Garden of solace rises in park for Ohio State student found slain there
The awful sense of foreboding still grips Lisa McCraryTokes as she drives into the park, past the spot where a motorist discovered the body of a young woman, dialed 911 and ended the brief, bitter mystery of what had happened to 21-year-old Reagan Tokes.
McCrary-Tokes used to think she’d never again go near the place of her daughter’s murder.
But there she was this week, smiling and crying and even managing to laugh a little. Metro Parks officials were happy and misty-eyed, too. Together, they walked the section of Scioto Grove Metro Park that is being transformed into a large tranquility garden in memory of Reagan.
“She would not want us staying in the dark,” McCraryTokes said, looking toward a prairie-grass-rimmed pond. “We had to find a way to take this and transition it. I wanted something that was going to change the energy at this park, to remove that darkness and ugliness.”
Reagan’s body was found at the park’s entrance in Grove City on Feb. 9, 2017. Her attacker, 30-year-old Brian Golsby, had just served a six-year prison term for robbery and attempted rape and was still wearing a GPS ankle monitor when he abducted Reagan after her shift at a Short North pub.
The Ohio State University senior, who was set to graduate with a degree in psychology, was carjacked, robbed, raped and shot twice in the head. Golsby is serving a life sentence for his crimes.
“It’s such a tragedy,” said Larry Peck, Metro Parks deputy director. “That it happened in a Metro Park was unspeakable for us.”
He and other park employees began envisioning a tribute to Reagan far beyond the small, impromptu memorial that mourners and passers-by had created with flowers, stuffed animals and photos.
“We knew that in time we were going to do something, and we didn’t want to just plant a tree, to just have a bench,” Peck said. “We wanted to do more.”
He contacted McCraryTokes and told her he wanted to learn what Reagan loved. The words tumbled out so fast that Peck started writing on his hand so he wouldn’t forget anything. “Water, turtles, butterflies and on and on,” he said. “I passed that information on to our team.”
The Tokes family often had visited the Toledo-Lucas County Metro Parks near their former home in northwest Ohio, cherishing the hours and days they spent together outdoors. Reagan adored frogs and always had a frog calendar. She and her dad and sister collected buckeyes and strung them together in necklaces.
“Those times in parks were sacred,” McCrary-Tokes said.
Peck tapped assistant park manager Chris DelGrosso to work up designs for a garden that would reflect Reagan’s spirit and feel welcoming to others. “We sort of turned Chris loose,” Peck said. “He put his heart into it.”
Spanning an area more than 30 yards long and wide, the garden everyone settled on showcases a Celtic symbol for love, paved paths and two large swings with views of sunrises and sunsets. More than 1,000 plants will make up the landscape, including beebalm, boxwood and buckeye trees. Peck and DelGrosso said most of the work will be complete this fall, with the garden in full swing by next spring.
“Once all the color gets in there, it’s going to look like a piece of stained glass,” DelGrosso said.
Metro Parks likely will spend less than $15,000 for materials, with employees gladly providing all the labor for the project, Peck said. The garden honors Reagan but is public and open to anyone seeking a quiet place to reflect, remember or relax.
“I just imagine somebody sitting here and feeling peace,” McCrary-Tokes said.
She struggles to feel that for herself, of course, but projects such as the garden help. So does the advocacy work she pursues to prevent any other parent from knowing her pain.
“There are days that I don’t look to the light, and the dark can kind of consume you,” McCrary-Tokes said. “But I am being gifted the will and the strength to continue to be vocal.”
The Reagan Delaney Tokes Memorial Foundation already has awarded some $120,000 in scholarships. The Rally for Reagan fundraiser, set for Feb. 15-16 at the Renaissance Downtown Columbus Hotel, will benefit the foundation and focus on education, self-awareness and self-defense programs to help protect women.
The family also is pushing on legislative and judicial fronts. The Reagan Tokes Act would allow for prison sentences in Ohio to be shortened or lengthened in serious felony cases, depending on the inmate’s behavior while incarcerated, and aims to improve the monitoring of felons once they are released.
Golsby — Reagan’s mother tries not to say his name — had numerous infractions while in prison. Investigators say he also committed several robberies in the German Village area in the days leading up to Reagan’s murder, despite wearing a GPS monitor.
The Tokes family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the state this year, charging that the Ohio Adult Parole Authority and the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction failed to properly monitor Golsby. A judge ruled this month that the state is immune from liability and threw out the suit.
Frustrated but undaunted, McCrary-Tokes is appealing the decision.
“This is about principle. It’s not about the money. My daughter lost her life over money, so I’m pretty jaded about that,” she said. “If the state is not responsible, who is?”
McCrary-Tokes and her husband, Toby, live in Parkland, Fla. Their younger daughter, Makenzie, graduated from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School the year before the February mass shooting.
“She lost friends,” McCrary-Tokes said, adding that there also were warning signs there. “There is just so much brokenness in the system.”