unknown.

"He got there about midnight," she said, and said she has been told Austin was intoxicated and throwing up about 3 a.m. Friends took him to the hospital at 8 a.m., she said.

"You trust your kid with someone and think they'll be safe," she said, anger tinging her words.

Della Fave could not confirm or comment on any of the information Jenny Siler said she had been given.

Jenny Siler said she has been told it will be at least 6 to 8 weeks before the final report on Austin's death is released.

"He was a good kid," Jenny Siler said. "He had his friends' backs and stood up for them always. He was never disrespectful and listened to his coaches," and even received the Coaches Award from the football staff at Fairmont High School, where he was the center on the football team.

Austin was born in the Dayton, Ohio, area, where her husband, Shane, is from, and started playing football at age 5 for the Kettering Firebirds, Jenny said. When the family moved to Brick in 2006, he continued to play youth football and then played on the freshman team at Brick Township High School before the family moved back to Kettering, Ohio, when Austin and his twin sister, Taylor, were high school sophomores. Austin and Taylor graduated from Fairmont High School in June; Jenny and Shane also have a younger son, Andrew, 16, she said.

Austin, who wore No. 53, was headed to the police academy in two weeks to pursue a career in law enforcement, Jenny said.

"He wanted to get into drug enforcement," she said. He had seen the impact of the heroin crisis and wanted to help fight it and help people who are addicted. "He really wanted to start saving people's lives and get heroin addicts off the street."

She said she has taken some comfort from the outpouring of support from Austin's friends and former Brick teammates who have sent messages and called her to tell her what he meant to them.

A GoFundme campaign established to help with the expenses of bringing Austin's body back to Ohio had raised $6,500 of its $10,000 goal as of Tuesday afternoon. Jenny Siler said she had hoped to have a service of some kind in New Jersey as well as back home in Ohio but it was cost-prohibitive in New Jersey.

She urges anyone with information from social media to contact Brick police or Carroll at the prosecutor's office with the information.

"You always had a smile and the cutest laughter that lit up a room," Jenny Siler wrote in a post on Facebook. "I miss you so much."

If you would like to contribute to the GoFundme campaign, click here.

Editor's note: An earlier version of this article had the names of Austin Siler's father and younger brother swapped. That has been corrected.

Austin Siler photo via GoFundMe