you are watching Marquesas entire life was about service and then his own
nature to just lift others such a physically beautiful child such a
spiritually and emotionally decent person never changed until the friend in
the fall of 2013 18 year old Queens native Marquis Bram went off to study
biomedical engineering at Penn State University's Altoona campus his family
says he was a healthy happy young man eager to tackle the next chapter of his
life he was taking 18 credits he was studying to be an RA and he was also the
dorm leader so I was like you know you have enough young man it's like you know
then he came yeah but the frat is the only fun thing that I'll be doing when
he joined were there any concerned about him going through that process you know
we knew the OG he'll do some sort of like stupid rituals but nothing that we
thought would could be life-threatening the family says photographs and text
messages on Marquesas phone later revealed exactly what it meant to be
hazed by the Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity six months of things like having a gun
point in someone's head having to drink and filled two garbage pails of vomit
having to kill and then gut and skin squirrel have you engaged in
in fights where you're knocking out your brothers your brother's his phone is
speaking to us from the grave when was the last time you talked to your son
Marquis and I were out we just um
finished our lunch his last words for me it was llama I'll
be right back I still can't believe is this happening
marques Bram jumped 10 stories to his death on March 14 2014 sending his
grieving parents into a haze of confusion marques had jumped off of a
hotel roof what happened it didn't make any sense was it still it makes more
sense to us now an internal investigation done by Penn State later
revealed that a week before his suicide several high-ranking employees knew that
Marquis and another pledge were being hazed and the Marquis was in
psychological distress because of it we had suffered this entire family has
suffered because of Penn State what Penn State knew and what they didn't do
because Penn State is looking for their own interest not the interests of my
family not the interests of my children we're all suffering to this day
wondering what could have made this happen and they knew it was hazing Penn
State's internal investigation had been kept confidential by a judge's order
they did that to keep it from us in it how evil is that
how evil must you be to do something like that to let us suffer when you know
what's going on you know what the causes you knew when he was alive that is evil
what they've done to Penn State told CNN that it has offered support to the brain
family on numerous occasions and in a statement said it disputes the family's
characterization of these matters and cannot comment further because of
pending litigation when you went to go clean his dorm room you found things we
found a couple bottles a couple alcoholic bottles and they had numbers
on them and they had some names on them you have the pictures but what happened
to the bottle Penn State threw them out a member of their legal team sent a
letter back and said that those are bottles were discarded and I'm like
discarded they had pledged names and numbers on them discarded in this
statement Penn State told CNN any claim that the university somehow interfered
and law enforcement investigation of this matter is patently false
with the evidence found on Marquesas cell phone and by talking to family and
friends the brains say they piece together what they think happened
they say they learned Marquis told his hometown priest he had been marked by
his fraternity and in the months leading up to his suicide his family says he was
texting his Penn State Resident Assistant I feel like I've done so much
that it can't get any worse but it always does lol yes it will get worse
I'm sorry to say hahaha but it will we were allowed to fall asleep last night
but I was too scared I think I have a concussion and I didn't want to fall
into a coma later that day she responded stay strong little buddy you are almost
done and you've been so strong days before his death marquis who by
this time was now a brother expected to be involved in hazing new pledges sent
this to his RA I just never thought I would get to the point where I need
counselling she replied I'm worried as eff about you according to court
documents the RA reported to her supervisor that she believes Marquis was
in psychological crisis and the supervisor sent the information up to
chain he was looking for Brotherhood for friendship memories marques had memories
and he hated them he hated those memories so much he felt he had to die
for what he had done which is why he jumped off of the roof of a hotel so he
wouldn't have to go back to school the next day and I'm sure there were things
that he was doing that he knew were just wrong that's why Marquis is dead today
he died of a guilty conscience he could not continue doing what he was doing
Marquis left two suicide notes saying in one of them in all honesty I saw this
coming since I was a child so I apologize to those of you who are
surprised by this a grand jury determined there was no link between the
fraternity pledging process and branes death and that evidence points to a
young man who had been contemplating suicide for a very long time what was
your reaction to that
that's why this keeps happening that was my reaction to it because no one takes
it seriously it's against the law in the state of Pennsylvania to hate in the
report the grand jury report they acknowledge that Marquis had been paved
the brothers admitted that they hazed him but the Attorney General's Office
said but we're not going to do anything we're not going to prosecute that the
pennsylvania state attorney general's office did not respond to a request by
CNN for comment Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity told CNN that it too believes
there is no link between the pledging process and Marquesas death but added
that the hazing activities if true are in direct violation of the fraternity
standards and expectations the suit enters court the same summer that
Marquis would have graduated from college a new grand jury led by a
different prosecution team is now looking into a cultural problem at Penn
State fraternities and we'll take a second look at the Bram case Sara Ganim
CNN New York