“They took him into a room and five members of the fraternity
attacked him. They punched and kicked him. I asked if he ever got the
urge to swing back and he said, `We can’t.’ He said he had been kicked
in the head.”
This recollection comes from Felicia Taylor, the former girlfriend
of Michael Davis who died in February of 1994 after being beaten to
death while pledging Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity at Southeast Missouri
State University.
The day after this conversation, Davis collapsed after submitting
to another beating at the hands of his fraternity brothers. Had they
called an ambulance, he probably would have survived. Instead, they
stopped to get some food at a Taco Bell directly across the street from
a hospital, then drove the unconscious boy home and put him to bed. At
1:30 in the afternoon his roommate, another pledge, saw green foam
coming from Michael’s mouth. After finally calling 911, the fraternity
brothers lied to the rescue workers by telling them that Michael had
been injured playing football. After the police and ambulance left they
tried to remove all fraternity-related evidence of the hazing from the
apartment.
However, when the coroner removed Michael’s clothing during the
autopsy, he found a small red spiral notebook hidden in Michael’s
underwear — a notebook Michael had on him the moment he died which
contained the unintentially ironic notation, “Hazing is the physical
conditioning of the mind.”
According to the office of the prosecuting attorney, Davis had
“broken ribs, a lacerated kidney, a lacerated liver, and bruises all
over his chest, neck, back and arms. He died from internal bleeding in
his brain.”
Four other pledges were badly bruised and sore from the continual
beatings they had received over the week before Davis died. These
included being hit with books and beaten on the soles of their feet
with a cane. As a result, sixteen defendants were charged with hazing.
Seven fraternity brothers also either pled guilty to or were convicted
of involuntary manslaughter. Most of the seven served short jail
sentences.
Although the criminal cases were concluded in 1994, the Davis
family’s civil suit was not resolved until recently when Kappa Alpha
Psi agreed to pay $1.4 million dollars to settle the suit against the
national organization and its officers. Members and faculty advisors of
the local chapter where Davis pledged had previously settled for
$850,000.
