Penn State Fraternity Forced Pledges To 'Elephant Walk', Which Is Way More Disgusting Than It Sounds

The Penn State frat story just got a whole lot frattier.

It turns out that the pledges involved on the night of Timothy Piazza’s death may have been forced to do an elephant walk. If you don’t know what that is, keep reading…

In case you missed it, Piazza died during a pledge event for Beta Theta Pi fraternity a few months ago. His BAC was roughly 5 times the legal limit, then he cracked his skull and ruptured his spleen by falling down some stairs, which eventually killed him. While all this happened months ago, the story’s back in the news recently since a grand jury has decided to press criminal charges against at least 18 of the frat brothers involved in the death.

Through the course of that investigation, certain pieces of evidence have come to light—including the other boys in the house were tampering with evidence and there was an obscene amount of liquor bought for the supposedly “dry” house. But the investigation has also released some text conversations from the former President of the house (who’s being charged with no less than 50 criminal counts of hazing, dating back to 2016) and one of them references an elephant walk.

That refers to a form of hazing where pledges are forced to line up and hold the penis of the person next to them, then march around for an extended period of time.

Text messages from December show a conversation between the President of the frat (Young, in the transcription below) and another member, where they seem to be discussing the possibility of forcing pledges to perform this ritual:

While the fraternity members involved in the death of Piazza are already facing more than enough charges—more than 850 so far—this latest detail just adds to the sense that something was very, very wrong in that house.