As District Attorney Stacy Parks Miller announced charges against Beta Theta Pi fraternity and 18 of the members of its former Penn State chapter related to the death of student Timothy Piazza, she was joined by Piazza’s parents, Jim and Evelyn.
Timothy Piazza, 19, of Lebanon, N.J., died after falling down the steps at the fraternity house the night of Feb. 2 during a bid acceptance party that prosecutors say involved hazing and massive amounts of alcohol, and members allegedly waited until it was too late to call for medical help.
Jim Piazza spoke on behalf of the family, remembering his son, expressing their grief and saying they are committed to seeing meaningful change in fraternities and sororities.
His remarks follow:
In August, we dropped off our two sons here at Penn State University to further their collegiate experience. Today we are only going to be bringing one of them home because of a senseless and very preventable tragedy that happened on the campus of Penn State and caused us to bury our son three months ago.
We’re devastated by the loss of our son. Tim was an incredible young man and an excellent student who had a very bright and promising future ahead of him. He was an awesome son, brother, boyfriend and friend. We’re going to miss him terribly.
He wanted nothing more than to make people laugh and to be a good friend. Many of the people he touched in his life, in his high school days and in his college days, that visited with us over the past three months have told us he may have been the nicest person they have ever met and that he was just an outstanding person. He just wanted to make people laugh and to be a good friend.
Sadly we’re never going to see his smile again, except in pictures I suppose.
I said this before: This didn’t have to happen. This is the result of a feeling of entitlement, flagrant disobedience of the law, and disregard of moral values that was then exacerbated by egregious acts of selfish preservation. Again, this did not have to happen. No parent should have to go through this.
We’d like to thank the State College Police Department, District Attorney Stacy Parks Miller and her office for doing a detailed and thorough job with this investigation and for swiftly moving to bring those that watched Tim’s death to justice.
Most importantly, we’d like to thank our family, our friends and our co-workers for their incredible support for the past three months and the months and years to come. We’re going to need it. We’re blessed to have you and we could not be standing here today without you lifting us up.
We are committed to making meaningful and impactful changes to Greek life, to the extent that there will be ongoing Greek life, at Penn State and hopefully throughout the country in honor of our son and are committed to doing everything we can to ensure no other parents will have to go through the pain and grief we are currently experiencing. Again, no parent should have to go through this.
