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2 Temple students' deaths were ODs, official confirms

The two deaths are the fourth and fifth for the university this semester.

Temple University and the other state-related schools – Penn State and Lincoln universities and the University of Pittsburgh – will get their long-delayed state funding after Gov. Wolf signed an appropriation bill Friday. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Temple University and the other state-related schools – Penn State and Lincoln universities and the University of Pittsburgh – will get their long-delayed state funding after Gov. Wolf signed an appropriation bill Friday. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)Read moreMatt Rourke
    by Colt Shaw, STAFF WRITER
    Published 

The two Temple students who died last week each suffered fatal drug overdoses, a spokesman for the city's Health Department confirmed Monday.

Michael Paytas, 24, a fourth-year marketing major from Ridley Township, Delaware County, was found unresponsive in the university's Paley Library last Monday and was taken to Hahnemann Hospital, where he was later pronounced dead.

And Saturday morning, city and campus police responded to a 911 call at an off-campus apartment where they found the body of James Orlando, 20, of Reading.

The overdoses were confirmed by James Garrow, spokesman for the Health Department.

The deaths bring to five the number of student fatalities since August. The others include:

  1. Cariann Hithon, 22, who was in Miami in October for her 22nd birthday with friends, was killed by police after driving recklessly and crashing into a detective's cruiser, authorities said.

  2. Richard Dalcourt, a freshman engineering student from New Jersey, who fell that same month to his death from the top floor of his dorm building.

  3. Jenna Burleigh who was killed in late August after leaving a bar with a former student. Her alleged killer, Joshua Hupperterz, is awaiting trial on murder charges.