The family of a Texas college freshman has filed a wrongful death lawsuit stemming from allegations that fraternity hazing drove him into a mental health crisis that led him to take his own life.
Sawyer Updike, an 18-year-old from Pearland, accepted a bid to pledge the Sigma Chi fraternity through the University of Texas at Austin’s Alpha Nu Chapter in August 2023, according to FOX 7.
Throughout his time as a member of the chapter’s pledge class, Updike was allegedly subjected to months of “horrific hazing” that ultimately drove him to suicide, the lawsuit states.
“This was just an outstanding young man,” Ted Lyon, an attorney representing Updike’s family, told Fox News Digital. “He scored 1410 on the SATs. He was a straight A student in high school.”
The 6-foot-6 freshman had just made the school’s skeet shooting team and “had the whole world ahead of him,” according to Lyon.
The alleged hazing took place at the Alpha Nu fraternity house in Austin, Lyon said.
“The culture that uses this type of, I call it depraved activity, is not the kind of culture that any major university ought to condone,” Lyon told Fox News Digital.
According to the lawsuit, Updike was allegedly subjected to various methods of brutal hazing by members of the fraternity. The acts reportedly consisted of spearing a large fishhook through Updike’s leg, puncturing his hip with a staple gun and pressuring him through fear of punishment to ingest illegal substances, such as cocaine, according to FOX 7.
Additionally, the lawsuit alleges members of the fraternity forced Updike to consume harmful amounts of alcohol, repeatedly burned him with lit cigarettes, and subjected the freshman to physical whippings and beatings, the outlet reported.
“We have a picture of the kid that stapled them before he did it,” Bill Johnston, an attorney representing the family, told FOX 7. “I mean, again, they were in some sick way, they were proud of it. They were proud enough to record it.”
The psychological damage from the alleged hazing was noticeable to Updike’s parents when he returned home for holiday break in 2023, according to Lyon.
“When he came home at Christmas, his mother and father knew something was wrong,” Lyon told Fox News Digital. “He weighed 192 pounds and looked emaciated, but they didn’t really know what it was. They didn’t know that he was being serially hazed and abused.”
The lawsuit reportedly states that Updike’s mental state was already deteriorating when he was provided with cocaine and psilocybin mushrooms on Jan. 16, 2024, the first day of the second semester of Updike’s freshman year, according to FOX 7.
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Shortly after he was allegedly provided drugs, Updike drove to a local gas station parking lot and took his own life.
“He committed suicide in January 2024 and, of course, the parents wondered why,” Johnston said. “The mother was able to access his phone, talk to some people, and learn that he had been subjected to extreme hazing.”
While it does not appear Updike personally reported the instances of alleged hazing, at least one complaint regarding the fraternity was lodged with UT that fall semester, FOX 7 reported.
Following Updike’s death, the university decided to close the Sigma Chi chapter, which had already been placed on deferred suspension due to a separate alleged hazing incident from the previous year, according to FOX 7. Hazing is illegal under Texas law and prohibited by university policy.
“There’s something wrong frankly with someone that would think this is a rite of passage that can be applied to another young person,” Johnston said, FOX 7 reported.
The wrongful death lawsuit names Sigma Chi International Fraternity, Alpha Nu Chapter of Sigma Chi Fraternity at the University of Texas at Austin, the Alpha Nu House Corporation and five fraternity members, according to FOX 7.
“UT Austin is committed to providing a safe educational environment for everyone and does not tolerate hazing by any group or individual affiliated with the University,” the University of Texas at Austin said in a statement to FOX 7. “All such allegations receive the utmost attention and thorough investigation.”
The National Sigma Chi Chapter and UT Austin did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
“I live every day with the weight of his absence,” Sawyer’s mother, Sheryl Roberts-Updike, said in a news release, according to FOX 7. “No parent should ever lose a child, and certainly not because of hazing disguised as ‘brotherhood.’ What happened to Sawyer was cruel, senseless, and preventable. It is unbearable to know that a young man with so much promise was put through something so dangerous in the name of belonging.”
