USA TODAY International Edition
Report details how fraternity pledge died
Penn State students are accused of failing to help him after fall
STATE COLLEGE, PA. Through grand jury testimony, police questioning and a review of Beta Theta Pi’s complex video surveillance system, authorities have put together a harrowing narrative of the last hours of the life of Penn State student Timothy Piazza.
The fraternity pledge died more than a day after falling 15 feet down basement stairs during a hazing ritual, authorities say.
Eighteen fraternity members have been charged; eight of them face manslaughter charges.
The grand jury report released Friday also details Piazza’s medical condition and a doctor’s conclusion that he had consumed “a life- threatening amount of alcohol.”
A doctor calculated that Piazza’s blood- alcohol content at the time he fell was between 0.28 percent and 0.36 percent, roughly four times the legal limit for driving.
The report also said doctors concluded Piazza suffered from “multiple traumatic brain injuries,” including a fractured skull and a lacerated spleen. Eighty percent of his blood supply was in his abdominal cavity.
At 9: 21 p. m. Feb. 2, the fraternity’s video surveillance system captured Piazza wearing khakis, a button- down shirt and a sports jacket, the required uniform for pledges to Beta Theta Pi. He was about to run “the gauntlet,” one of the fraternity’s initiation rituals. The cameras recorded Piazza drinking vodka and beer and, an hour later, needing help to walk from an area near the basement stairs to a couch, staggering and hunched over.
He’s later seen trying unsuccessfully to open the front door and then “severely staggering drunkenly toward the basement steps” about 10: 45 p. m., the grand jury report said.
He was found at the bottom of the steps after apparently falling face- first. Four fraternity brothers carried his limp body back upstairs, where some poured liquid on him and another slapped him three times in the face, the grand jury said.
At another point, one fraterni- ty brother tackled another, landing on top of Piazza.
One time, when Piazza rolled off a couch, three brothers picked him up and “slammed him” back on the couch, according to the grand jury report.
Fraternity members put a backpack containing textbooks on him so he would not suffocate on his own vomit, the jury wrote.
When a fraternity brother insisted Piazza needed medical help, he was confronted and shoved into a wall, the report said. Later he was told that others were biology and kinesiology majors, so his opinion wasn’t as valuable as theirs, the jury said.
Piazza tried to get up about 3: 20 a. m. but fell backward and hit his head on the wood floor, the report said. He fell onto a stone floor at 5 a. m. Fifteen minutes later, a fraternity member went downstairs for a drink of water. He stepped over Piazza before returning upstairs.
A little later, another brother went downstairs for a drink of water and walked Piazza to another room. But Piazza fell down three steps, and the fraternity brother stepped over him and left him there.
Another pledge testified before the grand jury that he woke up about 7 a. m. and saw Piazza on a couch. He heard Piazza groaning, and eventually he saw Piazza roll off the couch and land on the floor. The pledge took a video of Piazza on the floor and posted it on Snapchat.
Other fraternity brothers discovered Piazza in the basement about 10 a. m.
“Timothy was lying on his back with his arms clenched tight at his sides and his hands in the air,” jurors wrote. “His chest was bare, his breathing heavy and he had blood on his face.” He felt cold to the touch, his skin was pale, and his eyes were half- open, according to the grand jury report.
During the next 42 minutes, fraternity brothers shook him, tried to prop him up, covered him with a blanket, wiped his face and tried to dress him but were unsuccessful “due to the stiffness of Timothy’s body.”
Piazza was pronounced dead at 1: 20 a. m. Feb. 4 at Hershey Medical Center.