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 .
We ...rehashed old times, talked about our kids....
Yeah, these evil fraternities should be banned.
In hoc, Carling! Sigma Chi here, too, though I'm way past the 30 mark!
I went through two different Sigma Chi chapters - Florida State and Georgia Southern - and never, repeat, never saw any of this kind of shenanigans!
We had a big time, but by and large, most of us turned out OK. I had lunch just today with one of my alumnus brothers. Oh, he's one of several of us who ended up in the ministry. Go figure!
I think they had a moral obligation to look out for him but I don't see any legal obligation beyond rendering aid once you understand he is in trouble (I imagine the rest of the group wasn't particularly sober either).
FWIW, I dont reflexively think much of frat boys either but have known some decent ones.
Man, half our chapter was "un-cool" guys. We had long haired hippie types, dope-smoking rockers, khaki-wearing sterotypical guys. Our criteria was simply "cool".
So your answer is no.
College was fun, OC. I'm sorry you missed it.
You bet!
No regrets here.
Wrong question. If you found one of your twin sons (clothes on, by the way) with obscenities scrawled on his body and the other dead without any obscenities on his body, which would you be most upset about?
OC - check your private messages - Is this OC JOW?
They had no reason to think he would die period.
Nope never touched the stuff. < /sarcasm>
You have a point. And in the military, they are in the presence of older males who keep them in line. They learn a lot from that.
Too many young men, now, have been raised in fatherless families and are lost souls, full of aggression and lacking in willpower.
I could not have said it better. The upper classmen tell the pledges that they are "brothers". They convey a false sense of security only to be secretly considered "new meat".
You seem a little bitter towards college grads in general but especially toward fraternity men.
Don't let your own unhappiness cloud your judgement.
No one in my family ever graduated from college. I determined to change that starting with my family. Our three sons are on their way. The oldest enters law school in about 18 months. While none are in fraternities, they understand if they want to join they pay their own way. We discourage being a 'joiner' to anything, save a good church.
Naaaaa..... Buying your friends is an old custom that goes back to the stone ages.
Frats should not be banned, but this has to be some form of crime. Maybe a form of manslaughter.
I'm not a tee-totaller, but we've had too many generations of people laughing off bing-drinking while thousands of young people die in car wrecks or idiocy like this.
No, they didn't want to kill him. But this kind of reckless behavior shouldn't be tolerated. Let's wake up and stop it.
-- Joe
Well, I respectfully disagree.
I agree that there were problems with Bonfire but the analogy I was making was that people are responsible for their own actions and, even knowing that there are dangers involved in certain activities, people should be free to assume those risks.
Nobody FORCED him to drink that much, he chose to. I would be surprised if the other pledges in the group drank as much as he did.
I do understand that it is a tragedy, but the person primarily responsible for preventing it was the victim.
I wonder where the "Lets sue em!" and "That should be banned!" mentality leads us. There are risks in life and I for one am willing to accept those risks.
Wimpy, spineless whining atheists, blech.
Yeah, there are a couple deaths every year. There are also deaths from being struck by lightning, having windows fall out of high rise buildings, from riding snowmobiles, from owning dogs, from leaving children in cars in the summer, from any number of things.
What you bleeding hearts don't seem to understand is that life is a risk. Unless you are cowering in a cave wearing a hardhat and wrapped up in a mattress you are a hypocrite.
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