It's the time of year when people go out in search of the perfect Christmas tree, but for three Thiel College students that search ended with the police at their fraternity house door.

Greenville-West Salem Township police received a call at 2:05 p.m. Saturday that three students were in Riverside Park cutting down a large evergreen tree. Several witnesses who were walking or jogging in the park told police that the students, who were driving a white Ford pickup, drove into the park and began sawing down a tree.

Witnesses gave police the registration number of the truck and gave police the name of a fraternity that was on a shirt one of the men was wearing.

Thiel security confirmed the owner of the truck and went with Greenville-West Salem Police to the fraternity house, police said.

Kenneth D. Carl III, 20, of Washington, Pa.; Derek E. Bubb, 20, of Sarver, Pa.; and Robert M. Stein Jr., 20, of East Pittsburgh, Pa., admitted they had cut down the tree, police said. They were released to the college, and the tree was taken to the police station, police said.

The tree was a blue spruce, and the men had cut 12 to 15 feet from the top of the tree leaving a six-foot stump, police said.

Police did not identify the trio's fraternity.