The parents of a Chico State University student who died during an alleged hazing ritual are suing the Chico fraternity and its former national affiliate.
Attorneys for Michael Carrington and Debbie Smith - parents of Matthew Carrington - filed a wrongful death suit Thursday at Butte County Superior Court.
Matthew Carrington died in the early morning hours of Feb. 2 in the basement of Chi Tau's West Fourth Street fraternity house. It's there where his body succumbed to the effects of an initiation rite that involved exercising heavily and drinking copious water - a practice known as "water torture."
The lawsuit alleges the ritual is a decades-old tradition in the Delta Alpha chapter of Delta Sigma Phi - a national organization that pulled its charter from the Chico fraternity three years ago for alcohol violations.
The Delta Alpha chapter also lost its university affiliation but changed its name to Chi Tau and continued to operate as a rogue fraternity.
..........
Chico Enterprise Record - Local
News and opinion for all the SigEp brotherhood. SigEp's "unofficial" blog.
