Original subtitles

[waves crashing]

Mm-hmm.

This peels off the Band-Aid of an unhealed wound.

Reporter: According to the LAPD, the bodies of Kristin High

and 24-year old Kenitha Saafir of Compton

were pulled from the surf around midnight.

You will do anything to be a part of this organization.

You endure the abuse.

You endure being hit, being punched, being paddled.

Reporter: High's family contends she died

in a Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority ritual.

This was the largest, most significant death

of any individuals involved in hazing up to that time.

How could this happen?

Reporter: These girls reportedly witnessed

the horrifying drowning, yet High's relatives say

they can't understand why they're so hesitant

to talk about what happened.

The first thought: They're lying. They're hiding.

People are getting hurt in D-9 groups,

but we're not gonna talk.

This cover-up was so deep,

it was like running into a brick wall.

I wanna know the story. What happened?

I wanna know the truth.

[cheering]

There's no place in the world that is more exciting

or thrilling than sororities and fraternities.

But you don't know what actually goes on behind closed doors.

All of Greek life has some sort of a tradition of secrecy.

This was a powerful organization.

I mean, it was a serious cover-up.

The amount of power that the fraternities have,

it's so thoroughly woven into the nature of the universities.

There is always the same playbook.

Operator: 911. What is the address of your emergency?

They start the cover-up. Nobody talks.

Hazing is a huge problem,

and it's resulted in tragedy.

Someone was burning a cross on the lawn.

They would grab a member, force their face down

and then make them do a line of cocaine.

It felt very sadistic. He wanted me to be hurting.

You send your kid off to college,

and this happens?

My name is Akila.

I am from Riverside, California.

I went to California State University, Los Angeles,

where I studied speech communications.

There are 23 different

California State University campuses in California.

Cal State L.A. is known as a commuter school.

I love this school.

I love the fast pace of things

and the sense of independence that it afforded me.

Greek life is not a big part of the social scene

at California State University, Los Angeles.

But there was an allurement, if you will.

When I was introduced to Alpha Kappa Alpha Sigma Chapter

right in the mid part of my freshman year.

Alpha Kappa Alpha was the first Black sorority

that started out in the Divine Nine.

[girls chanting, indistinct]

The Divine Nine is comprised of the historically

nine African American fraternities and sororities

all founded in the U.S. between 1906 and 1963.

We weren't allowed in many of the fraternities and sororities

that were even founded at that time.

So we did what most groups do.

Made a way where there wasn't one.

Michelle: There was strength in that.

Thurgood Marshall, Martin Luther King,

Ketanji Brown Jackson, Kamala Harris.

If they're a popular author, celebrity

part of the Civil Rights movement,

they're all members of the Divine Nine organizations.

It is a staple of Black culture.

[chanting, indistinct]

I was looking to join Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority,

because after college, I was looking

to gain an alliance of sisters who all were like-minded.

Very smart, ambitious,

wanting to make a difference in their communities.

I started pledging in 1999.

I had no idea what I signed up for.

Hazing practices went underground

in the D-9 in the early 1990s.

The membership intake process is what replaced

the pledge process.

Applications would be filled out

and then the organization would make selections.

But when people know that you were hazed,

that you were pledged into the organization,

there is instant respect. You're legit.

I didn't understand hazing.

At the time, I decided to join the organization.

But the conversations had began about how we were going

to do the same thing as those that preceded us.

That hazing was not gonna be a breeze.

Sessions would always be at night.

Sigma Chapter did not have a home.

And so most of our sessions would be at random places.

Or the houses of some of the sisters.

We all had to wear the same attire.

Black sweatshirts, black bras,

black panties, black sweatpants,

black socks, and black shoes.

We were instructed to have our

pledge journals at every session.

We were to take notes on the history,

list things about our line sisters

that we were supposed to know about.

On the weekends, we would be instructed to go

to some of the boyfriends' homes,

the big sisters, to clean their houses, wash their cars.

Servitude is a big part of that hazing process.

[ringing]

Pledges would get phone calls all hours of the day and night.

I witnessed my line sisters...

spending exuberant amounts of money.

Maxing out credit cards

in order to please the big sisters.

But us continuing to show up, I guess,

was a way of them being able to say,

"Okay, she really wants to be a part of this."

And so that's when the physical events began.

When it comes to hazing,

particularly in Black fraternities and sororities,

it's usually more physical.

Like you may see calisthenics.

You may see paddling.

The Century Club, where you get 100 paddles in one night.

This is gonna teach you strength.

This is gonna teach you discipline.

This is gonna teach you deference.

There would be times where we didn't get questions right,

thus we'd all be punished.

We would have to get into the positions of furniture,

chairs and tables, in which they could sit on you.

I witnessed my line sisters be...

beaten, hit, socked,

made to do some very humiliating, um...things,

say some very humiliating things about themselves.

I've actually heard of some sort of strange fruit,

which is usually an onion, and having to eat that.

And if you throw up, you just gotta kinda lick it back up

and keep going.

There are a lot of ways to torture people and...

people can get really creative.

One night, we were in session

at one of the big sister's parents homes,

and I didn't answer a question correctly,

and they were trying to find something to punish me with.

And so that big sister opened up the kitchen sink

and pulled something out of it.

I did not know what it was,

and she opened it up,

and she poured a little bit in the capful

and she said, "Drink it."

And so I drank it!

And all of a sudden, I began feeling light-headed.

I was sweating.

I'm getting sick.

It was my line sister who said,

"I think we need to take her to the doctor."

The Dean of Pledges says that we do not say anything

about what was really happening.

She then instructed my line sisters

to take me to the hospital and to reach back out to her

after the visit to the doctor.

We were not to instruct the doctor

or advise the doctor that we were obviously

pledging and hazing for a sorority.

People are getting hurt in D-9 groups,

but you don't hear about it

like you hear about it in other groups.

'Cause we're not gonna talk.

That is a dire situation.

You endure the abuse,

being hit, being punched, being paddled, being humiliated.

And that's the honorable thing to do,

to demonstrate your allegiance

in wanting to be a part of the organization.

I wasn't gonna punk out and stop.

I knew that if I decided to drop,

those connections with my line sisters

will ultimately be lost.

And these were women that I loved, that I respected.

And so that was just something that I didn't...

want to lose at that time.

But it just got to a point where enough was enough.

One night, we had a session in my apartment.

All of us were on the line, on our hands and knees.

There was a big sister, and, um,

there was a question that she had asked me

about...the history.

And I didn't answer her in a way that was pleasing to her,

and she had taken her foot

and raised it all the way back,

as far as she could lift her leg up,

and she kicked me

so hard

that I went down into my other line sisters

and kind of knocked them down.

That just did not, in any shape, form, or fashion,

scream sisterhood to me.

I...got myself together,

and I got up,

and I looked at her

and addressed everybody else in the room.

"As far as I'm concerned, the session is over.

I'm done. Get the [bleep] out."

Akila: When I made the decision to drop, I felt relieved.

But it hurt to walk away from the women

that you had a common bond with in hoping that one day,

we're all going to be these prestigious,

intelligent, professional women who had to go through hell

to get to where we're at.

I did see violence where big sisters would

put their hands on others

to inflict very serious physical damage.

I couldn't buy into the organization at that point.

Everything that it was built upon,

all the values, the philosophies,

the principles, all that went out the door.

And that's when I decided

I didn't want to be a part of it anymore.

I am absolutely thankful and grateful

that I left when I did.

And had I would have stayed,

I would be associated to what came shortly after me.

I met Kenitha at church in Los Angeles.

I went to California State University, Long Beach,

and she had just transferred to Cal State, Los Angeles,

when I met her.

We instantly just hit it off.

I really liked her. I liked her family and her husband.

Karim and Kenitha were such a good pair.

Everyone else just kinda disappeared

when they were together.

I met Kenitha Martin when she was 18,

and I was 20 years old.

She had a strong personality.

She was a really good friend, supportive and bubbly,

liked to laugh and have fun.

We were together for three years before I just got on a knee

and asked her, will she marry me?

She said yes. [laughs]

When Kenitha started Cal State, L.A., in 2001,

she really wanted to finish her degree in photography.

Kenitha was excited about doing art programs for kids.

And I do remember us having a conversation one day

about both of us being interested

in joining a sorority.

I was interested in joining Delta Sigma Theta,

and she wanted to be a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha, or AKA.

She thought that that could be a channel,

a network, a community,

you know, a sisterhood of people with whom

she could carry out her interests.

But there was not an active AKA chapter at Cal State, L.A.

They had been suspended on the campus.

In the spring of 2002,

toward the end of that semester,

I remember her saying like,

"Oh, I think they're gonna come back to my campus."

She was like, "Finally I get to do it.

"They got AKA on campus.

"I just met with this girl,

and, you know, the chapter's coming back."

Kenitha and I knew that pledging and hazing

are pretty much the same thing.

When Kenitha said she wanted to pledge,

I was fine with it.

It was like a right of passage.

And I thought, why can't girls do it anyway?

Kenitha was in her final year of school in 2002

when she pledged AKA.

I remember meeting all the different pledges.

I remember meeting Kristin a couple of times.

Kenitha was like, "Oh, she's really a cool chick."

They just kinda became good friends.

Kristin was my younger sister, seven years apart.

We grew up with my mom, who was a single mom.

One summer, she tells me she's pregnant.

She wanted to be the best mom to Skyler,

and she wanted to change things.

She had so many dreams.

She picked Cal State, L.A., I think,

because it was about the quickest way

of finishing up her degree.

Kristin wanted to be a civil rights lawyer.

She was very passionate about making change

for community and people that were less fortunate.

Since AKA had those kind of women,

she thought that if she got in that group,

she could make things better for Black women,

or women, period.

Knowing that hazing might come up,

I had some reservation about her pledging.

I don't know when Kristin started pledging,

because she kept it from me.

[ringing]

Kristin would receive all kinds of calls

from the big sisters.

"Take my clothes to the cleaners."

"Braid my hair." "Go grocery shopping."

"Get me lunch."

[phone ringing]

She was tired! She was not my Kristin.

She was so caught up in pledging.

It looked like they had brainwashed her.

I was upset at my sister for allowing someone

to do these things to her.

Because I know that we were raised differently.

But I also know that my sister, for, like,

whatever she puts her mind to, she's gonna complete.

Finally, when she came home one night,

she walked in.

She had a cloth over her lip,

and I noticed her lip was bleeding,

and her tooth was missing on the side.

And I walked in the bathroom with her and I said,

"Kristin, what's going on? What happened?"

She said, "Oh, it's gonna be all right, Mom."

And I says, "No, it's not gonna be all right

if they're bringing harm to you.

You need to stop."

And sure enough,

that was about two weeks before she died.

[music]

Kristin considered quitting-- Yes, she did.

Because it began to be, um...

really tiring,

and it seems as if they were never gonna get to the end.

They put the carrot out there,

"and as soon as you finish this,

"we're gonna cross the desert sand,

and it'll be over."

Some of the terminology about

becoming a member of the organization

is rooted in African folklore.

Crossing the hot sands of Africa

that maybe our ancestors walked.

So when you hear someone say, "I crossed,"

that is short for "crossing the burning sand"

into this new life, into the organization.

...kissing her good-bye saying, "I'll see you later."

That night, Kristin had to do some things

for those sorority sisters.

She said she loved me.

I thought she was gonna get through it,

she was gonna make it.

And I wish I hadn't thought like that.

The doorbell rung...

early in the morning.

And when I opened the door,

LAPD was there,

and a chaplain.

And the police said...

"Do you have a daughter named Kristin?"

And immediately, I knew she was gone.

[breaking up] As I was crying...

[sniffles] Skyler heard me...

and he come running down the hall saying,

"Don't cry, Nana, don't cry."

And that's how we found out...

that she was gone.

Kenitha's sister had called me very late at night,

and she said, "I need you. Can you get over here?

Because Kenji died."

We called her Kenji.

And I was like, "What do you-- What do you mean?"

And she said, "I'll share more when you get here.

Can you just get here?"

By the time I had gotten there,

some people from the church had come.

Karim also came with his mom.

Karim: Really, I had no idea what was going on.

That day was the worst. The worst day.

I cried. I lost my best friend who...

Um...[mumbles] Sorry.

[exhales]

We were all sitting in her mother's living room

under the stupor of disbelief.

It's the sense of, what do you mean?

But what happened?

I do remember the police stopping by.

And what I recall being told

is that night they had gone out the beach

with their sorority sisters.

The tide was strong,

and Kenitha could not swim.

Kristin got swept up in it also.

[clears throat] And, um,

both of them lost their lives.

But we were just all kinda frozen.

Time just stopped...

where we're trying to make sense of this.

Reporter: Outside the South L.A. home

of 22-year-old drowning victim Kristin High,

neighbors lingered late into the evening

to comfort her family.

L.A. police say High accidentally drowned

with another woman at Dockweiler State Beach.

The police declared it, it was a fraternity-sorority party,

and it had gone wrong.

The big sisters, they're lying.

They did not tell the police what actually was going on.

They were hazing them.

I wanna know the story!

What happened?

I wanna know the truth!

Before Kristin's death,

Sigma's chapter was on the AKA website.

And when we woke up the next morning,

it was taken off.

That was strange.

And then we found out that Kristin's car was missing.

So about mid-afternoon,

the car drives up the street,

with the little sisters.

The pledgees drop Kristin's car off in front of my mom's home

and begin to run down the street to a big sister

that was waiting in her car at the corner.

And one of my cousins chased the car down,

and they got out,

and they brought them back to my mom's house.

I'm in the den.

Little sisters walked in the house...

[music]

...and they were crying,

saying they were sorry.

And I said, "What happened?

What went on out there? What--Tell me the truth."

And one of the sisters began to tell the story.

That's when one of the pledgees is just like,

"They told us not to say anything!"

She shouted that out.

And that's when they all shut down.

And they said, "We gotta go,"

and they start walking out of the house.

I immediately knew that they were covering up something.

Akila: I dropped from pledging Alpha Kappa Alpha

fall-winter 2000.

Fast-forward, preparing for graduation from college,

and there's a newsflash

that there's been two deaths.

Reporter: The bodies of Kristin High

and 24-year old Kenitha Saafir of Compton

were pulled from the surf around midnight.

But High's family contends she died

in a Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority ritual.

Akila: I was speechless.

They later flashed a picture of Kristin's home.

Reporter: These girls reportedly witnessed

the horrifying drowning, yet relatives say

they can't understand why they're so hesitant

to talk about what happened.

And out of the home comes walking

a couple of my then-line sisters when I was pledging.

Reporter: The Cal State, L.A., chapter is trying

to quietly distance itself from this deadly accident.

I...

[scoffs]

I was paralyzed.

What happened?

When Kristin was pledging, some of the pledgee sisters

would come over to the house.

After Kristin's death, the interaction

with the little sisters dissolved.

If nothing really happened,

why don't they answer our calls?

They ran away and tried to hide.

Some went out of the state, some went out of the city,

and we had no contact,

no way to get in contact with anybody,

so we couldn't get any information about what happened.

What frustrates me is the level of silence

and the level of secrecy that these organizations

put before anything else,

regardless if people got injured or died.

And instead of just stopping the behavior,

people are just choosing to stay quiet.

Everything that Kristin got from AKA

was kept in a box in her bedroom.

Every time they go to a session,

they would take their items with them,

along with their journal.

But when they brought the car back,

all her items was missing from her car.

The only thing that was left in her car

was Skyler's car seat.

We began to realize everything that she had of AKA was gone.

They were trying to wipe out any evidence

that she was pledging.

Based on my experience,

I believe that all of these women

were given some form of instruction

on how to properly handle this situation.

How to get rid of this.

Who not to talk to.

I was angry. I was really angry.

But I was ready to fight.

I hired the lawyer the very next day.

When we took on this case, no one wanted to come forward

and really express what happened.

They're joining an organization

that is an extremely positive entity

within the African American community

and the community at large in the United States.

No one could understand, how could this happen?

After I hired the lawyer, they introduced me

to Robert Freeman, the investigator.

My investigation was to figure out

what happened on that night

and to put a detailed report together

to go after them criminally or civilly.

[waves lapping]

We uncovered in our investigation

that the 911 call was made by a resident

who lived in the area and who had observed some commotion.

The beach closed at 10:00, and she thought maybe

some youngsters were partying on the beach

that shouldn't have been there.

The sorority sisters and the little sisters

told the police they were exercising,

and the reason why they were in the ocean

after they're exercising,

they were just washing off to leave.

They went to go rinse off the sand...

even though they had their shoes and sweats on.

None of that made any sense.

Tracking down the girls that was in charge of the line

was the easy part.

Getting them to talk was the task.

They say that, "Oh, well, the organization say

I can't talk to you."

No one on the beach talked to me. No one.

It was like running into a brick wall.

I don't think anybody intentionally went out

and killed anybody.

But girls were out there who were responsible.

I have no hard feelings against you,

but you have to take responsibility.

What happened that night?

What really happened that night?

I said to my attorney, "I gotta find the truth.

So how do we get to the truth?"

So they decided that we'll do a civil suit.

The police say that there is no evidence

of criminal wrongdoing in this case.

They say there is no alcohol, no coercion,

no reckless endangerment.

Why launch a $100 million lawsuit against the sorority?

What the civil lawsuit allows for is the discovery process,

and in that process, we can subpoena witnesses,

we can subpoena documents,

and hopefully, in that process, can finally get to the truth

on what happened on the night of September 9th.

The drowning of the two women at that time

was the largest, most significant death

of any individuals involved in hazing or pledging

up to that time, related to a national organization.

And we knew that we had to explain how that could happen,

and we needed to also draw attention to it

so that it didn't happen anymore in the future.

We had causes of action against

the National Organization of Alpha Kappa Alpha,

based on negligence.

They had a duty of care

owed to the individuals that passed away that night.

At the end of that process,

we were able to put together a fairly good picture

of what happened that night.

This was supposed to have been the night

that they were doing "crossing the desert sands."

And it was supposed to have been the last night.

Through deduction, we believe that they were blindfolded

with their hands tied.

And they got out of the car

and walk towards the ocean.

They were required to recite the history of the sorority

at the same time as their going through the calisthenics.

They were running down the beach.

They were using a lot of energy

at approximately 10:30 p.m. at night.

And then one last thing to do was to go into the ocean.

It's at night, and this water was rough.

Just-just-- It was horrible.

[waves pounding]

This was supposed to have been the night

that they were "crossing the desert sand."

So they had to go out into the ocean,

and it'll be over.

Kenitha, she couldn't swim.

She didn't even like shower water on her face.

She used to be that afraid of water.

Amber: Maybe is was out of fear that she opted to participate.

"Knowing that I can't swim, I'm gonna see it through."

So I think it's that... that thinking

is why she got in the water.

As they went into the ocean,

there was a Simon Says sort of practice

that was taking place.

You got to listen to somebody's voice,

or somebody shouting directions.

"Move right. Move left. Come forward. Go backwards."

They had to trust each other.

They called this a way of becoming more, um...

like sisters.

What happened, though, was the condition of the ocean

at that time dramatically changed.

And as a result, when the waves came through,

it knocked down all four of the girls.

Mansfield: Two of the girls were able to walk out of the ocean.

Then they said Kristin got up

and she says, "Help! It's Kenitha!"

And they said the next thing they know,

Kristin got down and started grabbing on Kenitha.

Instead of just thinking about saving herself,

we believe that she sought to save Kenitha,

who didn't know how to swim.

And in the process, Kristin High, a good swimmer,

ended up drowning as well.

[waves lapping]

She could not get out of that ocean

until she saved her sister.

She was a true sister.

We understand that after the drowning,

the chapter of Sigma

that were responsible for the pledging that night

decided to all meet up at someone's home.

Patricia: So they got all their plans together

They get rid of all the AKA items in Kristin's car.

Someone had destroyed Kristin High's daily journal

of her pledging activities,

and that journal has never been recovered.

We understand that in that meeting,

they decided to come up with certain versions of a story

of what happened that night

to try to protect themselves, from being expelled,

for engaging in hazing,

and to try to protect the national organization

and the embarrassment that this type of conduct

brought to the organization.

The National Organization said that they had

suspended this particular chapter,

and therefore, they weren't responsible for anything

that they were doing, and they didn't know that they were

engaging in any hazing or pledging.

I think the way that the organization responded

was nuanced in the sense that these are just some bad apples,

some rogue women who decided

to take these matters into their own hands

in terms of getting their chapter reinstated.

And I don't know how true that is,

because in the spring of 2002,

I remember Kenitha saying they're already starting,

I guess, the paperwork.

The idea was the beginning the process of getting AKA

reinstated back on campus.

So let's take the girls who are interested

through a pledge process first.

She told me that herself.

And so they had already did the credential paperwork

and turned in everything.

It was clearly approved to start in the fall,

because they were on the AKA headquarter website.

The website was taken off the very next day.

So National covered up.

They wanted this shoved underneath the carpet.

This organization, they have politicians,

AKA judges, there's AKA police.

This organization is so big

that they did not want to be embarrassed in the newspaper,

in the news, in the community, nothing.

And so the organization did not want this to come out.

I journeyed up to Chicago

to hear the deposition.

I said, "I wanna see them and their face

as they tell the truth."

The first interview was with

the vice president

of AKA.

She talked about that it was a city chapter

that no longer existed.

And then she begin to say that this line

wasn't an official line.

All of a sudden,

Kenitha's attorney pulls out a sheet of paper

that state that they were financially aligned,

that they were an official chapter at Cal State, L.A.,

and that AKA had made that an official chapter also.

So after their attorney saw the papers,

they said, "You can go back to L.A.

We're gonna settle with you."

And they got caught up in a lie.

I don't know the amount given.

I don't know--I could not--

It wasn't something that I was interested in.

It's just something I wasn't-- I--I didn't care about.

I wanted my sister back.

The only thing that the money can do is help Skyler.

But how much can you pay a child to live without your mom?

We're left grieving, you know?

She was a daughter, a daughter to this woman.

a mother to my son, Skyler,

and my fiancée.

We wanted to make sure that AKA didn't allow this chapter

to still engage and recruit in violation of its policies.

Everybody knew what they were doing that night.

And no one... put a stop to it.

No one said, "Okay, this is enough."

No one said, "Uh, she can't swim.

She probably shouldn't be in the ocean."

What is the sisterhood in that?

What is the progressiveness in terms of movement,

in education and all of these things

that the organizations say that they are about?

Where is it?

So I think that the illusion of it all is just that:

An illusion.

Karim: It's like nothing can bring that person back.

I lost my best friend. We had, uh...

You know, we'd been through a lot in five years, you know?

It's your college sweetheart.

To this day, it's like, you know,

I thank God for me having that short time with her.

I often wondered, where would she be right now?

I know Kristin would be happy with her family and...

especially with Skyler.

She would have been a great lawyer.

She was already an awesome daughter.

Her mind was to save Kenitha.

She forgot herself, and she forgot her family.

[breaking up] She just wanted to save Kenitha.

That's what gives me strength,

knowing that my daughter still loved people.

Michelle: It is truly a tragedy.

We're a non-hazing organization

and it does not take away from the power or prestige

of AKA or any D-9 organization

if we practice what we preach.

Our history makes us great.

Our people make us great.

What we continue to do in the community makes us great.

And we don't need hazing to make us great.

I think we're living proof of that.

There's a long history of racial incidents at Alabama.

The N word was written in chalk all over campus.

A cross was burned on the lawn of a Black sorority.

The real harms of "The Machine"

come from institutionalized racism.

I do believe that if I was White,

we wouldn't have had the same issue.

"The Machine" is very much focused on White supremacy.

These are people who would demonstrate

that they can punish those who defied them.

Captioning provided by A&E Networks.