FORT COLLINS, Colo. – A 19-year-old college student drank up to 40 beers or shots of liquor in an 11-hour period before she was found dead in a fraternity house, investigators said Friday.
Samantha Spady (search) had a blood-alcohol level of 0.436 percent — above the 0.4 percent considered potentially deadly — when her body was found Sept. 6 at the Sigma Pi fraternity (search) house at Colorado State University (search), Deputy Coroner Dean Beers said.
Spady drank the equivalent of 30 to 40 12-ounce beers or 1-ounce shots of liquor, Beers said, but her death was ruled an accident and there was no evidence of foul play. Spady was found fully clothed, and her body had not been moved.
Spady began drinking with companions at 6 p.m. on Sept. 5 and did not stop until about 5 a.m. the next day. Investigators said Spady and her friends started with beer but later switched to vodka.
Spady's body was found in a lounge of the fraternity house by a fraternity member giving a tour the evening of Sept. 6. Beers said Spady probably died about midmorning that day.
On Wednesday, police cited 19 men and women for underage drinking or buying alcohol for minors, and the university shut down the fraternity's chapter at the campus because of Spady's death and other alcohol violations.
None of the 19 faces charges directly related to Spady's death because she drank at parties where alcohol was available to anyone, police spokeswoman Rita Davis said.
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