Meredith Kenneff

Grief counselors consoled classmates at Duquesne University over the death of sophomore Meredith Kenneff while authorities yesterday sought to learn why the dean's list student and sorority member collapsed at an off-campus party Saturday night.

Kenneff, 20, an education major who had hoped to teach elementary school, apparently was drinking for much of the day, police said. But what role, if any, alcohol played in her death won't be known for two to three months, when results return from toxicology tests done by the Allegheny County coroner's office.

As the 10,000-student university sought answers, Kenneff's parents in Lancaster were coping with the loss of the older of their two children.

"There are no words to describe it. My life will never be the same," her mother, Nancy, said yesterday. "She loved Duquesne. She loved the city. She made wonderful friends."

Her father, John Kenneff, a public defender and former first assistant district attorney in Lancaster County, said his daughter had been fighting bronchitis. Nancy Kenneff said her daughter told her by phone Friday that she had been taking medication for it.

Paramedics were called about 8:30 p.m. Saturday to a residence in Mount Washington where, authorities say, some Duquesne students were apparently in attendance. They found Kenneff, a member of Sigma Lambda Phi sorority, and took her to Mercy Hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 11:47 p.m.

Pittsburgh police Cmdr. Maurita Bryant said an investigation began Saturday but cannot be completed until toxicology results are known.

Without those results, detectives have no way of knowing whether there is anything criminal about Kenneff's death, she said. But Bryant said homicide Detective Jim McGee, who went Saturday to the scene at 112 Ulysses St., told her that nothing on the surface indicated the death was suspicious.

Kenneff "was dancing and the next thing [other partygoers] knew, she collapsed onto the floor."

Bryant said detectives were told that Kenneff had been drinking beer throughout the day. She attended the St. Patrick's Day parade and then went to a club Downtown, where she drank more.

After that, she returned to campus, where she got something to eat, slept for a time and went out to at least three other clubs, again drinking beer. She had a few drinks at each stop, Bryant said. At the Mount Washington party, Kenneff drank vodka and Red Bull, a nonalcoholic energy drink.

Kenneff appeared intoxicated but not so much that she needed help walking or was falling down, Bryant said interviews indicated.

"One guy said she appeared intoxicated but was OK, that she was a lively person anyway," Bryant said.

Police are investigating how Kenneff was able to obtain alcohol despite being underage.

Bryant said nobody who was interviewed said they saw Kenneff ingest drugs on the day she died.

Chief Deputy Coroner Joseph Dominick said Mercy Hospital provided the coroner's office with results of a blood alcohol test the hospital ran on Kenneff. But Mercy's findings cannot be part of the coroner's legal investigation seeking to determine her cause of death.

Instead, the coroner's office will determine the blood alcohol level itself as part of its toxicology screen and then will determine what effect, if any, alcohol had in her death.

Dominick would not disclose the exact blood alcohol level reported by Mercy but said it was above the legal limit for driving in Pennsylvania, which is 0.08. He also said hospital testing revealed the presence of a drug, but he did not identify it.