Closing arguments in hazing trial of former BGSU frat brothers in Stone Foltz's death

BOWLING GREEN –– If you wanted to be a member of Pi Kappa Alpha – the fraternity better known as PIKE – you were expected to do PIKE things.

Stone Foltz wanted to be a PIKE, so he did whatever active members asked of him to reach that goal, Assistant Wood County Prosecutor Pamela Gross told jurors during her closing arguments Thursday afternoon.

Foltz and the other PIKE pledges cleaned active members' houses, acted as designated drivers, and licked the floors of campus bars and urinals in order to gain membership in PIKE, Gross said.

Broken Pledge: A podcast series about fraternity hazing

The culmination of all those activities, she said, created bonds of tradition and brotherhood that made it feel difficult to walk away.

Foltz told his girlfriend that the "Big Little Night" – an initiation event where pledges were paired with actives to mentor them in a Big Brother/Little Brother relationship – was the last thing he had to do to become a PIKE.

It was at that event on March 4, 2021, planned by pledge educator Troy Henricksen, that Foltz was given a liter of Evan Williams bourbon by his Big Brother, Jacob Krinn.

Foltz drank the bottle in about 20 minutes. He was taken to a local hospital hours later after his roommate found him unconscious.

Foltz died two days later of fatal alcohol intoxication.

"Stone Foltz is dead because he did PIKE things," Gross said.

Closing arguments went late into the evening, ending just before 7:30 p.m. Jurors were given the option to begin deliberations Thursday night or wait until Friday morning.

Krinn, 21, of Delaware, and Henricksen, 24, of Grove City, both face multiple charges related to Foltz's death. 

Krinn is charged with first-degree felony involuntary manslaughter, third-degree felony involuntary manslaughter, reckless homicide, felonious assault, hazing, failure to comply with underage alcohol laws, and obstructing official business.

Henricksen is charged with first-degree felony involuntary manslaughter, tampering with evidence, obstructing justice, eight counts of hazing, and seven counts of failure to comply with underage alcohol laws.

Each of the hazing counts Henricksen faces corresponds to a PIKE pledge he allegedly hazed, and each of the underage alcohol charges correspond to a PIKE pledge he allegedly provided alcohol to who were under 21 years old.

Prosecutors called nearly two dozen witnesses in presenting their week-long case before Wood County Common Pleas Judge Joel Kuhlman. Jurors heard from Foltz's former fraternity brothers, his fellow PIKE pledges, his mother, roommate and girlfriend. They also heard testimony from medical professionals and law enforcement, as well as a fraternity and hazing expert from Wake Forest University.

The trial was originally scheduled to last three weeks, but both defense teams rested their cases without calling any witnesses, including Krinn and Henricksen taking the stand themselves.

Sam Shamansky, Krinn's attorney, told jurors that prosecutors didn't produce "one shred of evidence" that Krinn coerced or forced Foltz to drink that bottle of alcohol.

Shamansky said that Foltz had already decided "he was going to beat that bottle before that bottle beat him," Shamansky said, referring to PIKE pledge Grant Harnett previous testimony, which he said Foltz told him on the way to Big Little Night.

"This is is an idea that Stone Foltz regrettably came up with... He brought this task on himself," he said. "Jacob Krinn did not bring this on him. Where's the proof of that?"

It was Foltz's goal, not Krinn providing the alcohol, that Shamansky said was what led to his death: "Handing them the bottle doesn’t cause their death. What causes their death is when they uncap it and start drinking of their own free will."

Eric Long, Troy Henricksen's attorney, recalled the prosecution's opening statement, that "accidents don't just happen, they are caused."

Long said the idea that somebody needed to be held accountable for an accident "shaped the entire course of the investigation."

"This is a case about choice, about freewill," he said.

Long said that all of the PIKE pledges who testified said that Henricksen never told them they would be forced to drink alcohol at Big Little Night. Rather, it was a competitive spirit among the pledges, not coercion of active members, that persuaded them to drink.

"To suggest that Troy is some kind of master planner, some criminal mastermind behind all of this is just insulting," he said.

In his final words to the jury, Wood County Prosecutor Paul Dobson told them that hazing lives in an environment of blame shifting.

"It's everybody else's fault. It was the Littles fault, it was Stone's fault, it was my fault," he said. "The really offensive one is that it was Stone's mom's fault. It was Sgt. Frank's fault. It was Bando's fault."

"But it wasn't their fault. It's everybody's fault but theirs," Dobson said of the defenses' statements.

Fraternities are steeped in tradition, Dobson said, and Big Little Night was an important, mandatory event that pledges were expected to drink their bottles of liquor at.

"Littles shouldn't be blamed for not extricating themselves from a harmful environment that's created by others," Dobson said.

Sheridan Hendrix is a higher education reporter at the Columbus Dispatch. You can reach her at shendrix@dispatch.com. You can follow her on Twitter at @sheridan120. Sign up for her Mobile Newsroom newsletter here and her education newsletter here.

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Stone Foltz: Attorneys deliver closing arguments in BGSU hazing trial