Tarrant County family questions daughter's 2022 suicide ruling, pushes for new investigation

More than four years have passed since Isabella Nicole Gonzales died inside a Fort Worth apartment.

Four years of grief. Four years of questions.

And for Jesse and Billie Gonzales, four years of wondering whether the official finding in their daughter's death tells the whole story.

Bella, as everyone called her, was 23 years old, and five days after her 24th birthday, she died on May 20, 2022. The Tarrant County Medical Examiner's Office ruled her death a suicide.

Her parents aren't satisfied. They believe evidence of alleged intimate partner violence, Bella's private journal entries, and what they view as unanswered questions surrounding the investigation deserve another look.

They wonder whether their daughter could have been the victim of a hidden homicide concealed as a suicide.

Fort Worth Police and Tarrant County death investigators have made no official finding that Bella was killed, and CBS News Texas has found no evidence that police have named or treated the man who lived with her as a suspect in her death.

That distinction matters, as do the questions her family says remain unanswered.

"She was joy"

Before Bella became a case number, her parents say she was a showstopper in dance, gymnastics, and cheerleading.

"She came alive, like on stage," Billie Gonzales remembered. "She came alive on the field and just looked — she was joy."

Her father remembers the smile and the red lipstick.

"Everybody knew who she was just from her smile and her red lips," Jesse Gonzales said. "On the UNT football field, she would light up that whole field."

Bella graduated from the University of North Texas in Denton. As she approached her 24th birthday, however, her family says her life had changed.

She was in a new relationship following the end of a five-year relationship, her parents said.

Billie said she felt uneasy when she met the new man.

"I immediately had like, this is not a good guy," she recalled.

The man had previously served prison time following a drug conviction. CBS News Texas is withholding his name and full image because he has not been introduced as a criminal component to her death by the authorities. But Bella's parents want to ensure they have a say, too.

Her parents say they watched their daughter's relationship with her family change.

"He isolated her pretty much from the family," Billie said.

"And he pretty much had control," Jesse added. "He did the divide-and-conquer thing."

Those are the family's descriptions and allegations. So far, it's a background story Billie uses at speaking engagements, but it has no mileage in court.

Five days before her birthday, a devastating call

The Gonzales family celebrated Bella's birthday early on May 15, 2022.

Her parents remember something else from that day: Bella looked thinner. They also noticed bruises, which they say she attributed to her job as a cheer coach.

Five days after Bella's birthday, Billie and Jesse were putting together a playlist for a friend's wedding when the call came.

"We get that call at 10:30 at night that tells us that our daughter is gone," Billie said.

Bella's brother Sam remembers little about the drive to the apartment complex where his sister lived. He and his wife lived upstairs in the same complex.

"I remember mom saying she's not coming home," Sam said. "And I literally just collapsed because she was my best friend."

Medical examiner ruled Bella's death a suicide

According to the Tarrant County Medical Examiner's Office autopsy report reviewed by CBS News Texas, Bella died from a gunshot wound to the head, and her manner of death was ruled a suicide.

The report says toxicology testing detected methamphetamine, amphetamine, fentanyl, and cocaine in her system. It also references despondent notes found at the scene, a reported history of depression, and Bella as a suspected victim of intimate partner violence.

Investigators concluded Bella used a gun her father had given her for protection to end her life.

Her mother said investigators asked almost immediately whether Bella had previously shown suicidal tendencies.

"Absolutely not," Billie said she told them. "Not until this person came into her life."

The Gonzaleses say their doubts aren't based on one thing.

They point to the bruising they saw on Bella. They question aspects of the scene and accounts of what happened. And then there is something intensely personal that they say provided a window into their daughter's final days:

Bella's journal.

"I get so afraid when I hear him wake up"

Billie said Bella's writings described fear inside her own home.

According to her mother, Bella had begun sleeping in a closet. Billie says investigators found a blanket she crocheted for Bella in middle school, along with a pillow, water bottles, and a phone charger.

"She had been sleeping in her closet," Billie said.

Billie says one journal entry read, "I get so afraid when I hear him wake up."

Another entry, she says, described Bella trying to run from the man she lived with. Billie says Bella wrote about being slammed into a wall and door jamb and repeatedly punched in the leg.

The allegations described in Bella's journal have not been adjudicated in court, and CBS News Texas is not independently asserting that those alleged assaults occurred. Her autopsy did reveal bruising on her leg.

But for Bella's parents, the writings transformed their grief into questions.

If their daughter was afraid in her own apartment, they want to know whether investigators fully considered what that fear might mean when reconstructing her death.

Fort Worth police: Investigators "consider all possibilities"

CBS News Texas asked Fort Worth police for an interview with the detective who handled Bella's case.

After multiple requests, the department provided a statement saying in part:

"As with all deaths investigated by the Fort Worth Police Department Homicide Unit, investigators approach the circumstances thoroughly and consider all possibilities, including whether the death may be the result of a homicide."

The Gonzalezes contend that didn't happen thoroughly enough in their daughter's case.

Emails provided by Billie Gonzales show she began pressing investigators with questions within weeks of Bella's death.

In a July 2022 email, the detective assigned to the case told Billie he had reviewed information from Bella's phone and found several messages she sent to the man she lived with, saying she was going to take her own life, including messages dated May 18, May 19, and May 20.

Billie responded by directing the detective back to Bella's journal.

"Bella was tortured and abused verbally, mentally, psychologically, and physically," she wrote. "She even wrote that she feared for her life. Not ONE time did she ever mention taking her life in those journal notes."

The two sets of writings — the messages cited by police and the journal emphasized by Bella's mother — are part of the tension at the center of this case.

One points investigators toward suicide.

The other, her family says, raises questions about alleged abuse and fear surrounding Bella before her death.

Family says accounts of Bella's final moments changed

Billie and Jesse also question what they describe as different versions of the events immediately preceding Bella's death.

Billie says the medical examiner's office told her that Bella returned home from work while the man she lived with searched online for a job.

She says a second account given to her by homicide detectives placed Bella on the floor while he was at a computer.

Billie says yet another version from a 911 call places her daughter in a closet when the shooting occurred.

CBS News Texas has not independently established why those accounts differ or whether investigators considered any differences material to their conclusion.

When asked what she believes happened, Billie acknowledged there are things she does not know.

"She walked in on something," she said. "I don't know what that is."

The family has hired outside experts to review the case. Billie says a forensic expert working with them has raised questions about crime-scene evidence, including bloodstain patterns near the bed, and has suggested the possibility that another person could have been present.

Those are the family's experts' theories. They have not resulted in a new official determination of Bella's manner of death.

CBS News Texas contacted the man who lived with Bella, seeking his account of their relationship and what happened the night she died. A woman who identified herself as his mother took a message and said, "Bella's dead, right? So there's no story?"

Parents ask Fort Worth Police Chief Eddie Garcia for another look

The Gonzalezes aren't simply living with their questions.

They're documenting them.

Billie sent an email to Fort Worth Police Chief Eddie Garcia describing what the family believes were "investigative failures" in the handling of Bella's death.

The case predates Garcia's tenure as Fort Worth police chief, but Bella's parents hope new leadership will bring new scrutiny.

They aren't asking investigators to manufacture an outcome, they say.

They want the evidence reviewed again — wherever it leads.

Every day, Jesse and Billie see Bella's affirmations written on a chalkboard in their kitchen.

They are words from a daughter who is no longer there and reminders of why her parents say they aren't ready to stop asking questions.

Their question is painful but straightforward:

Was Bella's death investigated as deeply as it should have been?

Suicide in Texas and North Texas

Bella's death comes against a broader and sobering public-health backdrop.

The latest final data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show 4,490 people died by suicide in Texas in 2024, producing an age-adjusted suicide mortality rate of 14.2 deaths per 100,000 people.

Nationally, 48,824 people died by suicide in 2024, with an age-adjusted rate of 13.7 per 100,000. Suicide was the nation's 10th-leading cause of death that year and the second-leading cause of death among people ages 10 to 44.

North Texas data show the impact close to home.

Tarrant County Public Health reports 322 Tarrant County residents died by suicide in 2024, with an age-adjusted rate of 14.4 deaths per 100,000. Dallas County's rate was 11.7 per 100,000 that year. Tarrant County health officials say suicide mortality among county residents was significantly higher among men and non-Hispanic White residents.

They also report that firearms were the most common mechanism in fatal suicides across demographic groups during 2022 through 2024.

Those statistics provide context for the prevalence of suicide. They do not resolve what happened to Bella Gonzales.

The medical examiner's conclusion remains suicide.

Her parents' questions remain, too.

And now, an effort involving someone who once worked inside the Fort Worth Police Department could give the Gonzalezes something they've wanted for more than four years: Another set of trained eyes.

Michelle Morgan, executive vice president and director of the Family Justice Center at One Safe Place, says cases involving intimate partner violence can require investigators to recognize evidence that may not initially appear significant.

"I don't think it's an intentional misclassification," Morgan said. "I think it's just one of those things that you don't know what you don't know, and we've got to do a better job of investigating."

Morgan has been training for an effort to examine cases like Bella's.

Bella Gonzales will be the first.

CBS News Texas will continue investigating her case.

If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health crisis or considering suicide, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. Help is available 24 hours a day.