Every day, Andrew Coffey’s parents light a candle at their Pompano Beach home. It’s a painful reminder their son is no longer with them.
“A candle gets lit every morning and it burns until it can burn no more,” Coffey’s mother, Sandy, said tearfully in a plea hearing Monday for five men charged with her son’s death. “No parent should have to light a candle remembering their son next to his ashes.”
She recalled how Tallahassee and Florida State were Coffey’s first stop on his way to joining the U.S. Navy. But she, her husband Tom and their daughter, will never get to see the 20-year-old don an FSU cap and gown or military uniform.
Coffey died of alcohol poisoning while pledging FSU’s Pi Kappa Phi fraternity. At a November house party, he drank an entire bottle of Wild Turkey 101 bourbon at the coercion of older fraternity members, investigators say.
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