Dateline’s Unchecked Evil: Trial, Lawsuit, and Reagan Tokes Act

NBC’s Dateline episode “Unchecked Evil,” which aired June 24, 2019, told the story of Reagan Tokes, a 21-year-old Ohio State University student abducted, raped, and shot to death in February 2017 by a convicted sex offender who had been released from prison four months earlier and placed on a GPS ankle monitor that no one was actually watching.¹ Correspondent Andrea Canning’s report examined both the killing and the supervision failures behind it. Her killer received life without parole plus 105 years. Her parents turned their grief into a legislative campaign that produced the Reagan Tokes Act, a law that has since reshaped roughly a third of Ohio’s prison population and remains the subject of ongoing debate.

The Night of February 8, 2017

Reagan Tokes finished a shift at the Bodega Café in Columbus’s Short North neighborhood on the evening of February 8, 2017. Brian Golsby spotted her as she left. He forced her into her own car at gunpoint, made her withdraw money at an ATM, then raped her and shot her.² Her body was found in a snowy field at Scioto Grove Metro Park in Grove City.³

Two pieces of evidence tied Golsby to the killing: DNA on cigarette butts inside Reagan’s car, and location data from the GPS ankle monitor he was wearing, which placed him at the crime scene.² The same monitor data later helped connect him to a string of six other aggravated robberies committed in the weeks leading up to the murder.⁴

Why Brian Golsby Was Free and Unwatched

Golsby had pleaded guilty in 2011 to attempted rape and robbery, both second-degree felonies, and served concurrent six-year sentences. He was released on November 13, 2016, and classified as a Tier III sex offender required to register every 90 days for life.⁵ He was ordered to wear a GPS monitor and placed in the EXIT halfway house, run by a private contractor called NISRE under a state parole contract.

The supervision was, in the words of State Representative Kristin Boggs, “practically meaningless.” No inclusionary or exclusionary zones were programmed into the device. His curfew was not tracked. Local law enforcement could not access his GPS data without a subpoena.⁶ The Tokes family’s later lawsuit alleged the EXIT facility functioned as “strictly a ‘housing program'” and that Golsby was “free to come and go as he pleased.”⁷ Golsby committed at least seven felonies during January and February 2017 while nominally under supervision. None were traced to him before Reagan Tokes was dead.

Trial, Verdict, and Sentence

A Franklin County grand jury indicted Golsby on March 31, 2017, on charges including four counts of aggravated murder, kidnapping, rape, seven counts of aggravated robbery, tampering with evidence, and weapons offenses, along with firearm, repeat violent offender, and sexually violent predator specifications.⁴

The two-week capital trial took place in Franklin County Common Pleas Court before Judge Mark Serrott. On March 13, 2018, after about five hours of deliberation, the jury found Golsby guilty on all counts. The verdict came on what would have been Reagan Tokes’s 23rd birthday.²

During the penalty phase, the jury deadlocked on death and unanimously recommended life without parole. Judge Serrott imposed three consecutive life terms without parole for the murder, kidnapping, and rape convictions, plus additional time on the remaining counts, for an aggregate sentence of life without parole plus 105 years.⁸ Golsby later pleaded guilty to six more aggravated robbery counts from his earlier crime spree.⁴

The Family’s Lawsuit Against the State

In May 2018, the Tokes family filed a wrongful death and survivorship action against the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, the Adult Parole Authority, and NISRE Inc. They alleged the state never configured Golsby’s monitoring correctly, never accessed his GPS data, established no exclusion zones, and ignored at least three post-release control violations between December 2016 and January 2017.⁷

The state invoked the public duty doctrine, which treats parole supervision as a duty owed to the public generally rather than to any specific person. The Ohio Court of Claims dismissed the case in September 2018. The Tenth District Court of Appeals affirmed in May 2019. In August 2019, the Ohio Supreme Court declined the family’s appeal by a 6-1 vote.⁹ The state was effectively immune. A separate suit against the private contractor NISRE remained pending in Franklin County Common Pleas Court.¹⁰

The Reagan Tokes Act

Unable to hold the state liable in court, Reagan’s parents, Lisa McCrary-Tokes and Toby Tokes, worked with legislators Jim Hughes and Kristin Boggs on a bill addressing the failures they blamed for their daughter’s death. Governor Kasich signed Senate Bill 201 on December 21, 2018. It took effect March 22, 2019.¹¹

The law made two structural changes to Ohio sentencing. First, for first- and second-degree felonies that don’t carry a life sentence, judges must now impose both a minimum and a maximum prison term. The maximum equals the minimum plus 50 percent. Incarcerated people are presumed to be released at the end of the minimum, but the DRC can rebut that presumption based on prison rule violations and hold them up to the maximum.¹² Second, prison officials may recommend that individuals be released before their minimum term expires for exceptional conduct, with the sentencing court’s approval, cutting up to 15 percent off the minimum.¹³

Constitutional Challenge

Defense attorneys challenged the law on separation of powers, jury trial, and due process grounds, arguing the decision to hold someone past the minimum was being made by prison administrators rather than judges or juries. On July 26, 2023, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled 5-2 that the law is constitutional. Justice Joseph Deters, writing for the majority, held that because extended time still falls within the range the sentencing judge set, the executive branch is not encroaching on judicial authority.¹⁴ Justices Jennifer Brunner and Michael Donnelly dissented, writing that the procedures were “insufficient in light of the gravity of the decision being made.”¹⁵

How the Law Has Played Out

A 2025 investigation by The Marshall Project and WOSU found that six years in, the early-release provision has never been used. The DRC denied all of the more than 120 petitions filed by incarcerated people seeking sentence reductions. The mechanism for adding time, by contrast, has been used extensively. Roughly 700 people have been denied release through disciplinary extensions, adding a combined 830 years of incarceration at an estimated $32 million cost to taxpayers.¹⁶

More than 14,500 people have been sentenced under the law, nearly a third of Ohio’s prison population.¹³ Matthew Ahn, director of the Beyond Guilt project, called the law “just another accelerator toward runaway incarceration.” The investigation also documented racial disparities: Black men make up about 45 percent of Ohio’s prison population but nearly 60 percent of those held beyond their minimums.¹⁶

A Second Law After a Second Killing

The original Reagan Tokes Act reshaped sentencing but did less to fix the supervision gaps at the heart of Reagan’s case. That shortcoming came back into public view when Patrick Heringer, a 46-year-old Army veteran and Cincinnati gym owner, was stabbed to death in his home in 2025 while defending his wife. His attacker had been released from prison earlier that year after serving time for felony assault and aggravated riot, and had walked away from his halfway house in February 2025 while on supervised release.¹⁷

State Representative Cindy Abrams drafted House Bill 667, the Reagan Tokes and Patrick Heringer Act. The Ohio House passed it on June 10, 2026, and sent it to the Senate.¹⁸ The bill would require the DRC to contract with a single vendor for real-time GPS monitoring of violent offenders on post-release control, with functioning inclusionary and exclusionary zones, curfew enforcement, and crime scene correlation accessible to local law enforcement. It would also require parole officers to enter absconder warrants into the LEADS and NCIC databases within 48 hours and notify 911 call centers, and would expand judicial authority to send repeat offenders back to prison under the T-CAP program.¹⁷ Sarah Heringer and Lisa Tokes both testified in support.

The Foundation in Reagan’s Name

Reagan’s parents established the Reagan Delaney Tokes Memorial Foundation under the motto “Actions Conquer Tragedy.” An initial $50,000 gift to Ohio State endowed a scholarship with a preference for undergraduate psychology majors, Reagan’s field of study.¹⁹ As of 2026, the foundation has awarded more than $525,000 in scholarships to over 80 recipients. It also runs safety and self-defense classes and holds annual “Rally For Reagan” fundraising events.²⁰

1
Orlando Sentinel. Murder of Reagan Tokes, an Ohio State Student, to Be Featured on Dateline
2
WOSU. Brian Golsby Convicted of Killing Reagan Tokes, Now Faces Death Penalty
3
The Marshall Project. Ohio Reagan Tokes Senate Bill 201
4
Supreme Court of Ohio. State v. Golsby, Tenth Appellate District Opinion
5
The Lantern. Records: Reagan Tokes Suspect Previously Convicted of Robbery, Attempted Rape
6
NBC4i. Legislator Wants Changes to Sentencing and Parole Laws After Murder of OSU Student
7
Columbus Dispatch. Family of Reagan Tokes Sues State
8
Columbus Dispatch. Sentenced to Life
9
WOSU. Ohio Supreme Court Denies Appeal in Reagan Tokes Lawsuit
10
Columbus Dispatch. Supreme Court: State Had No Duty to Protect Tokes
11
Ohio Legislature. Senate Bill 201
12
Supreme Court of Ohio Sentencing Commission. SB 201 Quick Reference Guide
13
WOSU. All Stick, No Carrot: Ohio’s Reagan Tokes Law Acts as a One-Way Ratchet for Prison Time
14
Court News Ohio. State v. Hacker and State v. Simmons
15
Ohio Capital Journal. Reagan Tokes Law Extending Prison Sentences Constitutional, Ohio Supreme Court Rules
16
The Marshall Project. Ohio Reagan Tokes Law Sentencing Reform Prison
17
Ohio General Assembly. HB 667 Sponsor Testimony, Rep. Cindy Abrams
18
Ohio House of Representatives. Ohio House Passes Reagan Tokes and Patrick Heringer Act
19
The Lantern. Reagan Delaney Tokes Foundation Establishes Scholarship at Ohio State
20
Reagan Delaney Tokes Memorial Foundation. About RDTMF