The Party Never Ends

Summary

Campus Files: "The Party Never Ends" – A Detailed Summary

Released on March 19, 2025

Introduction

In the episode titled "The Party Never Ends," Campus Files, hosted by Margo Gray and produced by Audacy, delves deep into the hidden underbelly of fraternity life at the College of Charleston. This episode uncovers a multilayered drug operation orchestrated by fraternity members, exploring its origins, execution, and the broader cultural implications within American Greek life.

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The Allure of Endless Parties

The episode opens with Max Marshall discussing the pervasive fraternity culture, epitomized by the belief that "the party never ends" (00:38). This ethos persists regardless of the consequences—arrests, tragedies, or personal losses. Marshall remarks, “No matter who gets arrested, no matter who dies, no matter what happens, there will be a party the next weekend.”

The Surge of Xanax in College Campuses

Max Marshall, an investigative journalist with a history of reporting for esteemed publications like The New York Times and Esquire, shifts focus to the rampant use of Xanax among college students. Initially conceived as an anti-anxiety medication, Xanax has evolved into a popular recreational drug among the younger generation.

Marshall notes, “It's an anti-anxiety tranquilizer designed for panic attacks... but it had this huge demand as a party drug” (02:12). The pill's accessibility and potent effects have made it a staple at fraternity parties, often mixed with alcohol to amplify intoxication levels.

Tracing the Origin: The Dark Web Connection

The investigation begins with Marshall's curiosity about the illicit sources of Xanax on campuses. Contrary to legitimate pharmaceutical distribution, much of the Xanax encountered lacked proper labeling and appeared suspiciously counterfeit.

Marshall elaborates, “When I was in college, a lot of the Xanax that I saw wasn't coming from Pfizer, wasn't coming from pharmacies” (03:22). His research leads him to discover that the Xanax supply is largely fueled by the Dark Web—a clandestine online marketplace facilitating the illegal trade of drugs.

Through the Dark Web, members of fraternities at the College of Charleston ordered alprazolam powder from laboratories in Southern China. This illicit powder was then smuggled into the United States hidden within innocuous items like printer cartridges and Skittles bags (07:08).

Operational Mechanics: From Powder to Pill

The transformation of raw alprazolam into marketable Xanax pills took place in secluded beach houses near Charleston. Utilizing industrial pill presses acquired via the Dark Web, fraternity members mass-produced Xanax pills, occasionally varying their potency. This process was carried out with extreme caution, as Marshall describes, “[They] would wear hazmat suits because these machines kick up so much alprazolam dust” (08:33).

These pills were then distributed across various fraternities not only within Charleston but also in other southeastern institutions like Ole Miss, Duke, UNC, and the University of Georgia. The fraternity network provided a robust and centralized distribution system, facilitating bulk sales and wide-reaching distribution (09:19).

Mountain Weekend 2012: A Glimpse into Fraternity Invincibility

A pivotal moment in the investigation is the recounting of Mountain Weekend 2012, an extravagant and law-defying party hosted by Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE). Sources describe a scene of rampant drug use, property destruction, and audacious confrontations with authorities.

One source detailed, “They doused a football in chemicals, lit it on fire, and tossed it in the park ranger's direction” (13:09). Despite the chaos, the fraternity members faced minimal repercussions, underscoring their perceived invincibility and the protection afforded by their affluent backgrounds and influential connections.

Marshall reflects, “When you start to break shit and you start to burn things... it takes money to get away with it” (15:16). This incident exemplifies the culture where breaking the law becomes a status symbol, signaling wealth and power within the fraternity hierarchy.

The 2016 Drug Bust: Unraveling the Operation

The illicit fraternity drug network began to unravel following the tragic murder of Patrick Moffley on March 4, 2016. Patrick, a College of Charleston student, was fatally shot by individuals associated with the fraternity-run drug operation over a failed robbery attempt targeting his Xanax supply.

The subsequent investigation revealed the depth of the drug operation, involving Over 43,000 Xanax pills, synthetic marijuana, and extensive cocaine quantities (20:14). This bust marked one of Charleston's largest drug seizures, leading to the arrest of several fraternity members. However, only one individual, Mikey Schmidt, faced imprisonment, while others received suspended sentences in exchange for cooperation (23:13).

The Decline and Resurgence of Greek Life

Following the drug bust, there was a nationwide reckoning with Greek life. Many institutions considered abolishing fraternities due to their toxic cultures and associations with criminal activities. However, by November 2020, key fraternities like Kappa Alpha Order returned to the College of Charleston, signaling a resurgence despite previous controversies.

Marshall observes, “These guys all had pretty exceptional South Carolina criminal defense lawyers... they still have all of the same material power they always have” (23:25). This resilience highlights the entrenched power and influence fraternities wield, allowing them to maintain their presence and prestige even amidst legal challenges.

Historical Negligence and Prior Tragedies

Further investigation revealed that prior to Patrick's murder, Kappa Alpha had already experienced significant losses due to drug-related incidents, with three members dying within six months in 2012. Shockingly, these deaths were barely acknowledged, and no investigations were initiated by the College of Charleston, reflecting a systemic failure to address the escalating drug problem within Greek life.

Marshall poignantly states, “...the tragedy of those three deaths is also compounded by the fact that they were a chance to really have some sort of reckoning with a culture that was spiraling a little out of control” (25:21).

Conclusion

"The Party Never Ends" offers a comprehensive exploration of the intricate and often concealed drug operations within fraternity life at the College of Charleston. Through meticulous investigative journalism, Max Marshall sheds light on the mechanisms that enable such illicit activities to flourish, the cultural imperatives that sustain them, and the substantial barriers to accountability. This episode serves as a critical examination of the enduring mythos surrounding Greek life, challenging listeners to reconsider the true cost of the seemingly endless parties it champions.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Max Marshall (00:38): “Something that I think is pretty true of fraternity culture is the party never ends.”

• Max Marshall (04:52): “I think it was just sort of this perfect storm of like there was so much money to be made and it seemed like there was so little risk.”

• Max Marshall (11:09): “Who is going to open a Skittles bag expecting to find a bunch of drugs in there?”

• Max Marshall (15:16): “When you start to break shit and you start to burn things... it takes money to get away with it.”

• Max Marshall (23:13): “These other guys were mostly dealing in Xanax, and Mikey was charged with dealing cocaine... very connected... they can sort of make magic happen sometimes.”

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About Campus Files

Campus Files explores the often-hidden truths behind American college campuses, from admissions scandals to hazing rituals. Each episode provides an unofficial tour, unveiling stories that contrast sharply with the idealized image of college life. For more information or to submit story ideas, listeners can reach out via email at [e-mail]‬.

Transcript

[Max Marshall]

This episode is brought to you by Universal Pictures. From Universal Pictures in Blumhouse come a storm of terror from the director of the Shallows.

[Margo Gray]

The Woman in the Yard.

[Max Marshall]

Don't let her in. Where does she come from?

[Margo Gray]

What does she want? When will she leave?

[Max Marshall]

Today's the day.

[Margo Gray]

The Woman in the Yard only in theaters March 28.

[Max Marshall]

There's a country song that every fraternity guy in the south loves. The Road Goes on forever and the Party Never Ends by Robert Earl Keane. It's so beloved by fraternity guys. There's even a country song about how much fraternity guys love this song. Something that I think is pretty true of fraternity culture is the party never ends. No matter who gets arrested, no matter who dies, no matter what happens, there will be a party the next weekend. And sometimes the party is a funeral party. But nothing stops the party. Nothing. Margo Gray.

[Margo Gray]

I'm Margo Gray. This week on Campus Files, the story of a multimillion dollar drug ring run by fraternity brothers at the College of Charleston.

[Max Marshall]

So my name's Max Marshall. I'm an investigative journalist from Texas.

[Margo Gray]

Max has written for a bunch of publications including the New York Times, Texas Monthly, and Esquire. And back in 2016, he was working on a story for GQ about cocaine smuggling in Ho Chi Minh City. It got him thinking about a different drug, a drug that he'd seen everywhere back when he was in college. Xanax. Xanax is an anti anxiety pill and it's often referred to as a bar because of its rectangular shape.

[Max Marshall]

There's a lot of demand both for Xanax has sort of an anti anxiety drug that you could take if you're stressed out for a test or you're trying to sleep or you're trying to get over a breakup. But also it had this huge demand as a party drug.

[Margo Gray]

Xanax has been around since the 1980s, but it's only in recent years that it's become so popular as a recreational drug.

[Max Marshall]

People would mix it usually with, you know, four or five beers, and it felt like you had 12 or 13 beers. And that was actually a very, very popular, very sought after outcome. I do think it's really telling if you think of the sort of go to it drug of a different generations. Like weed or acid in the 60s, cocaine in the 80s, ecstasy in the 90s. Like the fact that our generation's go to drug is a anti anxiety tranquilizer designed for panic attacks. That really says something about our generation.

[Margo Gray]

But Max was less interested in why Xanax was so popular With Gen Z. He wanted to know where all the Xanax on college campuses was coming from, because it definitely didn't look legit.

[Max Marshall]

When I was in college, a lot of the Xanax that I saw wasn't coming from Pfizer, wasn't coming from pharmacies. It didn't even say Xanax on it. It would have some sort of random collection of numbers and letters. And that, of course, got me asking, okay, well, where are these pills coming from?

[Margo Gray]

Max began his research with a simple Google search. He'd mainly seen Xanax in the context of fraternity parties before, so he typed in Xanax Fraternity. The top result was an article from the Charleston Post and Courier titled Cocaine, Pills and Textbooks. It detailed a recent drug bust at the College of Charleston where. Where police had uncovered a multimillion dollar drug operation. The mugshots. Eight guys, all between 19 and 25 years old. Most were current or former fraternity members.

[Max Marshall]

I saw this sort of row of mugshots, and it was all these guys with kind of the perfect frat swoop haircut. They all kind of had the tans that you get from, like, playing golf. It actually looks like a fraternity composite.

[Margo Gray]

While the guys arrested may have looked like amateurs, their operation was anything but. In fact, the police report sounded like a Breaking Bad episode, complete with hundreds of thousands of dollars in hidden cash and tens of thousands of black market Xanax pills.

[Max Marshall]

I think it said 41,000 pills. But then, of course, I started talking to some defense lawyers in Charleston, and one of them let it slip that the police had found something closer to 3 million pills. And that's when I knew there was definitely a story there.

[Margo Gray]

Pretty soon, Max was on a flight to South Carolina, bound for the College of Charleston.

[Max Marshall]

Travel and Leisure names College of Charleston the most beautiful campus in America. It's all these revolutionary era colorful buildings under palmetto trees, and there's Spanish moss hanging from right above you. It's very much out of like a Nicholas Sparks novel or something. And because of that, it attracts a lot of very wealthy out of state kids. Some of the kids in the College of Charleston would pull their literal yachts up to the Charleston deepwater dock and they would fly private to Aspen, and they had allowances to basically go out six or seven nights a week.

[Margo Gray]

When Max first got to the College of Charleston, campus, fraternity guys weren't exactly lining up to talk to him about the drug operation.

[Max Marshall]

I mean, at first, really, very few people wanted to talk. And I remember I was telling an editor I was like, oh, if I'm going to do this story, I need contacts. And he was like, oh, yeah, contacts are important. You know, list of names. I was like, no, I need contacts. Like, I can't wear glasses because I need to look more like these guys. But I do think coming from the south, having been in a fraternity, it definitely helped. I think it maybe made people think that this wasn't just going to be a outsider expose as much as, like, someone trying to hold a mirror up to his own experience.

[Margo Gray]

When Max finally did get the students to open up, the stories he heard were far more shocking than he'd expected. He'd originally planned to just write an article about the rise of Xanax in Greek life. But as he dug deeper into the drug operation, the story took on a life of its own, eventually becoming the basis for his book, among the A Fraternity Crime Story. Here are the broad strokes of that story.

[Max Marshall]

Most of these guys start by dealing weed, kind of for obvious reasons. You know, so many kids smoke, and it's not considered, quote, unquote, sketchy. But for a lot of these guys, the next step up was Xanax.

[Margo Gray]

Until recently, getting Xanax required either a doctor's prescription or a drug dealer with access to the Pfizer supply chain. But that's no longer the case.

[Max Marshall]

There are very few things, I think, in the history of college drug dealing that changed the way business works more than the dark Webinar.

[Margo Gray]

Think of the Dark Web as an underground version of Amazon, where people buy and sell illegal goods online. What really sets it apart is the encrypted browser.

[Max Marshall]

With the Dark Web, the authorities really have no idea who or where you are when you're doing something online.

[Margo Gray]

Using the Dark Web, Guys at Charleston ordered alprazolin powder, which is the active ingredient in Xanax, from labs in Southern China. This powder then arrived by mail, hidden inside printer cartridges.

[Max Marshall]

Something a DEA agent told me is that the US Postal Service at this point is the largest drug trafficker by bulk in the world, because it's just very easy to send drugs over the mail. You know, I even had a high school friend who was dealing at another school in the south, and he would just get it shipped to the campus mail center hidden in Rob Schneider DVD jackets.

[Margo Gray]

The next step in the operation was to transform the powder into pills. This took place in beach houses off the coast of Charleston, and these guys.

[Max Marshall]

Would basically rent one beach house about every month. They had an industrial pill press that could print out a few hundred thousand Xanax pills a month, and they would make hundreds and thousands and ultimately millions of these pills.

[Margo Gray]

The pill press had also been ordered from China through the Dark Web, and the pills it produced varied in strength. Some contained barely any alprazolin powder, while others had two to three times the recommended dose.

[Max Marshall]

And they would wear hazmat suits because these machines kick up so much alprazolam dust, and if it gets on you, you can black out pretty quickly.

[Margo Gray]

The pills were carefully packaged inside emptied Skittle bags. Then they were ready for sale.

[Max Marshall]

They would sell them to the fraternity guys at anywhere from 50 cents to a dollar a pill, and they would buy in bulk. They would buy 10,000 at a time, and then these guys would turn around and they would sell them for a lot more.

[Margo Gray]

And the beauty of being in a fraternity was that they had a large client base right at their fingertips.

[Max Marshall]

You know, something a lot of these guys would tell me is, you know, you can walk into a fraternity house, and there might be 30 customers waiting for you at one time. They like to buy from guys they know. So you sort of have this incredibly centralized system with a lot of customers in one building.

[Margo Gray]

But they didn't just sell to fraternities on Charleston's campus. They sold to fraternities all across the Southeast at Ole Miss, South Carolina, Duke, unc, University of Georgia, and beyond.

[Max Marshall]

Charleston is really well located for this stuff. Not far from I95. People also said because CFC didn't have a football team, like, the fraternity guys were more free to travel on weekends. And in addition to that, you have the fraternity pledge system, which, you know, during hazing, you basically have these freshmen who have to run any errand you tell them to. And so if you give a pledge 10 skittles bags and say, you got to take this over to Sigma Nu, no questions asked, that's what they would do. It just became this very efficient way of moving these Xanax pills all over Greek life, all around the South.

[Margo Gray]

They were able to move and sell such huge quantities of Xanax at once, because the drug doesn't carry a trafficking charge. In South Carolina, you know, you can.

[Max Marshall]

Get caught with 10 pills. You can get caught with 10,000 pills. It's still going to be a possession charge, not a trafficking charge.

[Margo Gray]

Xanax is also much easier to smuggle than a drug like marijuana, since it's lightweight and doesn't have a smell.

[Max Marshall]

Who is going to open a Skittles bag expecting to find a bunch of drugs in there? Especially if you're a frat kid driving a Mercedes. And so I think it was just sort of this perfect storm of like there was so much money to be made and it seemed like there was so little risk. And so you combine all that and it's a pretty quote unquote rational way to make a nice profit pretty quickly.

[Margo Gray]

The thing is, most of these guys didn't need to make a profit.

[Max Marshall]

People often sell drugs because it's their best and sometimes only economic option. But these were kids who had four figure allowances, and some kids had much bigger allowances than that.

[Margo Gray]

So it begs the question, why start dealing in the first place?

[Max Marshall]

Are you ever minding your own business? And start to wonder, is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch real? How do the Northern lights happen? Why is weed not legal yet? I'm Jonathan Van Ness and every week on Getting Curious, I sit down for a gorgeous conversation with a brilliant expert to learn all about something that makes me curious. Join me every Wednesday as we set off on a stunning journey of curiosity on a new subject and dive into the archive of more than 370 episodes. Listen to Getting Curious wherever you get your podcasts. There's a quote that you would hear sometimes in fraternity life. Above the law, under the influence, above.

[Margo Gray]

The law and under the influence perfectly describes how the fraternity guys at the College of Charleston operated. Let me take you on a brief detour to show just how invincible they felt. This detour brings us to Mountain Weekend 2012. Mountain Weekend was an off campus weekend long party hosted by one of the various fraternities involved in the drug operation, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, or sae. Here's what Max heard about that weekend from his sources.

[Max Marshall]

You know, people were doing cocaine off the mirrors. People were taking psychedelics and having sex under the trees all over. And then a guy drove his Hummer into the water and it got stuck. This was all by like noon. By nighttime, they had stripped a lot of the furniture out of these cabins and started a bonfire. They basically burned everything that was burnable inside these cabins. Just real destruction of state public property.

[Margo Gray]

While the fire grew, a park ranger arrived at the scene. But the guys in SAE didn't panic. Instead, they doused a football in chemicals, lit it on fire, and tossed it in the park ranger's direction.

[Max Marshall]

And, you know, when I was talking to the guys who were there, I was like, what were the consequences of this? But nothing really happened. Something that a few of the sources told me was their alumni are powerful enough and wealthy enough that like, if something like that happens, it's sometimes possible to buffer the consequences Using generations of.

[Margo Gray]

Wealth, Max dedicates an entire chapter of his book to the story of Mountain Weekend. For one, it's a lens into why fraternity guys felt like they were above the law and why they believed they could pull off a drug operation without facing consequences. But Max thinks it's also a window into why many of them started dealing in the first place. Because of a culture that not only permits but but rewards being above the law.

[Max Marshall]

One thing people would tell me is like, oh, well, SAE is one of the best fraternities at College of Charleston. Just look at what happened at their mountain weekend. I thought it was fascinating that that was the story people wanted to tell in terms of why SAE was one of the best fraternities. Because on one level, it's like, they're the best fr. Because wow, listen to how wild this party is. But it's also, they're the best fraternity because they got away with all of that. When you start to break shit and you start to burn things and you start to, you know, break law, it takes money to get away with it.

[Margo Gray]

Max thinks breaking the law became something of a status symbol. It signaled that you had the money, connections, and power to get away with criminal activity.

[Max Marshall]

Something people often miss when they talk about Greek life is how much it's sort of this never ending status Olympics. Like you can really go to any campus in America and ask, what are the three best fraternities and the three best sororities here? And people will immediately have an answer. But what makes one fraternity better than another? Like the best college football team is the one that wins the most games or the best hospital is going to do the best job of saving your life. Why are some fraternities better than others? A lot of it comes down to wealth.

[Margo Gray]

Once you understand that about Greek life, Max says, it's easier to see why these guys would start dealing drugs. There was no quicker way to gain clout or boost status than dealing. And the profits didn't hurt either. Some of the guys were ultimately making so much money that they had to launder their profits through the fraternity's books, disguising drug money as fraternity donations or party expenses.

[Max Marshall]

One of the guys in K told me he was like, oh yeah. By the peak of this, our fraternity had. I think his quote was, we had a few million dollar guys and a few six figure individuals. I do think there's some exaggeration there, but certainly there is very real money to be made.

[Margo Gray]

The money would have kept flowing and the guys could have continued living above the law if not for the events of March 4, 2016, events that revealed just how reckless and out of control their operation had become. On the afternoon of March 4, 2016, two College of Charleston students were playing Call of Duty in their off campus apartment when a real gunshot rang out. Their housemate and fellow College of Charleston student Patrick Moffley had been shot in the chest. Instead of administering first aid, Patrick's housemates frantically set about destroying evidence, flushing drugs down the toilet, and burying their pills in the neighbor's trash. By the time police arrived, Patrick was drifting in and out of consciousness, pressing Chipotle napkins against a gaping wound in his chest. Scattered around his body were hundreds of loose white pills.

[Max Marshall]

We've got brand new video into our.

[Margo Gray]

Newsroom of the scene of a shooting in downtown Charleston. Right now, police are still on the scene of Smith street after a man was shot there this afternoon. Patrick was rushed into surgery at a nearby emergency room. But by that evening, he was pronounced dead. The coroner found alprazolin in his bloodstream. Seemingly unfazed by their friend's death, Patrick's housemates left the next day for their spring break trip to Puerto Rico. But in the wider Charleston community, the murder sent shockwaves and dominated local headlines, especially because of the Moffley name.

[Max Marshall]

His dad was a big real estate developer. He built all these houses on Kiawah Island. His mom had run for Congress, and she was on the Charleston school board.

[Margo Gray]

Police were under intense pressure, not just to find out who killed Patrick Mothley, but also to trace the source of the pills scattered around his body. As it turned out, the two were deeply connected. Investigators soon discovered that Patrick had been murdered by two men he'd met through off campus drug deals. They'd shown up that night intending to rob him of his Xanax supply. While Patrick himself wasn't a member of a fraternity, he was tied to the fraternity run drug operation. And as police dug deeper into where Patrick got his pills and who else was selling, they began to unravel the massive drug operation featuring dark web alprazolin powder, freshman pledges recruited as drug runners, and distribution networks spanning the southeast.

[Max Marshall]

The DEA got involved, the FBI got involved. U.S. postal Service got involved. Things kind of started to unravel from there.

[Margo Gray]

Charleston city police hope one of their biggest drug busts ever will help curb crime on the streets. We're talking about Xanax, cocaine and drugs. In June 2016, six months after Patrick's murder, the Charleston police chief held a press conference. He announced that the investigation had resulted in One of the biggest drug busts in the city's history.

[Max Marshall]

Over 43,000 Xanax and synthetic marijuana pills, 734 grams of cocaine.

[Margo Gray]

The suspects, three of whom were Kas and two Saes, were facing a combined 29 counts of state narcotics charges.

[Max Marshall]

We're working with our federal partners to see about any possibility of federal prosecution.

[Margo Gray]

For the first time, it seemed like fraternity guys at Charleston might actually face some real consequences.

[Max Marshall]

The drug bust happens at college of Charleston, and it feels like it's part of this sort of ending. All these fraternities got kicked off campus. You know, you have students who might be actually going to jail, which is something that's very rare in any sort of fraternity case. Whether it's hazing or wrongful death or drug trafficking, it's very rare that kids actually end up going to jail. So it felt like an example of, like, oh, things are really changing.

[Margo Gray]

And it felt like the reckoning with fraternity culture was taking place not just at the college of Charleston, but all across the country.

[Max Marshall]

There was a pretty widely publicized string of hazing deaths that sort of happened in the early 2010s. Think pieces in the Atlantic magazine about, you know, why do we have fraternities? And you would see at schools like Amherst, they were getting rid of Greek life. And, yeah, there's just this kind of sense of, well, like, it was a good run. This might have been it.

[Margo Gray]

The question about whether to abolish Greek life has been percolating for years. Countless opinion paces have made the argument for why this institution has become toxic. Even Bill Maher weighed in.

[Max Marshall]

There was a time when fraternities fit in with society as a whole, but that day is long gone. And I think more generally, the idea of being a brother went from, like, a kind of comic idea of, like, a dude who's taking a keg stand to the idea of, you know, what we learn in college and afterward, the idea of toxic masculinity and the idea of bro being this sort of intersectional identity, of sort of all the most privileged ways you can be in the world. White, rich, straight. All of these things sort of combined, I think, to this sense that fraternities were not long for this world.

[Margo Gray]

Adding to this sense of shifting tides was the 2016 election, when a lot of people believed we were about to have our first female president.

[Max Marshall]

Obviously, that didn't happen. And I think the election was one marker, but I think the bigger marker was just watching. Over the next few years, all of these fraternities came back on campus by.

[Margo Gray]

November 2020, just four years after Patrick Moffley's murder, Kappa Alpha Order, a key fraternity in the drug operation, was back on the College of Charleston campus.

[Max Marshall]

I was thinking, if I was ever talking to a journalism school about the limits of what investigative journalism can do, you just need to go on the KA and SAE Instagram because their parties are wilder than they've ever been in the end.

[Margo Gray]

Of the eight guys arrested, only one, Mikey Schmidt, served time in prison. The others were given suspended sentences in exchange for helping the police arrest Mikey.

[Max Marshall]

These other guys were mostly dealing in Xanax, and Mikey was charged with dealing cocaine. But I think another part of it is these guys all had pretty exceptional South Carolina criminal defense lawyers. They're high priced lawyers for a reason. They're very connected. They know all the right people. I think they can sort of make magic happen sometimes.

[Margo Gray]

Most of the young men arrested in the drug bust have not faced life changing consequences.

[Max Marshall]

And I think it became very clear that just because bros might be talked about as villains in movies now or more vilified on Instagram, they still have all of the same material power they always have. It's still sort of the ruling group in America. They still control how things work. And yeah, something a fraternity lobbyist told me more recently when he was talking about fraternities today, he said, yeah, my guys are more quiet than they used to. They're not as loud on campus. They don't want to be as public because they know they're sort of controversial in a way they didn't used to be. But they'll sort of tell me, like, these students can say what they want about us. They'll all be working for me one day. I think that kind of tells you all you need to know.

[Margo Gray]

When Max was several months into his reporting, a source told him something truly shocking. He learned that back in 2012, less than five years before Patrick's murder, multiple members of the Kappa Alpha fraternity had died due to drug related issues. In fact, the fraternity had lost three brothers in less than six months. What made this revelation even more startling was that no one else he'd spoken to had thought to mention it. Several fraternity brothers had never even heard about these deaths before. And in the wake of these deaths, the school had never launched an investigation into the fraternity.

[Max Marshall]

And so the tragedy of those three deaths is also compounded by the fact that they were a chance to really have some sort of reckoning with a culture that was spiraling a little out of control. But nothing really happened. The next day, you wake up and they're like, okay, well, what are we doing for semi formal? It's truly the road goes on forever and the party never ends.

[Margo Gray]

Campus Files is an Odyssey original podcast. This episode was written and reported by Margo Gray. Campus Files is produced by Ian Mont, Eliot Adler and me, Margo Gray. Our executive producers and story editors are Maddie Sprunkheiser and Lloyd Lockridge. Campus Files is edited, mixed and mastered by Chris Basel and Andy Jaskowicz. Special thanks to Jenna Weisberg, JD Crowley, Leah Rhys, Dennis, Maura Curran, Josephina Francis, Kurt Courtney, Hilary Schuff, Sean Cherry, Laura Berman and Hilary Van Ornam. Original theme music by James Waterman and Davy Sumner. If you have tips or story ideas, write to [e-mail] Jordan I'm Joyn Robinson, host of the new podcast the Women's Hoop Show. Each episode I'll be joined by a rotating group of women's basketball experts to talk wnba, college hoops, the new unrivaled league, and the shifting landscape of the sport. The game is growing, and so are we. Listen to and follow the Women's Hoop show and Odyssey podcast, available now for free on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts.