Rob Tilley walked into Kappa Alpha Theta Saturday afternoon when a wave of nostalgia hit him as he saw a posterboard full of pictures of his best friend, Michael Scrocca.

“That was a great night,” said Tilley, a senior criminology and criminal justice and psychology major, pointing to a picture of Scrocca smiling. “I remember that. And that.”

The he saw an unfamiliar picture on the posterboard that was on display at the sorority’s fundraiser for Scrocca.

“I’ve never seen that before,” he said, turning to another of Scrocca’s friends, Brie Kohrt. “Is this digital? Can you send me it? Can you send me all of it?”

Saturday was the one-year anniversary of the vivacious senior who died in a house fire on Princeton Avenue, and many of his friends took time to reflect together about the comrade they lost.

One year after the death that investigators ruled a homicide, the perpetrators of the arson are still at large the chances of finding them grow ever slimmer. One year later, the fire that drew attention to the flaws in sprinkler codes in downtown College Park where many students live, sprinklers still aren’t the norm or even a requirement, and Scrocca’s parents were left with the unsettling feeling that their son died in vain after fire claimed another young life – that of senior David Ellis in a January Knox Box fire.

As friends gathered at the Kappa Alpha Theta house, just three houses away construction crews quietly carried wood to rebuild the house that burned to ground. The new house is beige, but it has the same front porch patio, where firefighters say the fire started.

One year later, private detectives still promise they’ll never drop the case, though the likelihood of finding the responsible person or persons decreases with every passing day as the students who remember the party get closer to graduation and leaving the campus behind.

Steve Kerpelman, the private investigator hired by the Scroccas, said he hopes the anniversary is another reminder for students – or anyone – to come forward with information. “Anniversaries tend to make people start feeling guilty,” he said yesterday.

It was dark and cloudy on the morning Scrocca died – nothing like this weekend’s sunny skies. That Friday night more than 100 students had gathered with alcohol, a couple of kegs and an ice luge for a party at Scrocca’s house. Friends said Scrocca left his house to go to a friend’s before returning home to sleep for the night. Then about 4 a.m., a fire started by a gas can left on the front porch, police detectives said. Scrocca’s four roommates and other friends sleeping in the house escaped, while Scrocca died from smoke inhalation in his upstairs bedroom.

One year later, about eight of Scrocca’s friends have tattoos remembering him. Kohrt has a tattoo in Spanish that says, “But now there is no thunder,” because they both loved Spanish. Scrocca pushed Kohrt to study abroad to Madrid, like he had done during his junior year. Scrocca even wrote a list of things she has to do there, and she did them all.

Kim Richter, a senior business marketing major, got a tattoo on her right foot that says, “It’s a beautiful day,” after the U2 song because it reflects Scrocca’s optimistic personality.

His family could not be reached yesterday, but Kohrt said they spent it in Staten Island, watching Scrocca’s younger brother, Brian, play in a baseball tournament at Wagner College.

Sisters of Kappa Alpha Theta – many of whom were Scrocca’s close friends – organized a fundraiser in his name and raised $750 that will go to charities Scrocca would have donated to.

Some of the charities include Special Olympics, the American Cancer Society and three families displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Scrocca’s mother, Mary, set up a baseball scholarship in her son’s name for a student in his high school, Somerville, located in Branchburg, NJ.

Many friends called Scrocca the glue who kept their group together, the party lover and the “iron man,” after one of his idols, Cal Ripken Jr.

“He kept us all together as a community,” said Kohrt, a junior psychology and Spanish major. “Now that he’s gone, we do it ourselves. That’s what he left behind – a lesson that we all have to cherish each other and our friendships.”

“I’m not quite sure why anniversaries carry the significant weight that they do,” wrote Becca White, a senior anthropology major, on the posterboard. “It’s not like noting the first anniversary of the unexpected loss of a friend makes the grieving process any harder or easier. But in the case of Mike Scrocca, it certainly makes me wonder what he’d be doing today if he were alive.”

Contact reporter Laurie Au at lauriedbk@gmail.com.