Travis County DA Queries Google for Info on UT Frat Death

As part of their ongoing investigations in the death of UT fraternity pledge Tyler Cross, who died last November after falling from a fifth story balcony at the University Towers, authorities are taking their search to the internets.

The Travis County District Attorney's office recently filed a search warrant demanding access to the Google Group archives of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fall 2006 pledge class. In the affidavit, as described by KVUE News, investigators interrogated several fraternity initiates, who enumerated the two cardinal rules of pledging:

The warrant also includes eyewitness accounts from the night that Cross died, indicating that the 18-year-old had been "assaulted, cattle-prodded, and became very intoxicated due to the alcohol the active members supplied to him."

The lists even more hazing antics pursued by the "brothers" of Sigma Alpha Epsilon, such as forcing pledges to exercise, making them eat cat food, or spanking them with bamboo sticks. The whole account reads like the meeting notes from a men's kink enthusiast club; there's probably a reason for that.

Cross had a blood alcohol level of 0.19 when he met his untimely demise—almost two and a half times the legal driving limit for adults in Texas. Despite this and the existing testimony, the district attorney's office is waiting to see what turns up in the Google Group archives before deciding whether or not to press charges. The University of Texas is also pursuing its own investigation.

Photo by lambdachialpha on flickr