Hubby held in nursing student slay

Kin seek justice in Cornell frat party tragedy

Police have arrested the estranged husband of a Long Island nursing student who was found strangled in her home, authorities said.

Michael Owen, 27, of St. James, was charged Tuesday with second-degree murder in the death of 27-year-old Kelly Owen, Nassau County police said.

Kelly Owen was found dead by her parents on Jan. 15 in the South Farmingdale home they shared.

She was last seen alive that morning when she got her 6year-old daughter ready for school. Owen’s father then took the young girl to school, authorities said.

Kelly Owen helped with after-school programs around 3 p.m., police said. But her parents returned home around 3:30 p.m. and found her car still there. They soon discovered her body in her bedroom.

The medical examiner determined she had been strangled. There was no sign of a break-in.

Hazing hijinks at a “Christmas in October” frat party led to the death of a Cornell University freshman whose body was later found at the bottom of a gorge near the upstate New York campus, according to a new lawsuit.

First-year student Antonio Tsialas went missing for two days last October following an unauthorized event at the Phi Kappa Psi house in Ithaca on Oct. 24. When officials recovered his body at the bottom of a gorge at Fall Creek near Ithaca Falls, campus police said no foul play was suspected.

But a lawsuit filed by the 18 year old’s parents revealed new details about the hours leading up to Tsialas’ death, including a frat house set up with seven different

Christmas-themed drinking rooms that left many players “black out drunk.”

Many were vomiting and lost all memory of what they did next or how they eventually got back to their rooms, the lawsuit said.

“Tsialas was one of the unwitting victims of Phi Kappa Psi’s ‘Christmas in October’ tradition,” the lawsuit said.

“He had no idea what he was getting himself into and had been hand-picked to attend the event because of the promise he demonstrated as a potential Phi Kappa Psi member.

“Sometime after the drinking games ended, Antonio Tsialas was allowed to leave the fraternity house intoxicated or was taken from the fraternity house while intoxicated with no efforts by any of the defendants to stop him or get him safely back to his dormitory,” the lawsuit added.

To compound the matter, not a single defendant in the case has “come forward to tell Antonio’s parents about the circumstances of their son’s departure from the fraternity house that night and none have provided any information about where he went afterwards.”

John Tsialas, the student’s father, expressed his frustration over the lack of information.

“We have patiently waited for three months for answers about what happened to our son and no one will tell us anything,” John Tsialas said Wednesday in a statement.

“The fraternity members will not talk to us, Phi Kappa Psi fraternity has not reached out or tried to help us in any way and the Cornell University police department will not let us see any part of their investigation. As a result, we have had to hire our own investigators, offer a $10,000 reward for information and file this lawsuit to hold those responsible for the events of that night accountable.”

An autopsy confirmed that Tsialas was intoxicated at the time of his death and had sustained multiple injuries to his body. The student’s wallet and keys were with him but his phone was missing.