The murder of Reagan Tokes occurred on the night of February 8, 2017, in the Scioto Grove Metro Park in Grove City, Ohio. Tokes, a twenty-one-year-old student at Ohio State University, was abducted by Brian Golsby while leaving her job in Columbus’s downtown. Golsby robbed and raped Tokes, and forced her to drive to the Scioto Grove Metro Park. There, he forced her to strip naked and marched her into a field where he shot her twice in the head just shortly before midnight. Her body was found the following morning.
Golsby had recently been released from prison where he had served a six-year sentence for kidnapping a pregnant woman and her child and raping the woman. He had pled down to robbery and attempted rape. He was staying at a temporary housing program. The officials at the housing program and his parole officer did not monitor him, and he violated probation and committed six robberies without being arrested before murdering Tokes.
Golsby was convicted in March 2018 and sentenced to life in prison though prosecutors filed a cross-appeal, arguing that a legal error prevented him from getting the death penalty. In 2019 prosecutors were granted the authority to appeal. Oral arguments in front of Ohio's Tenth District Court of Appeals were held on July 30, 2020. In September, the appeals court ruled that prosecutors could not continue to pursue the death penalty. Under former Franklin County District Attorney Ron O'Brien, the state appealed the decision and the Supreme Court of Ohio accepted the case. However, under newly elected District Attorney Gary Tyack, the state's appeal was withdrawn.
The murder of Tokes received extensive media coverage in Central Ohio and was listed as one of region's top ten news stories in 2017 by The Columbus Dispatch. The case has received national attention as well, being featured on programs such as Dateline NBC and On the Case with Paula Zahn. It was also featured on an episode of Criminal Confessions on the Oxygen Network. Tokes's murder has also led to calls for changes in Ohio’s criminal justice system. In 2018 Governor John Kasich signed part of the Reagan Tokes Act into law. Tokes's family sued the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (ODRC) and NISRE Inc., the company whose program housed Golsby, arguing that their negligence and failure to monitor him led to Tokes's murder. Several courts dismissed the lawsuit against the ODRC and the Supreme Court of Ohio declined to hear the Tokes' case against the department. The lawsuit against NISRE Inc. remained pending, and a trial was set to begin in 2020. The lawsuit was later settled.
Background
Reagan Tokes Reagan Delaney Tokes was born on March 13, 1995, in Edgewood, Kentucky, United States, to parents Toby Tokes and Lisa McCrary-Tokes. She had a younger sister, Makenzie. She was raised in Maumee, Ohio, in Monclova Township, and graduated from Anthony Wayne High School where she had a 4.5 GPA and played on the varsity lacrosse and tennis teams. The year she began college her parents and sister moved to Florida, leaving Tokes in Ohio to begin attending The Ohio State University. Tokes had wanted to attend OSU since she was a child. She originally majored in pre-med but changed her major to psychology. She planned on graduating in May 2017 and moving to Cleveland, where she had hoped to work at the Cleveland Clinic. Tokes also planned to attend graduate school, get another degree in psychology and open up her own psychology practice. Days before being murdered, she posted on social media about picking out a frame for her diploma. Tokes worked at Bodega, a restaurant and bar in Columbus's Short North neighborhood.
Brian Golsby Brian Lee Golsby was born on January 26, 1988. He says that he had an abusive mother and was affected by drug and alcohol abuse. He also claims to have experienced a rape in his youth, although prosecutors dispute this as the stories he gave were inconsistent. Golsby started committing crimes as a juvenile. These crimes include criminal trespassing, receiving stolen property, theft, shoplifting, criminal damaging, and threatening his mother with a knife. According to a juvenile sex offender assessment filed by the Ohio Department of Youth Services, Golsby raped five-year-old girls and six-year-old boys, and was a member of the Crips gang during his youth.
In November 2010, Golsby abducted a woman who was eight months pregnant, together with her two-year-old son. As the adult victim was getting her child out of her car, he came up behind her and put a knife to her throat. Police say he also threatened the child's life. Golsby orally raped the woman in front of the child and forced her to drive him to several ATMs to withdraw money. He then forced her to drive him to her home where he again orally raped her and stole her DVD-player. The victim refused to testify, fearing for her and her children's lives, so Golsby pleaded down to robbery and attempted rape in May 2011. He was sentenced to six years in prison for the robbery charge and six years for the attempted rape charge. The sentences ran concurrently, meaning that he would be incarcerated for a total of six years rather than twelve years. The six months he had spent in jail prior to the plea bargain counted as a part of his six-year sentence, so instead of being released six years after the plea, in May 2017, he was released five and a half years afterward, in November 2016.
While in prison, Golsby committed fifty-two infractions, including possessing contraband, refusing to obey orders, stealing, fighting, and creating disturbances. His behavior was so problematic that he was shifted to different penitentiaries several times. He ended up serving his sentence in five different prisons. He was released on November 13, 2016, and had to register as a Tier III sex offender.
Upon release, Golsby was given a GPS tracking device by a re-entry program for ex-offenders, called Alvis. Alvis did not actively monitor him. Golsby could not be placed in Alvis's re-entry program due to his criminal history and his history of violence while in prison. He was placed at a temporary housing center that was run by the EXIT Program. Like Alvis, officials working for the EXIT Program did not monitor him. They allowed him to come and go as he wanted and did not check his whereabouts. His only limitation was to be at the housing center between 10:00 pm and 6:00 am. According to the EXIT Program's founder, Golsby had a pass to leave the house during what he claimed were his work hours. Golsby's parole officer did not monitor him either. Golsby violated parole several times and committed six robberies without being sent to jail or prison. The parole violations, which included letting the battery on his GPS bracelet die as well as spending several nights away from the Exit Program's housing center, were considered "non-severe" and did not warrant immediate sanctions.
The robberies Golsby committed include: January 24 – Robbing a woman of $3 at knifepoint. January 27 – Robbing a woman for some gift cards. February 1 – Robbing a man and taking $20. February 2 – Abducting a man and forcing him to drive to an ATM at gunpoint. He then robbed the man of $500. February 6 – Pistol whipping a woman, and taking $38. February 7 – Robbing a woman, taking her purse and bag.
After his third violation, a hearing was scheduled for February 23, which could have resulted in returning him to prison.
The crime On the evening of February 8, 2017, Tokes went to work at Bodega in downtown Columbus, Ohio. Golsby spent the evening roaming Columbus looking for a victim. GPS data shows that he walked around OSU's campus and to North High Street. At North High Street, he got on a COTA bus and traveled to the downtown. He then spent about an hour walking around in circles near Bodega.
At about 9:45 PM Tokes left Bodega and walked to her car. She ran into Golsby, who forced her into her car at gunpoint and abducted her. During his interrogation, Golsby said he told Tokes that all he wanted was money and that everything would be all right. Golsby forced Tokes to drive him to two ATMs to withdraw money, but the transactions were declined. They stopped at the first ATM, a Chase Bank, at 10:02, and tried to withdraw $500. Twelve minutes later, at 10:14, they stopped at a Huntington Bank.
At 10:18 Tokes and Golsby arrived in an alley, and stayed there for twelve minutes. This is where Golsby is believed to have raped Tokes. A rape kit performed on Tokes's body would later show that Golsby had raped her. After the rape, Golsby made Tokes drive back to the first ATM, and forced her to withdraw $60. Tokes and Golsby also stopped at two gas stations, a Sunoco station at 11:12 and a Turkey Hill station at 11:41.
Golsby decided to murder Tokes to prevent her from reporting the crimes he had committed against her. In his interrogation, he admitted that she begged for her life, telling him “all I want to do is live.” Prosecutors believe that Tokes complied with her kidnapper's commands in order to survive. Golsby made her drive to the Scioto Grove Metro Park. There, he had her park the car and take off all of her clothing, including her shoes. He then marched Tokes into a field and shot her twice in the head. One shot was to the back of her head, and the other through the left side of her face. Golsby shot her at close range, killing her execution-style.
After murdering Tokes, Golsby took her silver Acura TL to his girlfriend's home. Golsby and his girlfriend went to McDonald's together at 1:45 AM. Golsby gave her Tokes's black Kate Spade purse and white wallet as a gift. He later disposed of the gun and shell casings in a sewer, and unsuccessfully tried to set Tokes's car on fire in order to destroy evidence.
Criminal proceedings
Investigation Before being kidnapped, while Tokes was at Bodega, she texted her father saying that she would call him after she left work. When Tokes failed to call, her parents became worried. They spent the night trying to call and text her but got no answer. At around 2:00 AM Tokes's phone died. On February 9, her parents learned that she had not attended her classes. A missing person report was filed and news of her disappearance was spread via social media.
The day after Tokes's murder, a park-goer discovered her naked body and called the police. A tattoo and a necklace helped detectives identify the victim. Tokes's body was later officially identified by her uncle who lived nearby. A forensic pathologist later testified at trial that two bullets were recovered from Tokes's head during an autopsy. The pathologist also said that one of the gunshot wounds Tokes suffered was fired at close range, which is supported by another forensic pathologist's testimony that her DNA was inside the barrel of the gun.
A digital reader that was likely attached to a commercial vehicle captured the front license plate of Tokes's car after Golsby abandoned it. The information gathered was put into a database that police later accessed. Investigators then found the car in southeast Columbus. In the back of the car and on the ground next to it were cigarette butts with Golsby's DNA. Also inside the car was a gas can. Detectives found that a similar one had been purchased the night of Tokes's murder; they later obtained a photograph of Golsby buying it. Golsby's GPS bracelet placed him in the locations Tokes had been – in the street where she parked her car, at the ATMs, and at the park. Along with the cigarette butts, more DNA evidence against Golsby came from the rape kit performed on Tokes's body. Gunshot residue was also found on Golsby's clothing.
Arrest