The charging documents in the Penn State fraternity hazing death case paint a detailed picture of 19-year-old Timothy Piazza’s last hours. Read them above.
UPDATE: On September 1, a judge “threw out involuntary manslaughter and felony aggravated assault counts against members of a Penn State fraternity in a pledge’s alcohol hazing-related death, ordering 12 of the defendants to stand trial on lesser counts,” ABC reported, adding, “District Justice Allen Sinclair dismissed charges altogether against four of the members of the now-shuttered Beta Theta Pi fraternity.” Read more here.
The teenager, a college student at Penn State, was severely intoxicated and bleeding internally after repeated falls, including down a basement staircase, yet no one got him help for hours, the 81-page document alleges. It says the grand jury utilized extensive video surveillance footage to document what happened that night in February 2017.
Eighteen members of the Penn State fraternity are accused of various criminal charges stemming from the death of the pledge who was ultimately found unconscious in the now-closed frat house basement after running a “gauntlet” of drinking stations and repeatedly falling.
Piazza, a sophomore, was found dead on February 3 at the Beta Theta Pi fraternity house.
However, that doesn’t begin to describe what happened to Piazza, known as Tim to friends. The 81-page charging document, which you can read in full above, describes a sequence of events in which a severely intoxicated Piazza – who had run a gauntlet of beer, wine and other alcoholic stations – falls down the basement stairs. Authorities accuse various fraternity brothers of not getting Piazza help, throwing liquid on him, physically landing on him, and growing angry when one of them suggests calling for help.
Timothy Piazza. (Facebook)
The documents describe Piazza stumbling through the house and repeatedly falling, with no one getting him help, before being found the next morning lying near death behind a basement bar. Even then, it took more than 40 minutes to call 911, the charging documents allege.
On May 5, prosecutors in Pennsylvania announced they had lodged charges against 18 fraternity members and the frat house itself.
Piazza’s father, Jim, called the college student’s death a “senseless and very preventable tragedy” in a press conference. He called Timothy’s death the “result of a feeling of entitlement and flagrant disregard” for the law, according to the Morning Call.
According to ABC News, Piazza “died after falling down stairs at the frat house during a pledge ceremony,” prosecutors allege.
When police arrived, they found the college student at the bottom of the staircase unconscious. Fraternity members said “Piazza fell down the basement stairs while intoxicated the night before,” reports ABC. He had an exceptionally high blood-alcohol level of possibly up to .36, according to New 12.
News 12 reports that authorities say Piazza “had toxic levels of alcohol in his body and was badly injured in a series of falls.”
Here’s how the complaint details the sequence of events leading up to Piazza’s injuries:
Piazza, severely intoxicated after a pledge ritual, staggered drunkenly toward the basement steps. A brother heard someone fall. He made his way to the top of the basement stairwell and say Piazza lying on his stomach “face down at the bottom of the steps.”
He wrote fellow fraternity brothers, “Also Tim Piazza might actually be a problem. He fell 15 feet down a flight of stairs, hair first, going to need help.”
Another brother saw Piazza lying “torso face down, legs were on the stairs that go down before the turn.” Four Beta brothers carried Piazza upstairs. His body appeared limp, his eyes were closed and his demeanor was unconscious based on his lack of movement. He had a bruise on his abdomen.
The Beta brothers placed him on a couch and sat next to him. One rubbed his sternum, and another dumped liquid on his face, but he didn’t respond. A brother lifted Piazza’s arm, and it appeared limp. They didn’t get help.
Kordel Davis was a brother who tried to intervene. According to the charging documents, he testified that Timothy looked horrible with a bruise on his chest and his eyes shut. He was thrashing and making weird movements. Davis became concerned for Timothy’s life. He stressed to some of the other brothers that Timothy needed to go to the hospital since he could have a concussion and screamed at them to get help and call 911 immediately.
However, one of the brothers is accused of shoving Davis into a wall and telling him to leave. Davis then confronted the club’s vice president, who allegedly told him he was crazy.
A brother slapped Piazza three times in the face, the documents allege, and another brother landed on him after being tackled, while Piazza was vomiting and twitching on the couch. At one point, Piazza rolled onto the floor and was “slammed” back into the couch and struck in the abdomen.
Piazza then fell again – hitting his head on the hardwood, staggering and falling head first into an iron railing and stone floor, and falling head first into a door. At one point, brothers walked around him and left him there. A pledge took a video on Snapchat.
18 frat members, fraternity charged in Penn State student’s death t.co/BN1C5DfyjG
He once more staggered toward the basement steps. In the morning, they found him behind the bar in the basement, lying on his back with his arms clenched tight and hands in the air. They placed him back on the couch but did not immediately call 911, the charging document alleges. Instead, a brother is accused of searching on the Internet for terms like “cold extremities in drunk person” and “falling asleep after head injury.”
Finally, a brother called 911. The documents allege that, in a text message, a brother instructed another to “make sure the pledges clean the basement and get rid of any evidence of alcohol” and Internet group messages were deleted.
At the hospital, a surgeon opened Piazza’s abdominal cavity and discovered four liters, 80% of a human body’s total blood supply, of dark old blood in his abdomen. His spleen had shattered and was removed.
He had a brain hematoma and skull fracture. A doctor said that moving him around and jostling him intensified his spleen laceration and that his blood alcohol content was between .28 and .36. He died at the hospital; his death was the result of traumatic brain injuries from the falls.
Prosecutors say the fraternity, which was supposed to be a “dry house,” instead was awash in drinking and pledging rituals. “The Penn State Greek community nurtured an environment so permissive of excessive drinking and hazing that it emboldened its members to repeatedly act with reckless disregard to human life. It was not a result of isolated conduct or simple mistake,” the charging documents alleges.
In the week leading up to Timothy Piazza’s death, “one Beta brother bought nearly $1,180 worth of alcohol, including Four Loko and Crown Russe vodka, prosecutors said,” according to NBC.
The fraternity members were scheduled to be in court on May 5 for an arraignment, according to NBC News. According to News 12, a grand jury saw security footage from the now closed Beta Theta Pi chapter house and “found that his friends failed to get help for 19-year-old Timothy Piazza before his death in February. The grand jury said their actions in some cases may have worsened his injuries.”
About 40 fraternity members lived in the house, and almost half of them are now facing criminal charges.
Read more about Timothy Piazza here: