Unchecked Evil

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Speaker 4 I think there's a body out here. Please, send somebody hurry.

Speaker 5 They had the body of a young woman who matched the description of Reagan. And I just saying

Speaker 5 that has to be wrong.

Speaker 7 Who would want to hurt Reagan?

Speaker 8 Investigators would start with those closest to her.

Speaker 6 Is your gut telling you this is someone she knew?

Speaker 9 We were figuring that it was probably somebody that she knew, an ex-boyfriend, current boyfriend.

Speaker 8 But miles away, a string of alarming encounters.

Speaker 10 He had a knife. He put it to my neck.

Speaker 11 I heard a voice say, don't turn around or I'll shoot.

Speaker 6 This was somebody that wanted to do evil.

Speaker 8 Could there be a connection to Reagan's murder? The answer would leave an entire city infuriated.

Speaker 6 How the heck does this happen? How does this happen?

Speaker 12 They could have connected the dots way sooner.

Speaker 9 The system failed Reagan terribly.

Speaker 5 I think it's outrage times a thousand.

Speaker 8 A harrowing story that would reveal an unbelievable blind spot in law enforcement. I'm Lester Holt and this is Dateline.

Speaker 8 Here's Andrea Canning with Unchecked Evil.

Speaker 6 Look at the pictures and you can see Reagan Toakes was a ray of light.

Speaker 5 She was a vivacious ball of energy.

Speaker 13 She was always just so fun to be around. She felt like part of my family.

Speaker 14 I still don't think I've ever met anyone that could make me laugh like she did.

Speaker 6 A caring friend, a devoted daughter, she radiated life from her very first breath.

Speaker 5 She came out eyes wide open, just ready to take on the world.

Speaker 6 Which made her final moments all the more incomprehensible. Terrified and alone in that darkened field.

Speaker 5 To just think about what she had to endure and what she was ultimately clinging on to at the end was just to live

Speaker 16 and be able to go home.

Speaker 6 Your sister met with evil that night.

Speaker 12 That's all he is, is just evil.

Speaker 6 For Reagan's family, the way she was taken from them wasn't just heartbreaking, it was infuriating. Is this a crime that never should have happened?

Speaker 17 Absolutely never should have happened. They had this monster in their grasp and their control,

Speaker 17 and they let him slip through.

Speaker 6 Our story begins on a college campus that had long been Reagan's dream. Her dad, Toby, took her to an Ohio state football game when she was little.
He and her mom, Lisa, say that was it.

Speaker 17 She told me that that's where she wanted to be, and I told her if she worked hard and got good grades, I'd make sure she could go.

Speaker 6 And she never applied anywhere else? No.

Speaker 5 That's where I want to go. And don't worry, I'm going to get in.

Speaker 6 Mackenzie is Reagan's little sister.

Speaker 12 I just remember that whole year leading up to it, she had just told everyone, well, I'm going to be going to Ohio State.

Speaker 6 She basically told the admissions people, this is how I'm coming.

Speaker 6 Madison, Jackie, Kirsten, and Stephanie were her college roommates.

Speaker 6 She had a goofy streak to her.

Speaker 18 Oh, yeah. The goofiest.

Speaker 14 Yeah, she was hilarious. She was just silly.

Speaker 13 She was just always laughing and always making us laugh.

Speaker 6 To earn some extra cash, Reagan applied for a job at this popular Columbus restaurant called Bodega. Kirsten and Stephanie worked there too.

Speaker 14 She's like, I need another job. Do you know anything? And I'm like, come work at Bodega.

Speaker 6 By February 2017, Reagan was just months away from graduation. She made a difficult decision.
She and her college boyfriend broke up.

Speaker 14 She was so heartbroken that week. They both really cared about each other, so it was hard, but I think it was what was best for both of them.

Speaker 6 Days later, on February 8th, she headed off for an evening shift at Bodega.

Speaker 18 It was just like a normal. I was just like, okay, bye, like, have fun, or I'll see you later.

Speaker 6 Like you had a million times before. Exactly.

Speaker 6 Regan's dad expected to get a call from her after work. They spoke almost every day, but the call never came.

Speaker 17 No.

Speaker 19 I remember just after

Speaker 17 10 o'clock, I started to get concerned that something might be wrong. And I tried really

Speaker 17 to get a hold of her for about four hours that night.

Speaker 6 In this case, you really had a father's intuition. I did.
That something was wrong.

Speaker 6 The next morning, Kirsten got an uneasy feeling, too, when she passed Reagan's empty room. They were supposed to walk to class together.

Speaker 13 But I was like, she probably got up early.

Speaker 14 She probably went to the library. It's midterm week.
Like, there's a million things to do.

Speaker 6 But by early afternoon, it was clear no one had heard from Reagan since she left work the night before. What are you thinking happened to her?

Speaker 14 It's one of those like you have that gut feeling but at the same time you're like it's gonna be fine.

Speaker 13 I thought maybe she wanted to go see one of her friends that was out of town. Maybe her phone died while she was driving.
Like I was not thinking the worst. I just thought it was weird.

Speaker 6 They went to the last place Reagan was seen, Bodega. And the manager called in a missing persons report.

Speaker 6 As they waited for police to arrive, Kirsten overheard two employees talking about about an online news story.

Speaker 14 And he was like, oh, you got to look at this article. And he showed the bartender.
And he's like, that's not good.

Speaker 6 Hours earlier, a man driving into a park in a Columbus suburb 10 miles away had spotted something.

Speaker 16 Hello, 91.

Speaker 16 Yeah, I think there's a body out here. I don't know if this was a bake or what.

Speaker 21 I can't get ready to get close to it. Please, send somebody hurrying it.

Speaker 6 Grove City Police Lieutenant Brian Davidson was on the scene within minutes.

Speaker 9 When we first got here, we could see a body out here, probably about 18 feet or 20 feet from the roadway. She was completely naked, and we could tell that she'd been shot in the head.

Speaker 6 Shot twice and possibly raped. Were you seeing any clues in the field?

Speaker 9 You know, there was nothing other than her. We were scanning the entire area and didn't see anything.

Speaker 6 Any idea who this woman is?

Speaker 9 At this time, no.

Speaker 6 The victim's clothes, wallet, and cell phone were nowhere to be found.

Speaker 9 We had a necklace, and then there was a tattoo on her body.

Speaker 6 What sort of tattoo?

Speaker 9 You know, it was a tattoo. It was on her side of her body, and it was just a circle, a dark circle.

Speaker 6 Davidson thought it might be a runaway they were looking for from a neighboring county. But then he got word that an OSU student was missing.
Detectives responded to Bodega.

Speaker 6 One of their first questions for Reagan's friends, did she have a tattoo? The answer was yes.

Speaker 14 The detective looked at me and said, the body we did find did have a tattoo, but we won't know for sure until a family member identifies it.

Speaker 6 Was that enough for you?

Speaker 13 Yeah, we all went outside and like collapsed on the corner and started sobbing, obviously.

Speaker 6 It was the worst possible news, yet it was only the beginning.

Speaker 8 What had happened to Reagan? When we come back, details no one wanted to hear.

Speaker 7 I just kept

Speaker 5 saying

Speaker 5 that has to be wrong.

Speaker 8 Who could have wanted to hurt her?

Speaker 7 Detectives were about to talk to her ex.

Speaker 6 Just the breakup alone could be a red flag.

Speaker 9 Yes.

Speaker 6 In Florida, where Reagan's parents lived, they spent the afternoon working the phones, frantically waiting for news.

Speaker 6 All they knew was that no one had seen or heard from their daughter since the night before.

Speaker 5 And your mind starts going, like, oh no, what if she

Speaker 5 had had a car accident and her car skidded off the road and it's in a ditch somewhere? Your mind's all over the place and it's horrible.

Speaker 6 Regan's disappearance had her sister worried too.

Speaker 12 I had instantly like broken down, went into my school, was a mess, and everyone there had just constantly been telling me it's going to be okay. She's 21, she's fine.

Speaker 6 Finally, just after dark, Lisa's phone rang.

Speaker 5 They had said that they had the body of a young woman who matched the description of Reagan.

Speaker 16 Who had been found naked and shot twice in the head.

Speaker 5 And I just kept

Speaker 16 saying

Speaker 5 that has to be wrong.

Speaker 12 I just see my parents through the door and I knew immediately that it wasn't that she had just like gotten a car accident or you know had been found somewhere.

Speaker 12 It was worse than that and it was a lot more violent.

Speaker 6 How could you tell?

Speaker 12 I could just see it in their faces. It was just like everything had been sucked out of them.
It was just any life that was there was gone.

Speaker 6 As sure as police were that Reagan was their victim, official identification would still have to be made by a family member. Reagan's uncle lived within driving distance.

Speaker 16 I just kept remembering, too, I was so praying all through the night

Speaker 6 that

Speaker 5 it was just going to be a mistake, and he was going to get there, and he was going to call me, and he was going to say, no, they made a mistake, it's not her.

Speaker 5 But that's not the phone call we got.

Speaker 6 Reagan was gone at just 21 years old. Now that their victim had a name, Police had to figure out who killed her.
Brian Davidson supervised the detective division. Any risk factors in her life?

Speaker 6 Was she into drugs? Anything that you found that could have led her down this path somehow?

Speaker 9 No, and that was the thing. I mean, you know, she was a brilliant student.
She was getting ready to graduate. I mean, she was just a great kid.

Speaker 5 I can remember the detective asking me, is there anybody that you know of that would have wanted to hurt her?

Speaker 5 And I can remember I was just like,

Speaker 16 Why are you?

Speaker 5 No, why would anybody want to hurt her?

Speaker 6 Everybody loved her. Mackenzie could see that too.

Speaker 12 When I went to apply for my first job when I turned 16, I walked in there and just had to say my last name and I said, my sister actually worked for you last summer. And he was like, you're hired.

Speaker 12 Just because I liked her.

Speaker 6 Reagan spent her free time taking mission trips with her church and was planning a career in psychology.

Speaker 5 She knew she would be able to have a positive impact and make a difference.

Speaker 6 You must have just been like, I'm just so proud of her.

Speaker 17 We were. She had a gift and

Speaker 17 she would have done anything she set her mind to.

Speaker 6 At OSU, Reagan's roommates say that she was all about making friends, not enemies.

Speaker 14 She said that she looked me up on Facebook before we moved in and she immediately knew we would be friends.

Speaker 11 She was right.

Speaker 6 Why? What did you put on your Facebook page?

Speaker 14 She was like, I looked at everyone that we were going to live with and I picked you out to be referred.

Speaker 15 I was like, okay.

Speaker 6 So there didn't seem to be anything in Reagan's history. that would help shed light on what happened to her.

Speaker 6 Yet, to detectives' eyes, Reagan's murder seemed personal. Is your gut telling you this is someone she knew?

Speaker 9 You know at that time we were really figuring that it was probably somebody that she knew.

Speaker 23 You know an ex-boyfriend or a current boyfriend.

Speaker 6 Remember, Reagan and her boyfriend had just broken up. His name was Jake.
Reagan's friends thought he was a sweetheart.

Speaker 14 We were just mute.

Speaker 6 Like, no, absolutely not. Why were you so sure?

Speaker 13 Because he loved her and he was still our friend.

Speaker 20 He was just a good guy.

Speaker 13 There was not a mean bone in his body.

Speaker 6 But of course, that's not the way a detective thinks. Just the breakup alone could be a red flag.

Speaker 9 Yes.

Speaker 6 Detectives paid Jake a visit. They recorded the conversation.

Speaker 24 When was the last time you talked to her?

Speaker 11 Probably a week and a half ago.

Speaker 24 Is that normal?

Speaker 24 Well, not usually. I talk to her every day, but they're breaking up, kind of.

Speaker 6 Did he give a reason why they broke up?

Speaker 9 The reason, I guess, was that they both wanted to concentrate more on their work and they felt that dating was just kind of getting in the way.

Speaker 24 It was just we didn't have enough time really for each other. We had to focus on school.

Speaker 6 Did he say that if they had fought?

Speaker 9 He said they never fought. He said that they just, it was a mutual breakup.

Speaker 24 She even said it in one of the texts, I mean, I'm one of her best friends.

Speaker 11 No matter what.

Speaker 6 The detective asked to look at Jake's phone. Something he said about Reagan after she died caught his eye.

Speaker 24 Okay, Jake, let me ask you this. Look at this the wrong way.
Okay. Why in the world would you write that you're in a better place? Well, can I see what I am?

Speaker 24 I was talking to her like she, like, I don't know, like she's in heaven. You just don't hear it very often.
Better place when somebody was living a good life.

Speaker 24 Well, no, I know, but if I were to go today, I would know that I would go somewhere better. That's just what I believe.
So.

Speaker 6 And there was something else that seemed a little strange to police.

Speaker 24 You said you posted on Instagram? Yes, sir. I got some likes.

Speaker 6 He was talking about how many likes it had?

Speaker 9 It did bring up a lot of red flags to us immediately.

Speaker 6 But there were other leads to chase, including one from an unlikely source.

Speaker 1 Coming up.

Speaker 6 That's incredible. A garbage truck gives you a huge break in this case.

Speaker 9 It was definitely the break that we were looking for.

Speaker 8 And then an even bigger break from some security video.

Speaker 9 We see the suspect.

Speaker 8 When Dateline continues.

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Speaker 6 Reagan Toke's friends were living a nightmare. A day earlier, she'd been the beating heart of their group.
Now, she was dead, ripped from their lives in such a violent way.

Speaker 18 I don't think any of us slept at all. We all stayed together the whole night.
We had a lot of people.

Speaker 14 I think all of our parents came to our apartment and just were there to console us.

Speaker 18 And it really just didn't feel real at all.

Speaker 6 Trying to figure out who killed her was equally confusing. They felt it couldn't be Reagan's ex-boyfriend.
Her disappearance had hit him hard.

Speaker 20 I remember talking to Jake that day and you could tell he was very worried throughout the day.

Speaker 6 Detectives checked Jake's alibi and it was rock solid.

Speaker 9 He tells us that he was watching a movie with his roommates and we were able to interview the other roommates separately and they all backed up his story completely.

Speaker 6 Did you literally cross him off your list?

Speaker 9 No, we crossed him off the list.

Speaker 6 Truth be told, their list had no promising names on it. So they traced Reagan's steps that last day, starting with the moment she left her apartment for work that afternoon.

Speaker 6 Rick Forney was the lead detective on the case.

Speaker 9 We were able to obtain that video whenever she left, see if there was anyone around the area, whenever she

Speaker 9 left in her car or another car seemed to follow her, and we didn't find anything.

Speaker 6 They also took a look at Bodega's surveillance video. Here you can see Reagan walking out after her shift around 9.45 p.m.

Speaker 9 I kept expecting to see someone get up and follow Reagan out of the bar and we didn't see any of that.

Speaker 6 There was no customer that was giving her a hard time or anybody who had been stalking her, following her.

Speaker 9 No one.

Speaker 6 Police did receive a tip that a man posing as an Uber driver had been preying on intoxicated women around town. There were several attacks and even an alleged rape

Speaker 6 surrounding this man man posing as a driver.

Speaker 9 I believe there are seven or eight individuals that reported this person posing as a rideshare driver was inappropriately touching them.

Speaker 6 But that didn't seem to fit Reagan's case. She'd driven herself to work.

Speaker 9 She had her car there and she wasn't intoxicated. She wasn't drinking.
She was just leaving work.

Speaker 6 Perhaps Reagan's car was the key. No one had seen it since she was murdered.
Big city, Reagan's car could literally be anywhere.

Speaker 9 Yes, it could be anywhere in the state of Ohio. And at this point in time, it could even be out of state.
We just had no idea where it was at.

Speaker 6 They entered Reagan's plates into a police database that tracks vehicles nationwide. It turned up nothing.

Speaker 6 So detectives tried another private database, one that collects information from license plate readers mounted on commercial vehicles. Sure enough.

Speaker 9 The private trash truck had picked up Reagan's license plate near Children's Hospital.

Speaker 6 That's incredible. A garbage truck

Speaker 6 gives you a huge break in this case.

Speaker 9 It was.

Speaker 9 It was definitely the break that we were looking for.

Speaker 9 We want to immediately get over to that area because the camera captured the car in this neighborhood a few hours previous to us being notified that it was there.

Speaker 6 The car could be gone.

Speaker 27 It could be gone.

Speaker 6 But when they pulled up, there it was, Reagan's silver acura.

Speaker 9 This is the street that Reagan's car was found on, parked along here, is facing that direction.

Speaker 6 The first thing detectives noticed, burn marks on the back seat and the overwhelming stench of gasoline. What was that telling you?

Speaker 9 Most likely that the individual tried to destroy evidence, tried to destroy the car.

Speaker 6 But he obviously failed because the car was intact.

Speaker 9 Failed miserably.

Speaker 6 Inside the car, they found ATM receipts from different banks from the night Reagan disappeared.

Speaker 6 Though only $60 had been withdrawn from her account, police suspected she'd been forced to withdraw the money as part of a robbery. Also inside the car, they found cigarette butts.

Speaker 6 Do you know if Reagan smokes?

Speaker 9 We asked her roommates and her friends, family, if she smoked, and they said absolutely not.

Speaker 6 So this could potentially, these butts could be the killers.

Speaker 6 And with butts come DNA. They rushed the cigarettes off for testing.
Did you find her cell phone?

Speaker 9 Her cell phone was not in the car. But when we opened the trunk of the car, there was a gasoline can that was in there that was tipped over.
We started to think this was the killer's gas can.

Speaker 9 Either it appeared to be relatively new.

Speaker 6 Police started calling around to see if that can had been bought in the area. They got a hit at a Columbus gas station.

Speaker 6 Surveillance video?

Speaker 9 Surveillance video, yes. They can't get the video to download for us, so we have to take pictures of it with our cell phones.
And we bring it back and we're showing everybody. But we see the suspect.

Speaker 6 What does he look like?

Speaker 6 He's got on a hoodie and has on something around his his head was this regan's killer detectives weren't sure but that's not the only video they uncovered here's regan withdrawing money at one of those atms

Speaker 6 next to her a shadowy figure in the passenger seat but who was he and most importantly where was he With their friend's murderer at large, Reagan's roommates were too scared to return to their apartment.

Speaker 14 It was your mom that first pointed out, well, you guys can't go back to your apartment because we don't know.

Speaker 14 That person has her keys now.

Speaker 6 Wear a driver's license made

Speaker 14 because really he had access to our house for probably 24 hours before we even realized. So that was kind of a terrifying afterthought.

Speaker 6 Turns out they had good reason to be afraid. Because around Columbus, Ohio, Reagan's murder wasn't the only recent act of violence.

Speaker 8 Coming up, stories of alarming encounters.

Speaker 10 He grabbed me, he had a knife, he put it to my neck.

Speaker 11 I heard a voice say, don't turn around or I'll shoot.

Speaker 5 You just think about what

Speaker 5 what she had to endure and what she was ultimately clinging on to

Speaker 5 at the end was just to live

Speaker 16 and be able to go home.

Speaker 6 It's hard to imagine the torment Reagan's parents experienced in the days after her murder. The grief, the what-ifs, the impossible question.

Speaker 6 Could they have done anything to prevent their daughter's senseless death?

Speaker 17 Taught our kids at a very young age about awareness and...

Speaker 17 safety and being smart, not putting yourselves in bad situations.

Speaker 6 And in Toby's mind, that included going home after working a night shift near downtown Columbus.

Speaker 25 It's, you know, pretty rough around there.

Speaker 6 You had safety concerns. Yes.

Speaker 5 We did. We had even talked about it the last time we had been in town visiting her for a game.
And we said, you know, you have to be extra vigilant because this is not campus. This is the city.

Speaker 6 And in the weeks before Reagan's murder, vigilance was called for, especially in and around German Village, a historic section of town not far from Bodega.

Speaker 6 So you were just going to get into your car to head out. I don't know.

Speaker 6 I felt a presence, something.

Speaker 6 Josie Merkel, a local theater actress, was the first resident to come face to face with violence. So I turned around and he must have come up that alley.

Speaker 6 because he came in and was standing like in this side right in the corner and he had a hoodie

Speaker 6 pulled down

Speaker 6 almost to his eyebrows and then he had a mask up around his nose so all I saw were eyes. So I just started screaming.

Speaker 6 Oh my gosh. And so he just ran to me and just kept beating me, beating my face.
I fell to the ground between the two cars

Speaker 6 and he just kept slugging me with his fist and I kept screaming and the only words he ever said were just shut up. Did you think this man might actually kill you?

Speaker 16 Totally.

Speaker 6 This was somebody that wanted to do evil and to hurt someone. That's what I saw.
So yeah, I thought he was going to kill me. So I just stayed on the ground.

Speaker 6 And then, as suddenly as he appeared, the attacker was gone. And then after he just left.

Speaker 6 Near the same neighborhood, several days later, Vanessa Edwards was on her way to work in the early morning when she noticed a man with a hoodie and a mask walking toward her.

Speaker 10 So I jaywalked across the street and then as I stepped up onto the grass, I kind of looked looked over my shoulder to get a feel for where he was and he was right there.

Speaker 6 And this time, the mysterious attacker was armed with more than his fists. He grabbed me.

Speaker 10 He had a knife. He put it to my neck

Speaker 6 and he said, shut up.

Speaker 30 Don't yump.

Speaker 10 And so I screamed

Speaker 10 and he pushed it in a little bit harder and he said, you need to shut up or I'm going to kill you right here. And I go, somebody's going to come and get me.

Speaker 15 You screamed anyway. Yeah.

Speaker 10 And he goes, no, they're not. He goes, I'm slicing your throat right now.

Speaker 10 And I screamed one more time and he kind of pushed it in a little bit and then he shoved me away.

Speaker 15 He grabbed my bag

Speaker 18 and he took off running down the island.

Speaker 6 Columbus PD had a crime spree on its hands when three more people were assaulted around German Village. They increased patrols, but couldn't prevent the masked assailant from striking again.

Speaker 6 Just two days before Reagan disappeared, Julianne Beatty was taking some luggage out of the trunk of her car when she felt something against the back of her head. It was a gun.

Speaker 11 I heard a voice say, don't turn around or I'll shoot. And instinctively, I just turned around and the gun was pointed right at my forehead.
And he said, give me your bag or I'll kill you.

Speaker 11 So I just started screaming and yelling and struggling with him.

Speaker 11 and he was trying to get the purse off and I had it over my shoulder and as he was pulling we struggled and he hit me with the butt of the gun. My shoes flipped off in the street.

Speaker 11 My glasses ended up over besides the bushes.

Speaker 29 He cracked a couple teeth.

Speaker 6 The man got Julianne's purse and made his getaway.

Speaker 6 This man is terrorizing.

Speaker 29 Definitely. It was unchecked evil.

Speaker 11 Yeah, he's just terrorizing the area, yes.

Speaker 12 I heard someone yell help and so I ran outside.

Speaker 6 The attacks, a total of seven in less than three weeks, were all over the news. Village residents are on high alert tonight after last night's latest.
Toby even raised it with Reagan.

Speaker 17 Reagan and I did talk about it, and there was a couple that occurred near downtown where Reagan worked. It was just be careful.

Speaker 17 Apparently, I think everybody was pretty certain that it was one individual that was

Speaker 17 creating this havoc around town.

Speaker 6 Now, in his fog of grief, Reagan's father didn't make any connections between the attacks and his daughter's death, but one of the victims did.

Speaker 11 As soon as they announced that Reagan Toak was missing and then they found her body, you know, my friend called me and said, this is too coincidental. It's all within a three-mile radius.

Speaker 11 I guarantee you that that individual that

Speaker 11 had murdered Reagan Toakes is somehow connected to your case.

Speaker 6 Were they connected? The attacks happened miles away from where Reagan's body was found in a different police district. So maybe not.

Speaker 6 Lieutenant Davidson had been on Reagan's case non-stop for more than 30 hours when he thought about getting some rest. He'd barely been home when his phone rang at 10.30.

Speaker 6 One of his detectives was on the line.

Speaker 9 He had received a phone call from the DNA lab, and we had a hit.

Speaker 6 That's incredible. It is.
To get a hit that fast. Yes.
After finding a body.

Speaker 6 It was a huge break, and what it revealed would stun this veteran investigator. What does he tell you?

Speaker 9 He says you're not going to believe this, but you knowing.

Speaker 8 Coming up, a jolt for Reagan's family.

Speaker 17 My head was going to explode. It's amazing I didn't have a heart attack or a stroke myself.

Speaker 8 When dateline continues.

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Speaker 14 I mean, as soon as we entered the church, we pretty much all just started crying.

Speaker 6 Reagan's wake took place in the church where she and her family celebrated their faith. But when someone so young, so innocent, is suddenly gone, it's hard to say goodbye.

Speaker 14 And we all walked over to look at her, and we all just kind of locked arms and stood there. And

Speaker 14 I mean, we talked to her, we talked to each other. I remember I always used to braid Reagan's hair for her because she refused to learn to do it herself.

Speaker 14 And I remember I just like touched her hair because how many times have I braided her hair before?

Speaker 14 It was just.

Speaker 6 That's heartbreaking.

Speaker 14 It was surreal, yeah.

Speaker 14 But we stood there for a while. It was,

Speaker 14 that's the like one comfort is that we have each other.

Speaker 6 The journey of healing had just begun. And step one in that long, painful process was bringing Reagan's killer to justice.
That was Lieutenant Davidson's job.

Speaker 6 Two days after the murder, he had a DNA hit from Reagan's car and a name. And to the lieutenant's surprise, it was a name he knew, Brian Lee Goldsby.

Speaker 6 He put him behind bars for attempted rape and robbery six years earlier.

Speaker 6 Wow. Are you just floored by this news?

Speaker 9 I am so floored by this because I thought he was still in jail. I was shocked.

Speaker 6 Lieutenant Davidson learned that Goldsby was released three months before Reagan's murder and was living in a house less than a half mile from where her car was found.

Speaker 6 He sent a SWAT team to make the arrest and bring him in.

Speaker 1 Brian, you're not here by accident, right?

Speaker 21 It didn't just happen to stumble upon this and you're here.

Speaker 1 You're here because we have a pretty good amount of evidence on what happened.

Speaker 6 Detective Forney was the lead interrogator.

Speaker 9 He wanted to know what we had on him, and that's all the information he was going to provide to us and what we already knew.

Speaker 6 Investigators had Golsby's DNA inside Reagan's car. He quickly copped to robbing her.

Speaker 16 He's got him in the car,

Speaker 16 right?

Speaker 16 Then you went to chase.

Speaker 21 Did you drive or she drive?

Speaker 21 She drive.

Speaker 2 So how much money did you get officially?

Speaker 6 You get him in the car with her. You get him going to the ATM with her.
I mean, you're getting close. But are you getting a confession?

Speaker 9 We're not getting a confession to the murder.

Speaker 21 I didn't kill nobody, man.

Speaker 16 I don't know how many times I can say that

Speaker 16 different ways to tell you I didn't kill nobody once.

Speaker 16 I don't know how to tell you that.

Speaker 16 Who could have? I don't know. I could have.
I'm not. Who else would have been out there? I'm not the only one in this city, Grove City.

Speaker 4 You're the only one there?

Speaker 21 I told you I left. As soon as I made her get out of the car, I made her stop right there.
I told her to stop. She said, right here.
She looked back.

Speaker 21 I was like, yeah, I said, said, don't move for 30 minutes. I got in the car, I turned around, and I left.

Speaker 6 Goldsby wasn't budging.

Speaker 21 And I didn't shoot nobody then.

Speaker 21 I've never

Speaker 21 shot a gun in my life.

Speaker 6 So detectives set a trap. Though they had no evidence that another person was involved in Reagan's murder,

Speaker 6 they suggested to Goldsby that an accomplice had killed her.

Speaker 21 I know you didn't pull the trigger, but I know somebody else was in this car.

Speaker 21 Who was it?

Speaker 6 This person is not real.

Speaker 9 This person is not real.

Speaker 6 Fictitious character that you're... And does he take the bait?

Speaker 9 He does. He takes the bait.

Speaker 21 I'm in a passenger seat.

Speaker 16 He's in the back seat. Let's move behind her.

Speaker 16 We

Speaker 16 get down to the park.

Speaker 16 He says,

Speaker 16 check off all your clothes. Get out.
He says, walk until I tell you to stop.

Speaker 16 She walks. She's naked.
He gets behind her. And then he goes,

Speaker 16 She falls.

Speaker 16 She's laying on the ground.

Speaker 16 I'm looking on the car, and he bend down and shows her me and Pow.

Speaker 6 This is a chilling account of this murder.

Speaker 9 It was very chilling. The way that he described it, the way that he told the story, you knew that he was the one that pulled that trigger.

Speaker 9 At the end of this interrogation, Brian Goldsby was charged with aggravated murder, rape,

Speaker 2 kidnapping, and robbery.

Speaker 6 Reagan's dad, Toby, showed up to Goolsby's first court appearance. How do you feel when you're there and you're seeing him, this man that did this to your daughter?

Speaker 17 Like, my head was going to explode. It's amazing I didn't have a heart attack or a stroke myself during that

Speaker 17 20 minutes in court.

Speaker 6 But what the family found out next turned their devastation and anger into unmitigated fury and a call for action.

Speaker 5 I think it's outrage times a thousand.

Speaker 5 It just

Speaker 5 so unbelievable.

Speaker 1 Coming up,

Speaker 17 a jaw-dropping revelation about Brian Goldsby had this monster in their grasp and they let him slip through.

Speaker 8 Uncovering an astonishing gap in law enforcement.

Speaker 6 So this is a man out on parole with an ankle monitor and he's out committing heinous crimes.

Speaker 9 Absolutely.

Speaker 6 And getting away scot-free.

Speaker 9 Yes.

Speaker 19 As the jury reached a unanimous verdict.

Speaker 6 In March 2018, Brian Goolsby went on trial and was convicted for Reagan's murder.

Speaker 19 We, the jury, find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Speaker 6 He was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Speaker 5 The first thing that went through my head is this monster will never be able to harm another person again, ever.

Speaker 6 But for the Toks family, justice in the courtroom was not enough.

Speaker 17 The more I started to hear and understand about who, how, why,

Speaker 17 I came to the realization that this never should have happened. This never should have happened.

Speaker 6 They first learned that Goolsby had been out of prison for just a few months. And in prison, he had a history of bad behavior.
Still, by Ohio law, there was no way to extend his sentence.

Speaker 6 This man had 52 violations in prison?

Speaker 9 Yes.

Speaker 6 And yet, he still walks out?

Speaker 9 Still walks out. There's no punishment, 52 infractions, and no consequences.

Speaker 6 Goldsby, a registered sex offender, was assigned a parole officer. And what the Tokes family learned next made them sick to their core.

Speaker 6 At the time of Reagan's murder, Golsby was wearing an ankle monitor.

Speaker 6 When I hear someone has an ankle monitor, I always thought it meant like if they went outside of their zone or past their curfew that an alarm would go off somewhere and the police would show up immediately

Speaker 6 and arrest them.

Speaker 5 And most people do. And that is what's even more disturbing about it is most people think that.

Speaker 6 Was anyone watching him? No. The Tokes family was surprised to learn that police don't have direct access to the GPS data from ankle monitors.

Speaker 6 It's usually collected by private companies that make and sell the devices and then share the data with parole officers. The information generally isn't monitored by law enforcement in real time.

Speaker 6 And sure enough, a look back at Goldsby's GPS trail revealed he was the massed assailant who for weeks had been terrorizing Columbus.

Speaker 9 Every time that there was a robbery, there's Brian Goldsby.

Speaker 6 So this is a man out on parole with an ankle monitor, and he's out committing heinous crimes.

Speaker 9 Absolutely.

Speaker 6 And getting away scot-free.

Speaker 9 Yes.

Speaker 11 I was outraged. I was mad.
All the signs were there. What more do you want? Somebody should have put two and two together.

Speaker 6 Did the system fail Reagan Tokes? Did it fail all of the victims?

Speaker 11 It failed all the victims, and everything went unchecked.

Speaker 22 I've never seen

Speaker 22 a community so outraged.

Speaker 6 State of Ohio Representative Kristen Boggs lives two blocks from where Goldsby kidnapped Reagan.

Speaker 6 Could an astute detective with all the robberies have maybe looked at a list of parolees in the area and connected the dots?

Speaker 22 Well, had that information been available to our law enforcement, yeah, I think that

Speaker 22 that could have happened.

Speaker 6 After Reagan's murder, Boggs decided to investigate and possibly legislate.

Speaker 6 She discovered that GPS monitors can be and sometimes are set up to send alerts if an offender violates a curfew or moves into a restricted area.

Speaker 6 But in Goldsby's case, Boggs says Ohio's Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, or DRC, told her this.

Speaker 22 They put a GPS monitor on him, but they didn't have any exclusionary zones affiliated with that monitor. They didn't have any curfews affiliated with that monitor.

Speaker 6 So no geographic restrictions and no

Speaker 6 curfew programmed into it. What's the point of it?

Speaker 15 Exactly.

Speaker 6 Is part of it that it's supposed to be a deterrent of some kind?

Speaker 22 I think that DRC believed that placing a GPS monitor on him would curtail his criminal activity, but it didn't.

Speaker 8 The reality is nobody's monitoring him electronically, not in real time.

Speaker 6 Martin Horn, the former commissioner of probation for New York City and a critic of GPS monitors, is not surprised by any of this. Is this a false sense of security?

Speaker 8 Oh, absolutely. It is not an electronic tether.
All it is, is something that after the fact will either tell me where you were or where you weren't. And even then, it is not foolproof.

Speaker 6 It's a great Monday morning quarterback tool.

Speaker 8 Yeah. And it's also, I think, a tremendous liability for the government agencies that use them because now they're holding the bag.

Speaker 6 There are no national statistics on crimes committed by people wearing GPS monitors. But we did our own search of news reports and found numerous cases over a two-year span.

Speaker 6 Armed robberies, rapes, and more than a dozen homicides.

Speaker 6 For instance, a man in Virginia murdered his cousin while wearing an ankle monitor.

Speaker 6 A similar story in Houston, where a parolee with a monitor murdered his mother.

Speaker 6 And in California, a GPS-tracked sex offender pled guilty to multiple sex crimes stemming from assaults on a hiking trail.

Speaker 8 I think the important question is whether this type of technological solution makes us safer. And in my experience, and based on my study, I don't see that it does.

Speaker 6 Ohio's DRC declined our request for an interview citing pending litigation. The Tokes family sued for wrongful death, but the case was dismissed.

Speaker 17 They had this monster in their grasp and their control,

Speaker 17 and they let him slip through.

Speaker 5 To know that this continues to go on and will continue to go on until they change the way the system currently is, it's maddening. And you can't put a price tag

Speaker 5 on innocent human life. You just can't.
This pain is something I can't even put into words.

Speaker 6 Toby and Lisa have teamed up with Kristen Boggs and other Ohio lawmakers to introduce a bill called the Reagan-Tokes Act.

Speaker 6 The law would mandate that restrictions are placed on every GPS monitor and make it easier for police to see monitor information.

Speaker 6 It would also allow the sentences of badly behaving prisoners like Brian Golsby to be extended.

Speaker 6 The sentencing part of the bill was signed into law in 2018. The part that deals with GPS monitors is pending.

Speaker 6 The Ohio governor has also directed the DRC to make changes after a task force recommended many of the same reforms the family has been pushing.

Speaker 6 I refuse

Speaker 5 to let that one night.

Speaker 5 define my daughter Reagan.

Speaker 6 Toby, Lisa, and McKenzie are also working hard to create a legacy for Reagan that honors her bright spirit.

Speaker 31 Whatever you have to do to strike and attack.

Speaker 6 They're promoting self-defense training for women. They want to see classes like these taught at colleges and high schools nationwide.
Reagan will undoubtedly save lives. Yeah.

Speaker 16 I'm sure he has.

Speaker 6 And they're holding rallies and raising money for a foundation that will give annual scholarships in Reagan's name.

Speaker 13 She would be so excited to know that she is sending people to college, especially Ohio State.

Speaker 6 We would like to take a moment to remember on a blue sky spring day, the girl who wanted so badly to go to Ohio State did get to graduate. Reagan's family accepted a posthumous degree on her behalf.

Speaker 25 I hereby conferred the degree, Bachelor of Arts, upon Reagan Delaney Tobes.

Speaker 17 She got a standing ovation that she deserved.

Speaker 6 And that that spot, that lonely park where Reagan lost her life, that's been transformed. It's now a tranquility garden in her memory.

Speaker 5 I choose to believe in my heart that her presence is still here.

Speaker 5 Her legacy gets to be that she still is here in this world, changing this world and making a difference.

Speaker 8 That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt.
Thanks for joining us.

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