By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
The fate of Jacob Krinn and Troy Henricksen, each charged with multiple crimes related to the alcohol poisoning death of Stone Foltz after a fraternity event on March 4, 2021, is now in the hands of the jury.
Testimony wrapped up earlier today (May 26), and this afternoon the prosecution and defense delivered closing arguments. Afterward Common Pleas Court Judge Joel Kuhlman released three alternate jurors, and charged the remaining 12 jurors to begin their deliberations at about 7:30 p.m.
They will return Friday morning to continue those deliberations.
Krinn, 21, of Delaware, Ohio, who was Foltz’s “big brother” in the pledging process, faces seven counts: first and third degree felony involuntary manslaughter, reckless homicide, felonious assault, hazing, and failure to comply with underage Alcohol Laws, and tampering with evidence.
Henricksen, 24, of Grove City, who was the new member educator and a former president of the fraternity, faces 18 charges , third degree felony involuntary manslaughter, reckless homicide, tampering with evidence, eight counts of counts of hazing and seven counts of failure to comply with underage alcohol laws.
The closing arguments left the jurors with two contrasting visions of the cases.
Assistant Prosecutor Pamela Gross opened her argument with the statement: “If you want to be a PIKE, you do PIKE things,” using the colloquial name for the Pi Alpha Kappa fraternity.
And Stone Foltz, she said, wanted to be a PIKE.
The last thing he had to do to become a PIKE was participate in the Big Little event, where he would meet his “big brother” who would help guide him through the rest of the initiation process. “He wanted what the actives had, the membership, the acceptance. He knew he had to do all these things to get there.”
All the initiation activities – memorizing the preamble, the Greek alphabet, carrying the fraternity’s letters to intramural games, cleaning up after parties, serving at pre-game gatherings before active members headed off to drink, collecting signatures from active members in return for favors. All built up to the Big Little reveal event. These were events overseen by Henricksen as the fraternity’s new member educator.
“We need to take a look at all the events and duties as a whole, an accumulation,” she said.
This was a way to push it to see how much we can get away with, Gross said.
And that culminated with Stone Foltz drinking a liter bottle of Evan Williams bourbon bought and presented to him by Krinn at the Big Little reveal, and dying as a result.
Samuel Shamansky, Krinn’s attorney, had a very different take. Even before the event started, even before Foltz knew Krinn was his big brother, he had determined to “beat the bottle”.
He contended that Foltz was a heavy drinker. And it was his decision to drink the entire bottle that killed him. Once Krinn handed him the bottle, it was his “own free will” to consume it.
“He poisoned himself,” Shamansky said.
Based on testimony, he said, no one told the new members that they had to drink, or consume the whole bottle. The prosecution, he said, was reading too much into photos and videos of the event in which Krinn was heard urging on Foltz by screaming “that’s my boy.”
Shamansky also repeated his claim that witness Niall Sweeney said something different in his testimony than to the prosecutor.
In his testimony, he said Krinn said: ““I got my boy so fucked up.”
However, Shamansky said, when he had his comments to the prosecutor transcribed they read: ““I got my boy. He’s so fucked up.” He contended this a different meaning, something Sweeney denied.
Later Wood County Prosecutor Paul Dobson noted the punctuation was Shamansky’s choice.
Eric Long, Henricksen’s defense attorney, said that from the earliest hours of the investigation, while Foltz was still hanging onto life, the Bowling Green Police were looking for someone to blame.
When police questioned Henricksen, his concern was that he was weeks from graduation and after that would head off to Army Rangers training.
Henricksen was not at the Big Little event because he had a long day on March 4 and had to be up early for ROTC physical training.
Henricksen cooperated with the police. He reached out to them as soon as he heard they wanted to talk to him, Long said. An hour and 20 minute tape of an interview was played as evidence. He offered evidence that the Bowling Green police never took.
Henricksen didn’t “plan” the Big Little, he just arranged a date and place. The event, which had been happening for years, was “self-executing.”
If anyone was to blame, he said, for the event getting out of hand, if it did, it was the fraternity members who lived at the residence at 318 N. Main St. in Bowling Green, known as the Bando house. He noted Sweeney joked that if new members didn’t drink their bottles he’d pour it down their throats.
Members of the house volunteered to host the event even though they were concerned that new members would vomit on their furniture. So, they arranged to have trash cans around the house.
The state was going after Henricksen because it wanted to hold the fraternity responsible. With his multiple roles in the fraternity, he personified Pi Alpha Kappa.
Dobson got the last word. In the defense’s view, he said, it was “everybody else’s fault.”
It was Stone Foltz’s fault. His girlfriend’s fault. The police’s fault. The residents of Bando’s fault. Most egregiously, they blamed Shari Foltz, Stone’s mother.
But Krinn and Henricksen accept no responsibility.
This is the environment in which hazing occurs. Dobson said.
He read from the new member manual. It stated that to be accepted new members had to “pull your own weight” and “do what’s expected.”
There would be, the manual said, “no free passes.”
These were the expectations that Foltz and new members thought they had to meet. And that included drinking a bottle of liquor at the Big Little.
This was the key to the door into the place they wanted to be as respected members of this brotherhood.
This set up a power dynamic, and Henricksen was a gatekeeper in that hierarchy.
This culminated in the Big Little.
Here the new members drank and became subjects of ridicule for the active members, Dobson said.
That the active members, Krinn and the others provided alcohol to the underage pledges was a clear violation of the law, Dobson said. That Foltz’s death was a result of this action was the foundation for the assault and homicide charges.
