The Charleston Police Division’s 704-page case file on Michael Schmidt and his accomplices opens with a second from Kappa Alpha Order “Kidnap Evening.” The incident report comes hours earlier than Mikey’s fraternity initiation, on the final evening of “Hell Week.” On Kidnap Evening, the pledges had the liberty to punish whichever School of Charleston Kappa Alpha had hazed them the worst that semester. Mikey’s 12 months, the KA pledges voted to abduct the son of a for-profit-college CEO. When Mikey arrived on the $885,000 house the CEO had bought for his boy, Mikey’s pledge brothers had already gotten drunk and acquired kidnapping provides. After some planning, a workforce of freshmen ran towards their goal’s room. Different KAs slept at pals’ homes throughout Kidnap Evening, however the CEO’s son apparently didn’t suppose he’d be a sufferer. The tallest pledge helped pin him down, and the others started to wrap him in duct tape. They certain his arms collectively and his legs and stored wrapping the younger inheritor till he was buried in tape. They dragged him outdoors and handed his Audi A4 keys to Mikey, who was the one pledge sober sufficient to drive.
Once they put the CEO’s son behind his Audi, he began to scream. In accordance with Mikey, whereas he swerved round a pedestrian, he heard certainly one of his pledge brothers punch their captive within the face. The plan was to depart him within the dunes on Sullivan’s Island, however after Mikey turned on Ashley Avenue with out signaling, he noticed police lights behind him. Mikey pulled over, and when the policeman heard muffled cries of “Assist! Assist!” he known as for backup. A couple of minutes later, a sergeant and an officer walked towards the Audi. Via the again passenger door, they noticed three boys in road garments and a fourth who’d been duct-taped and gagged. Because the Charleston PD incident report describes, the officers “suggested the motive force/offender (Michael Lawson Schmidt W/M) to maintain [his] arms the place the [patrolman] may see them. The offender abruptly acknowledged ‘Sir, that is only a joke.’”
I discovered about Mikey Schmidt after a press convention held three years later, in the course of the 2016 School of Charleston summer season break. Standing below a photograph of $100 payments, Charleston’s police chief, Greg Mullen, introduced one of many largest drug busts within the metropolis’s historical past, a six-month collaboration between native police, state regulation enforcement, the DEA, the FBI, and the US Postal Service. Chief Mullen pointed to a row of tables to indicate what they’d seized: 5 kilos of marijuana, a pound and a half of cocaine, seven firearms, a Tac-D grenade launcher, $214,000 in money, and forty-three thousand drugs price $150,000. Throughout his speech, he talked about that the case was associated to the homicide of Patrick Moffly on the primary Friday of that 12 months’s C of C spring break, however when a reporter requested concerning the hyperlink, Mullen refused to debate it. As an alternative, he added that the school ring had bought every part from MDMA to LSD to Xanax, which “appears to be a drug of alternative proper now.”
Chief Mullen then switched the TV show from piles of cash to rows of mug photographs. Up on the display, the suspects’ frowns hid their dimples. They regarded like guys who put in time on the fitness center, and possibly on the seaside, and positively on the placing inexperienced. Two of them belonged to Sigma Alpha Epsilon, and three had been KAs. Subsequent to the photographs, the Charleston PD listed their names and ages:
As a result of Michael Schmidt was the lead identify on the press launch, I began asking individuals about him. One supply informed me he had a rich grandfather and wonderful hair. One other informed me he’d been 5’0 till twelfth grade, when he’d hit puberty and grown seven inches. Many handled me to their imitation of the “Mikey voice,” a Georgia-bred and weed-infused accent that one buddy known as a “squirrelly whisper.” A couple of additionally despatched me his photograph that confirmed his wavy movement shaved to a nub from Wateree River Correctional, the place he’s at present serving a 10-year sentence with out parole. (The others concerned did a mix of jail time, suspended sentences, and probation.)
Mikey left for Charleston a rowdy child. Earlier than school, he hadn’t been afraid to drink earlier than class or depart campus in his Nineties Mercedes to smoke outdoors Chick-fil-A. He’d dated the cutest lady on the Mount Vernon Faculty, despite the fact that his voice was nonetheless about as excessive as hers. (A highschool buddy defined: “He simply had mad recreation. He had this little swag to him, and the most popular ladies all the time wished guys that don’t give a fuck.”) One time he confirmed a youthful child on the JV basketball workforce $10,000 in money that he’d created from promoting weed. Nonetheless, Mikey wished to level-up his social life at C of C. In school, his stepfather couldn’t floor him for downloading Ludacris’s “Transfer Bitch” on iTunes. As an alternative, he may smoke a blunt with out placing a towel below his door and attempt to be a part of a great fraternity.
After his mother dropped him off in Charleston, Mikey left his dorm to tour the college’s annual Pupil Actions Data Truthful. A whole lot of children gathered within the faculty’s Cistern Yard, the place ivy grew on the partitions and moss hung from the dwell oaks. Strolling close to a buried Civil Struggle cannonball, Mikey approached rows of picnic tables belonging to scholar golf equipment and organizations. He wasn’t going to play Quidditch or be a part of the Chucktown Trippintones a cappella singers, however he knew which tables he wished to search out. He hadn’t determined what he wished to main in, however earlier than he’d even left highschool, he’d deliberate on becoming a member of top-of-the-line fraternities at C of C.
The school’s Greek organizations arrange cubicles outdoors the Stern Pupil Middle, subsequent to the opposite golf equipment. First he bumped into two upper-middle-tier fraternity choices, Kappa Sigma and Sigma Nu. Kappa Sig was identified for its massive pledge courses and wild compound on Spring Avenue, and Sig Nu thrived with its Phish vibe. Mikey put his cellphone quantity on the Kappa Sig spreadsheet, however he didn’t like Widespread Panic, so he handed Sigma Nu. He additionally walked by the irrelevant Sigma Chis, who had been taking part in with their canine. Then he regarded for the tables belonging to the highest chapters.
By consensus, the 2 greatest frats at C of C had been Pi Kappa Alpha (Pike) and Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE). Mikey heard that Pike recruited northerners from cities like Greenwich, Connecticut and felt like a New England boarding faculty with out the nerds. These boys appeared older than Mikey, partially as a result of the boarding faculty children had lived away from house earlier than, and partially as a result of a few of them appeared to already learn about cocaine. Total tristate-area buddy teams got here to Charleston for the southern coastal life-style and the two-hour flight house to LaGuardia, and Pi Kappa Alpha had a pipeline of Connecticut recruits to select from.
Mikey was proud to come back from Georgia, and he didn’t wish to be a part of a clique of children from Fairfield County. As an alternative, he wished to hurry Sigma Alpha Epsilon. He’d heard about C of C SAE earlier than he’d left house. The chapter recruited boys from outdated southeastern households, but it surely additionally attracted tristate children who preferred a mixture of northern and southern rhythms. A Charleston SAE would possibly drive a F250, however he’d favor EDM to nation and salmon-colored pants to Wranglers. A boy in a mid-tier fraternity known as them “fuck boys with much less morality,” however a Tri Delt sister from Connecticut summed up the elite sororities’ view: “SAEs are handsome douchebags. Actually, I consider taller guys.” Even the haters talked about their lake home events, bar tabs, day events, bottle-service nights, home events, and boat charters.
Earlier than he reached the SAE desk, Mikey noticed a sales space for one more fraternity he acknowledged. He’d heard concerning the C of C Kappa Alpha Order from older children within the Atlanta suburbs, and his new roommate had talked about KA too. Sitting behind the KA desk was a boy in khaki shorts and a fireplace engine purple t-shirt. He wore a backpack on his shoulders, and he was consuming a footlong Subway sandwich. He reached out his hand and launched himself as Rob. His blond hair curled above his ears, and he had gold Kappa Alpha lettering on his chest. From the best way Rob’s eyes regarded on the footlong sub, Mikey believed Rob was very excessive. Rob was sitting with a buddy who was making enjoyable of him for consuming Subway. Mikey requested them in the event that they smoked, and Rob stated, “Yeah, we burn.” They talked for a minute, after which Rob regarded up and stated, “I dwell throughout the road. Wanna hit my bong?” (Robert Liljeberg didn’t reply to interview requests.)
Nobody I met in Charleston ever {accused} Kappa Alpha of being one of the best fraternity at C of C. Whereas the SAEs had a historic marker subsequent to their home, the KAs didn’t have a home. The identical Tri Delt sister who known as the SAEs tall and good-looking described the KAs as “random.” “The place the obnoxiously handsome frats could be like, ‘Oh, we’re scorching shit, we’re gonna have all these scorching ladies at our events,’” she informed me, “the KAs would simply be like, ‘Oh, now we have a keg.’” A Kappa Sig known as Kappa Alpha “regular center tier,” and an SAE informed me that “they weren’t on my radar.” When Mikey arrived, their chapter GPA hovered across the nationwide 2.8 minimal, and their neighborhood service hours remained close to zero. Their price range allowed solely a easy social calendar. One older KA stated, “We simply received fucking hammered off bourbon and Natty Lights on a regular basis.”
If the Kappa Alphas had been identified for something, it was being southern. They recruited boys from Atlanta, Memphis, Fort Price, and round South Carolina. A lot of them preferred to hunt and experience ATVs. For a great KA, there was no disgrace in sporting whitewashed Wranglers and throwing in a cheek of Purple Man, and, in contrast to the SAEs, they weren’t afraid to love nation music. Since its founding at what turned Washington and Lee College in 1865, the Kappa Alpha Order nationwide group has seen itself as “southern in its loves.” Earlier than the tip of the century, Kappa Alpha voted to ban enlargement north of the Mason-Dixon Line, and though the coverage has been reversed, they nonetheless think about Robert E Lee their “religious founder.”
Mikey didn’t suppose a lot concerning the Civil Struggle, however he slot in with the C of C KAs. Throughout their golf occasions he hit it 260 yards off the tee, and through their “Boats N’ Hoes” rush celebration he chugged a bag of boxed wine. The older guys preferred that he smoked weed and dealt a little bit too, and so they cherished that he had a pretend ID operation in Atlanta. On the finish of rush week, Rob and the for-profit school CEO’s son invited him to their home on Montagu Avenue, the place Mikey walked by the beer pong desk below the eating room chandelier. All of them sat on the purple sofa and performed Tremendous Smash Bros., and Rob stored issues informal. “Yo, you bought a bid, if you need it.”
As a Kappa Alpha pledge, Mikey reported to energetic members’ residences each morning to prepare dinner and clear. After that he delivered the brothers’ lunch and ran issues round city as a courier. He additionally needed to put on a uniform always: a necktie and Velcro footwear from Walmart. (Considered one of his pledge brothers needed to put on a Disney Princess backpack all day, and one other needed to retailer his backpack within the freezer every evening.) He submitted his schedule to the pledge grasp, and he remained on name for errands if he wasn’t at school. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights he additionally labored as a “pledge driver,” chauffeuring brothers to and from home events and King Avenue from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. By themselves, not one of the duties felt that unhealthy, however mixed they turned a full-time job. In sure elements of the South, potential employers understood that fraternity boys’ GPAs would dip throughout their pledge time period, as a result of most guys had little time for homework and others didn’t make it to class.
Mikey had no drawback lacking faculty. Considered one of his first school lectures was an introductory authorities class, and on the primary day he watched the professor wheel in a motorcycle from the Cistern Yard. The person wore purple socks with Godzillas on them, and when he took the rostrum he began complaining about Charleston’s lack of protected bike lanes. When Mikey regarded down and noticed his “GOATS” pledge class GroupMe gentle up, he left the lecture and by no means got here again. He later informed an older man, “The professor was a weirdo bike-riding hippie. How the fuck was he going to show me something?” Lacking class left Mikey extra time for KA errands, and it additionally gave him time to relaxation and hydrate earlier than “lineups.”
On lineup nights, the KA actives summoned the underclassmen to off-campus condominium residing rooms, the place the older boys moved the sofas and laid out plastic for vomit. Pledges confirmed up in white T-shirts forward of time, realizing that lineups are the type of occasion the place “if you happen to’re early, you’re on time. In case you’re on time, you’re late. In case you’re late, you’re fucked.” Then they’d stand in a circle sporting blindfolds and reply questions on issues just like the Greek alphabet. When Mikey’s pledge brothers answered fallacious they may must drink a cup of “pledge juice”—cat meals, dip spit, and so forth.—or do different issues which may make them throw up. They could additionally lie blindfolded on the ground, getting doused with unknown substances that tasted like flour, or smelled like Glade air freshener, or felt like urine. In 2015, the brothers duct-taped forty-ounce bottles of malt liquor to the pledges’ arms and made them chug (“Edward 40 Arms.”) That very same time period, they made two pledge brothers shotgun 4 Lokos and field one another. One boy who didn’t smoke weed was deemed the “weed hazing pledge” and compelled to swallow edibles. Mikey, who did smoke weed, needed to put on a fuel masks with a bong hooked up to his mouth, which the brothers crammed with tobacco till his head spun. One other evening he laid his elbows and toes on high of bottle caps, watching them bleed till the brothers informed him he may rise up.
This rhythm continued all semester. Mikey and his pledge brothers settled into the poor particular person cosplay of working like “the assistance,” and their alcohol tolerance continued to climb. In late autumn, they entered Hell Week. At many fraternities, this entailed residing in a fraternity basement for seven days. As a result of the C of C KAs didn’t have a home, Mikey arrived on the CEO’s son’s home on Montagu Avenue, turned in his cellphone, and received his directions. When he wasn’t at school, he belonged to the Kappa Alpha Order. He wasn’t allowed to depart the home for any motive, and he wasn’t going to play Smash whereas he was there. When he and the opposite pledges received house from faculty, they did older boys’ homework and scrubbed their flooring. One energetic made them write five-thousand-word essays on meaningless matters, however principally the boys sat round, not allowed to nap or bathe, passing the time earlier than Hell Week lineups.
Throughout Mikey’s time period, his older buddy Rob avoided the worst hazing, a transfer that all the time earns love from youthful children. Even so, new faces confirmed as much as take his place. It’s widespread throughout Hell Week to fulfill an energetic fraternity member who doesn’t go to social outings or chapter conferences however who appears to pay $500 a semester so he could make children eat cat meals. The Hell Week–lovers can get aggressive, and despite the fact that an energetic informed Mikey that “if an older brother places his arms on you, you might be allowed to place your arms again on him,” Mikey couldn’t battle again once they compelled him to sleep within the grime beneath a brother’s home for 2 nights. The climate received all the way down to the 40’s throughout late fall in Charleston, and Mikey awoke each mornings feeling sick. By the point he began an in a single day highway journey to the KA chapters at Wofford, Clemson, the College of South Carolina, and the College of Georgia, he had a fever. After Mikey jumped right into a pool at one KA home and made sandpit snow angels at one other, his temperature reached 103 levels. When he received again to Charleston coated in sand, he nonetheless couldn’t bathe.
After midnight on the second-to-last evening of Hell Week, the actives informed Mikey’s pledge class to put on their Velcro footwear. After they tied blindfolds round their eyes, the underclassmen received into automobiles with operating engines. The boys sat with their eyes closed for fifteen or twenty minutes on a drive that felt easy. Then the experience began to throw their our bodies round, and when the doorways opened the pledges received out. The brothers led them by way of what felt like marsh as much as their shins, after which to what they knew was sand. They heard waves, and the energetic members informed the pledges to take off their blindfolds and run into the ocean. They sprinted towards the Atlantic and jumped into chilly water, and once they received out the brothers’ headlights had been gone. As was custom, the C of C KA pledges needed to stroll 4 hours from the far tip of Sullivan’s Island to downtown Charleston. Most years, some boys fell asleep on the stroll. Mikey’s 12 months, although, a Sullivan’s Island police automotive pulled as much as examine the 2 dozen children strolling at two a.m. in moist Velcro footwear. They informed him, “We’re a operating membership, sir,” and he known as them taxis house.
In response to a request for touch upon the C of C KA pledging experiences my sources described, an lawyer for the KA nationwide group “denounce[d], within the strongest phrases, the conduct, and/or actions” that they recounted. The lawyer additionally denied the allegations of their entirety, stating that they “don’t replicate Kappa Alpha Order, the [C of C] Chapter alumni as a complete, or any of its members.” He stated that the alleged conduct would violate KA’s bylaws prohibiting drunkenness, hazing, crimes, or “ungentlemanly conduct,” and that the nationwide workplace “has neither information, paperwork, nor institutional reminiscence” of any of the incidents. He added that “information pertaining to this chapter and others from greater than 5 years in the past have been discarded.”
By most accounts, the KAs didn’t have the worst Hell Week on the School of Charleston. That distinction belonged to one of the best chapters like SAE. Their hazing was completely different from the KAs in small methods, like assembly at six o’clock each morning as an alternative of 9 thirty, and in its totalizing nature. “We received rocked,” one SAE informed me. “I imply, it’s deep. Like, I noticed children cry. Noticed children break down.” I heard a couple of tales concerning the C of C Sigma Alpha Epsilon pledgeship, and I attempted to search out somebody who may affirm or deny them. Finally I talked to a different SAE who informed me a few dialog he had a couple of years after commencement, when he’d hosted a bachelor celebration for his greatest buddy from the fraternity. On the finish of the evening, eight guys sat round a fireplace, consuming and telling their favourite tales concerning the groom. The highschool crew informed enjoyable anecdotes, after which it was the SAE’s flip. “I informed a narrative that was actually darkish,” he informed me. “One thing that [the groom] did to me in my fraternity that was, like, horrible. Everyone was like, ‘What the fuck. Why is that the story you’re telling us?’”
I clearly requested what that story was. He began by usually describing SAE Hell Week, which he stated concerned getting tased and operating fifteen miles to take an image with a random girl at a Waffle Home. Throughout one lineup, the longer term groom, who was a 12 months older than his future groomsman, pulled his buddy apart and informed him, “Issues are gonna get actually, actually fucked for y’all proper now. It’s gonna get actually unhealthy. However I would like you to know that you may put your life in my arms, and I received’t let something transcend the pale, it doesn’t matter what.” Close to the tip of that evening, a couple of older SAEs requested the pledges for a hazing volunteer. The long run groomsman raised his hand, and the longer term groom checked out him and shook his head. However the freshman stored his hand up, and the sophomore led his buddy to the yard, put a towel over his face, and waterboarded him. “Considered one of my larger fears is drowning,” he informed me. “It’s scary, you realize. That’s a very actual factor. However I’m an excellent swimmer. I held my breath.” The long run groom poured water on the rag for thirty seconds, ninety seconds lower than Khalid Sheikh Mohammed claimed to have endured at a CIA black website. (SAE didn’t reply to a request for remark.)
Across the fireplace pit on the bachelor celebration, the groom’s buddies requested the SAE why he’d simply informed them that story. He answered, “Look, y’all have solely had good experiences with [the groom]. You’ve by no means had what I’ve had with him, and also you by no means will!”
In its official bylaws, the Kappa Alpha Order requires its chapters to carry out its secret initiation ceremony in a home of worship. Nationwide headquarters distributes a letter signed by their government director, Larry Stanton Wiese, for chapter presidents to provide to potential church hosts. “Our members are generally known as an Order of Christian Knights,” it says. “Because the initiation ceremony could be very non secular in its primary essence, a spot of worship is required.” The day after Kidnap Evening, the School of Charleston KAs met in a 160-year-old church on Ashley Avenue. The pledges placed on robes, and the energetic members blindfolded them, which meant the boys couldn’t see the stained glass round them or the hammer beam ceiling above their heads. After that, they heard the older children recite a textual content that combined Calvinist theology, three levels of Masonic ritual, Accomplice militarism, medieval romance, and what one brother known as “esoteric sciences.” Mikey felt a boring sword on his shoulders and tasted some wine from a particular cup. Then the actives stated his identify and some different issues, and he went from a pledge to a brother.
At different colleges, Kappa Alpha chapters had spent weeks rehearsing the ceremony and memorizing the textual content. They’d stored their crown and sword in a locked room and performed the official Kappa Alpha CD of lute music in the course of the ritual. However for the type of chapter that did Hell Week, the church initiation was generally only a solution to hold the executives at KA headquarters off their backs. The nationwide group makes each chapter reenact its official ritual, however completely different teams deal with the ceremony with completely different ranges of seriousness. “It was some Medieval Occasions bullshit,” a latest KA chapter president informed me. “[During the ritual], I took the CD they gave me and swapped it out with the music from Halo.” On the finish of Mikey’s chapel ceremony, the brothers drove the brand new initiates to America Avenue, a closely policed and marginalized strip of East Charleston, and informed them to stroll house once more. The 2 dozen boys headed down the cracked asphalt, overgrown lawns and boarded-up row homes. With out loosening their ties, Mikey and some different KAs walked as much as a gaggle of Haitian immigrants and stated, “Hey, y’all received some weed?”
From AMONG THE BROS, by Max Marshall. Printed by HarperCollins.
