Members of Beta Theta Pi returned to court Monday, facing charges in the death of fraternity pledge Timothy Piazza.
At Monday’s continuation of the preliminary hearing for Beta Theta Pi, attorneys presented a variety of things, including: text messages between fraternity members, and made reference to surveillance video. Also, for the first time, they shared the 911 call the brothers made on behalf of Piazza.
Prosecutors focused on individual charges against each brother. Two have already submitted early waivers, so 16 were in court Monday.
Centre County District Attorney Stacy Parks Miller presented more text messages highlighting social events for the fraternity, which showed how brothers were asked to purchase large quantities of alcohol. Parks Miller also showed messages sent after Piazza died, and said that one group of messages illustrates collaboration between the brothers to delete a group chat app. One sent from Daniel Casey, the pledge master, read “end that Group Me so there’s no evidence on Tim’s phone.”
The 911 call timestamps show Ryan McCann made the call more than 40 minutes after Piazza was discovered that morning. McCann told the responder that Piazza was unconscious, but doesn’t mention injuries or that he had fallen during the night.
Defense attorneys said the content provided by the commonwealth doesn’t truly depict every aspect leading up to, or the events following the death of Timothy Piazza.
“We’re in a bit of a tough spot because we don’t have the right to discovery yet, which would include the entire 12 hours of the video,” William Brennan, attorney for Joseph Ems, said. “And there’s the fear on the defense part that the prosecution may have cherry picked the portions that are allegedly harmful.”
A representative for each fraternity member has the chance for cross examination. The hearing continues Tuesday, July 11, at 8:30 a.m.