Bowling Green State Student Dies After Alleged Hazing Incident

BOWLING GREEN, OH — A 20-year-old student at Bowling Green State University died Sunday after what the university called an "alleged hazing activity."

Stone Foltz was attempting to join the campus chapter of Pi Kappa Alpha on Thursday when, according to family attorney Sean Alto, he was given a “copious amount of alcohol” and subsequently fell ill.

Members of the fraternity dropped Foltz off at his apartment, where his roommates later found him sometime early Friday and called 911, Alto told The Columbus Dispatch. He was admitted to a local hospital, where he was placed on life support.

An official cause of death has not been determined, and Foltz’s family said his organs will be donated.

Alto said in a statement Monday the “Foltz family will eventually know the truth” of what exactly happened to their son as investigators begin to interview witnesses and gather facts to obtain a fuller picture of that night.

“No family is ever prepared to say goodbye, especially under these circumstances,” he said. “The Foltz family has been heartened by the outpouring of support, and we ask everyone to keep showing respect and consideration in their time of grief.”

Foltz, a native of Delaware, Ohio, was a sophomore at the university's Allen W. and Carol M. Schmidthorst College of Business, according Bowling Green State spokesman Alex Solis. The campus was in mourning over Foltz’s death, he said in a statement.

“Those who knew Stone remember him as a kind, selfless person with a great sense of humor,” Solis said. “The University mourns his tragic loss and shares in his family and friends’ sorrow.”

In response to the incident, the university placed the fraternity on interim suspension for “alleged hazing activity,” the university said. As part of the suspension, Pi Kappa Alpha is prohibited from holding any on- and off-campus events and will not be allowed to bring in new members.

The suspension also resulted in the removal of the fraternity’s letters from its off-campus housing, as it is currently not a recognized student organization, Solis said.

The national office of Pi Kappa Alpha said the fraternity has a zero-tolerance policy toward any kind of hazing and that it was heartbroken over Foltz's death.

“We refuse to defend or condone any behavior that creates dangerous environments or situations for our members or the larger campus community at any of our 200+ chapters in the United States and abroad,” the office said in a statement.

The fraternity said it will move to permanently suspend the Bowling Green State chapter and expel all of its members from the organization as more facts come to light about Foltz’s death.