Family and friends described Lynn "Gordie" Bailey
as a talented athlete but not a big drinker.
Posted on 10/08/2004 2:46:06 PM PDT by O.C. - Old Cracker
As the whiskey and wine he drank during a fraternity initiation began to kill Gordie Bailey, some of his fraternity brothers wrote racial, misogynist and sexual vulgarities all over his body as he lay passed out in the Chi Psi library.
Family and friends described Lynn "Gordie" Bailey
as a talented athlete but not a big drinker.
On the morning of Sept. 17, when it became apparent that the 18-year-old was not breathing, someone tried to wipe off the slurs written on his face. The University of Colorado at Boulder freshman was soon pronounced dead, and at the coroner's office, more markings were found on his arms, legs and body.
The phrases, which Bailey's father said he learned from the coroner, included "It sucks to be you," "Penis ankle" (written on his ankle) and "(Expletive) me." There were also drawings of male genitalia.
"Bitch" was written on the fingers of his right hand. Other phrases included an offensive six-letter racial slur.
"This reinforces the nearly unbearable pain of the whole thing," said Lynn Gordon Bailey Sr., 68, Bailey's father. "Was he dying while they were writing that?"
Local fraternity members declined to comment. Boulder police said the case remains under investigation.
Gordie Bailey's parents, who are divorced and each remarried, shared the responsibility of raising him and now are united in their desire to see reforms instituted after his death.
"This is not about binge drinking; it's about hazing at fraternities," said Michael Lanahan, 58, Gordie Bailey's stepfather. "How lucky is Chi Psi that 26 pledges survived?"
Donald Beeson, risk-management administrator for Chi Psi national, said Thursday that he had heard only that there were drawings on Bailey's face, not elsewhere on his body.
"No parent should have to deal with losing a son to a senseless accident like this," he said, adding that he understood why Lanahan would be upset over the "degrading and demeaning" comments.
On the evening of Sept. 16, Gordie Bailey and 26 other Chi Psi pledges were blindfolded and left in the woods near Gold Hill. They were told to drink vast amounts of Ten High whiskey and Carlo Rossi wine, according to police.
By the time the pledges were driven back to the Boulder fraternity house, police said, Bailey was "sick and visibly intoxicated."
By 11 p.m., fraternity members carried him to a couch and gave him a metal bucket.
Since he was passed out with his shoes on, tradition called for other fraternity members to draw on Bailey with a felt-tipped marker.
About 1 a.m., a pledge saw two fraternity members writing all over his body, according to the search warrant. Bailey never woke up during the process. The pledge "repeatedly told the members to stop writing on (Bailey). The members got angry with (the pledge) for telling them to stop."
Finally, the pledge asked another fraternity member for help, and the writing ceased.
Shortly before 9 a.m., Bailey was found face down on the floor next to the couch and could not be revived. An autopsy shows that he died from alcohol poisoning with a blood-alcohol level of 0.328 percent.
Lynn Bailey, his father, said the coroner told him that there was no sign of asphyxiation and that the alcohol had created a massive depressant that shut down his son's central nervous system.
Since that night, several fraternity members have refused to talk to police, and many have hired lawyers.
So has Gordie Bailey's family, who called the writing on the teenager "appalling" and says it depicts the fraternity members' irresponsible mind-set.
"To do something like that exposes those young men for what they are - thoughtless and perverse," said attorney David Berg of Berg & Androphy, a Houston-based firm.
The family has not yet decided whom to name in their suit, Berg said, but are considering the fraternity, the individuals involved and the university.
"We still don't see leadership from the university," said Lanahan, Bailey's stepfather. "They have not proposed any change in the system - but the system is killing our kids."
Officials at CU have been meeting with Greek officials since Bailey's death, and they have pledged to combat a culture of drinking. Meanwhile, Chi Psi's charter at CU has been revoked, although officials haven't ruled out its return.
"We ... are continuing to work with the fraternity and sorority leaders to assess all aspects of Greek life, including the role of alcohol in social activities," CU spokeswoman Pauline Hale said in a release Wednesday.
Beeson said Wednesday that the fraternity's investigation determined that the drinking trip to the woods was not an initiation ritual, as police have called it. Beeson said it was an "initial function" for the pledges.
Lanahan said he hopes the fraternity will release the results of its investigation into his son's death. So far, Chi Psi has said it will not release the records.
"If these things remain secret," Lanahan said, "then Gordie's death meant nothing at all."
Amy Herdy can be reached at 303-820-1752 or aherdy@denverpost.com . George Merritt can be reached at 303-820-1367 or gmerritt@denverpost.com .
Which one were you in?
DISCIPLINE. DEDICATION. DETERMINATION.
Learn it. Love it. Live it.
Kappa Alpha Psi, proudly making achievers in every field of human endeavor since 1911.
Yeah, I'm older now. But I still have that Nupe Pride.
Yeah, the official concern will last until the end of the semester. The old alumns will see to it that this gets handled quietly and that the good ol' frat life goes on. But not for this kid and his family.
One of the SGT's in my Army Reserve unit was a KAP. He was a hard-core soldier too.
Exactly right.
I have drawn on any number of my fraternity members. It was always best to draw on them then wake em up and take them out to the bars without telling them about the drawing. LOL
All these indignant do-gooders don't have a friggin clue and I'm sure they be pushed over the edge if they knew what we did during hell week.
The fact is, the guy ingested the alcohol voluntarily, they drew on him without knowing the seriousness of his condition.
I'm sorry for the family but there are dangers to most behaviors and the drawings had nothing to do with it. Get over yourselves already.
Yeah, I lean more your way. Probably many of these kids, being the naive fools they are, think they are under the safe watch of their "brothers" and nothing bad will happen. Reputation runs both ways and you would think one of the older members would "supervise" the pledges to be sure things did not get out of hand.
"Didn't get in did ya?"
Clearly wasn't even considered.
On a lighter note:
Once we infiltrated the fraternity house next door and left a turd in a Chilis to-go box in their refrigerator.
"What? Mine was not like that at all. It was ten weeks of hell.
At the end, let's just say that your feet literally burned as you crossed "the burning sands." "
Mine wasn't like that either. Don't even ask how we had to carry an olive and the consequences if we dropped it.
That bears watching over time and depends on what you call success. I'm sorry, I hate exclusive, snobby little cliques that have to disignate the "who's who and what's what and who's got what" crowd as somehow better than the man who picks up your garbage. I can tell you, I'd miss the man who picks up the garbage in this country a whale of a lot more than the likes of Edwards and his fraternity of ambulance chasers who have caused my (and your) health insurance to increase to gargantuan proportions.
Having said that, it's a free country. Free to value and try to join clubs, and free not to value and not to join such groups. There's good and bad in anything, and I'm sure some do worthwhile projects over the years.
Negative. Greek letter societies were founded as discussion societies. (You may have heard of the first one, Phi Beta Kappa.) Mine was founded to prevent hazing in a military school -- a bunch of students decided they knew what was best for the underclassmen and decided to enforce it, administration be damned. And it was founded long before the drinking age was set at 21.
All their "good works" could be covered in a 30-min meeting each month at the student union.
Again, negative. Depending on the university's requirements, Greek orgs may do hundreds or thousands of man-hours of community service. Real community service, walking door to door collecting food, building houses, that kind of stuff. That's not counting what fraternities do internally to better their members, or the benefits of a well-maintained house and active social program that non-members can freely benefit from.
Greek houses are there to allow kids to do stuff they be arrested for in a dorm or apartment.
Nope. Greek orgs have a complex set of rules to contend with -- federal, state, and municipal laws, university housing and Greek policies, national and local by-laws. They also pay extremely high insurance rates, so the vast majority tend to obey these rules. As opposed to college dorms, in which you can get away with anything as long as it doesn't personally bother the RA, and apartments, where anything goes as long as it doesn't bother a neighbor. (The real freaks are always in the dorms in my experience.) Living in a house also may be cheaper than university housing, more conducive than studying, and provides a better "home" than some low-rent apartment or dormitory cubicle.
Eventually, they'll be sued out of existence...
When that happens, they'll just go local, underground, and escape the oversight of the university. It's been done before, successfully, for years at a time.
It is to bad this thread went the direction of discussing Frats and all. This thread is about ALCOHOL!
Drinking TO MUCH is What killed this dear man. Not Frats, not college. DRINKING TO MUCH KILLED HIM.
You all go hang out and watch someone go through detox after drinking all their lives. Go hang out at an AA meeting and listen to all the stories about all the ruined lives from alcohol. Some folks start and cannot stop. It is not a joke. It kills them.
Forget the stupid frat discussion.
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