Gay slurs scrawled on frat pledge’s body

updated 3:49 p.m. ET Jan. 10, 2007

HOUSTON - The body of an 18-year-old fraternity pledge who died of alcohol poisoning was defaced with numerous anti-gay epithets and obscene drawings, according to a medical examiner's report.

Phanta "Jack" Phoummarath, a freshman at the University of Texas at Austin, died after ingesting large amounts of alcohol at a pledge party at Lambda Phi Epsilon house in December 2005, authorities said. Phoummarrath's body was found the day after.

A grand jury indicted three members of the fraternity last month on hazing charges following a yearlong investigation into Phoummarath's death.

The Travis County medical examiner's office reported that partygoers used green and black markers to write "FAG," "I'm gay" and "I AM FAT" on Phoummarath's head, face, torso, legs and feet. Someone also added drawings depicting naked men and women and blackened his toenails.

"It was disgusting and despicable behavior," Houston attorney Randy Sorrels, who is representing Phoummarath's family, said Tuesday. "This would be the juvenile behavior you might see in junior high or high school, but not college."

Sorrels said Phoummarath was not gay. He said the drawings and epithets were a juvenile prank, and that it had not yet been determined how long before Phoumarrath's death the actions took place.

His family alleges in a lawsuit against the fraternity that pledges were pressured to drink at the party and that someone wrote vulgar graffiti on Phoummarath's body after he passed out. The medical examiner ruled that Phoummarath died of acute alcohol poisoning.

MORE FROM EDUCATION

Education Section Front

Proposal to merge black schools draws fire Swimmers, poets among 2010 Rhodes Scholars Campus atheists come out of the closet Activists: Big disparities in gifted education Education Section Front   Add Education headlines to your news reader: