Tyler Clementi was born on December 19, 1991, in Ridgewood, New Jersey. A graduate of Ridgewood High School, he was a violinist; he played with the Ridgewood Symphony Orchestra and participated in the Bergen Youth Orchestra as concertmaster. A few days before leaving home to attend college at Rutgers, Clementi told his parents that he was gay. While his father supported him, Clementi said in an instant message to a friend that his mother had “basically completely rejected” him. In later interviews, Clementi’s mother explained that she had been “sad” and “quiet” as she processed the information and that she “felt a little betrayed” that he had not previously confided in her that he was gay. She later noted that she had not been ready as a parent to publicly acknowledge having a gay son, partly because her evangelical church had taught that homosexuality was a sin. After their conversation, she said that she and Tyler cried, hugged, and said they loved each other. Jane Clementi said that she and Tyler spent the rest of the week together and spoke frequently on the phone when he was at Rutgers. According to his mother, Tyler seemed “confident” and “comfortable” after coming out and told her of having visited New York City with new friends. Ravi and Wei met while students at West Windsor-Plainsboro High School North. Prior to arriving at Rutgers, Ravi tried to find information about his new roommate online. On Twitter, Ravi referred to having seen Clementi’s communications on the Just Us Boys website, and tweeted “Found out my roommate is gay.” Tyler Clementi also researched his roommate and read postings on Ravi’s Twitter page. After Ravi and Clementi moved in together, they rarely interacted or spoke. Ravi’s text messages to friends described Clementi as shy and awkward. Clementi’s online conversations and text messages referred to his amusement at Ravi’s construction of a private changing area, but Clementi said he appreciated the fact that Ravi left him alone and did not force an excessively social atmosphere.

On the nights of September 19 and 21, Tyler Clementi had asked Ravi to use their room for those evenings. On the first occasion, Ravi met Clementi’s male friend, and Clementi said that the two wanted to be alone for the evening. Ravi has stated that he was worried about theft and that he left the computer in a state where he could view the webcam stream due to those concerns. Other witnesses testified that Ravi said he also wanted to confirm that Clementi was gay. Ravi and Wei viewed the video stream via iChat for a few seconds, seeing Clementi and his guest kissing. Later, Wei turned on the camera for another view with four others in the room, though Ravi was not there. During this second viewing, Wei and others saw Clementi and his guest kissing with their shirts off and their pants on. On September 20, Clementi, who followed Ravi’s Twitter account, read a message that Ravi sent a few minutes after the webcam viewing the previous day. Ravi wrote: “Roommate asked for the room till midnight. I went into molly’s room and turned on my webcam. I saw him making out with a dude. Yay.” According to a Rutgers employee, at about 4 a.m. on September 21, Clementi sent an online request for a single room because his “roommate used webcam to spy on me.”

On September 21, Ravi posted text messages saying that there would be a viewing party to watch Clementi and his guest, along with directions on how to view it remotely. At 6:39 p.m., Ravi tweeted, “Anyone with iChat, I dare you to video chat me between the hours of 9:30 and 12. Yes, it’s happening again.” Ravi had set up the webcam and pointed it towards Clementi’s bed. When Tyler Clementi returned to his room, he noticed the camera and texted a friend saying he had unplugged Ravi’s powerstrip to prevent further video streaming during his date. Ravi has said that he had changed his mind regarding the broadcast and disabled the camera himself by putting the computer in sleep mode. The same day, Clementi complained to a resident assistant and two other officials that Ravi had used a webcam to stream part of Clementi’s private sexual encounter with another man. The resident assistant testified at trial that Tyler Clementi appeared shaky and uncomfortable when they met around 11 p.m., and in his official report of the meeting, the resident assistant said that Clementi requested both a room change and punishment for Ravi. In a formal e-mail request to the resident assistant made after the meeting, Clementi described the two viewing incidents, quoted from Ravi’s Twitter postings, and wrote “I feel that my privacy has been violated and I am extremely uncomfortable sharing a room with someone who would act in this wildly inappropriate manner.” Clementi wrote in detail on the Just Us Boys and Yahoo! message boards about complaints he filed through university channels about his roommate. His posts indicated that he did not want to share a room with Ravi after he learned about the first incident and then discovered that Ravi invited his Twitter followers to watch a second sexual encounter. “He [the resident assistant] seemed to take it seriously,” Clementi wrote in a post about 15 hours before his jump from the George Washington Bridge. Within a few hours, Tyler Clementi returned to his dorm room and he and Ravi were there for less than an hour.

On the evening of September 22, Tyler Clementi left the dorm room, bought food from the campus food court, and, around 6:30 p.m., headed toward the George Washington Bridge. By 8:42 p.m., Clementi had made his way to the George Washington Bridge and posted from his cell phone on Facebook, “Jumping off the gw bridge sorry.” Clementi left a suicide note which, along with documents on his computer, was never released to either the public or to the defense team in Ravi’s trial, because Clementi’s suicide was not directly related to the charges against Ravi. Tyler Clementi’s wallet was found on September 22 on the walkway adjacent to the bridge’s eastbound lanes after witnesses reported seeing someone on the bridge. His car, cell phone, and computer were also found near the bridge. Police recovered a body on September 29 in the Hudson River just north of the bridge. It was confirmed the next day that the body recovered was Clementi. The medical examiner’s autopsy report cites drowning as the cause of death, and notes blunt impact injuries to his torso.