ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, February 17, 1996 TAG: 9602190029
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KATHY LOAN AND MADELYN ROSENBERG STAFF WRITERS
A medical examiner's findings in the unrelated deaths of two college students have ended a week of speculation.
Valerie Cole, an 18-year-old Radford University student found dead in her Peery Hall dorm room Saturday, died of alcohol poisoning, said Dr. David Oxley, deputy chief medical examiner for Western Virginia.
A preliminary report from a toxicologist indicates Theresa Gillespie, a 26-year-old Virginia Tech graduate student, died of an overdose of sleeping pills. Oxley said the final report is due next week. Tech officials released the preliminary finding after Gillespie's family was notified Friday, the same day her funeral was held in Blacksburg.
Gillespie's body was found Monday in a fenced-in wooded area near a rappelling tower on Tech's campus.
She was last seen Saturday night, when she had dinner at a Blacksburg restaurant with her husband and friends.
In Radford, Cole's body was discovered by two friends who were visiting from out of town.
Cole attended parties at the Chi Phi and Pi Kappa Phi fraternities Friday night. Friends said she was drinking, then came home early Saturday and went to sleep.
The two Radford fraternities have been temporarily suspended by both the university and their national chapters for violating university alcohol policies.
"The investigation into the fraternity situation is continuing," said Debbie Brown, Radford's spokeswoman.
Cole's parents were notified of Oxley's ruling Friday, Brown said.
Joyce Walter, Radford's first full-time health educator, will spend today training students on how to teach others about alcohol and what it can do to their bodies.
The session has been planned for weeks, but is particularly applicable with Cole's death on many students' minds.
Walter said she tries to talk to students without lecturing them, to warn them without preaching.
"The stats over the years for alcohol have not changed," she said. "The use of illicit drugs has dropped, but alcohol is still the No.1 drug of choice. We have to make students understand that it is a drug."
Walter said some students who attend her programs are knowledgable about alcohol and its effects. "But others, you get a group, especially of young women and men who haven't experienced college life for all that long ... I don't think they understand the physiological effects, that your body can only handle so much ... that it's a toxin and that you can die from it."
LENGTH: Medium: 55 lines KEYWORDS: FATALITYby CNB