Four members of an OSU fraternity were apprehended for a gruesome prank involving a deceased longhorn bull that was staged on the lawn of a rival UT Austin frat house in December.
Police in the college town of Stillwater, Oklahoma arrested frat bros Bennett Fady, Luke Ackerley, Brody Shelby, and Andrew King on Wednesday after their investigation dragged on for over a month.
Longhorn bull found gutted and branded at UT Austin frat house
According to Fox News, the incident dates back to the beginning of December, on the night before the Big 12 championship game between Oklahoma State University and the University of Texas at Austin.
4 charged after dead longhorn placed on OSU fraternity lawn https://t.co/UyeKyEyJ7M pic.twitter.com/NDpwDDKrUn
— Austin Kellerman (@AustinKellerman) January 21, 2024
The four members of OSU fraternity Alpha Gamma Rho allegedly gutted a Longhorn bull, Texas’ mascot, and carved “F**k FH,” into the dead animal’s flank.
When members of UT Austin’s FarmHouse fraternity woke up on game day, they found the disemboweled longhorn bull on their front porch.
OSU fraternity circles the wagons over longhorn bull prank
While the act clearly pointed to rival football fans, law enforcement authorities were met with “collective lack of cooperation” from the Alpha Gamma Rho (AGR) organization as a whole.
To narrow down the suspect pool, they were forced to trace the longhorn bull’s origins.
Four OSU fraternity members arrested for longhorn carcass prank before Big 12 championship https://t.co/kF3DCYg5bJ
— WFAA (@wfaa) January 20, 2024
Once they located the cattle owner, it was discovered that he was the uncle of the members of the AGR fraternity, and that a party had been held on the property on the previous night.
Police determined that the incident was the culmination of an ongoing prank war between the two fraternities.
Investigators interviewed various members of AGR, but were stonewalled when senior members and an advisor refused to turn on their fraternity brothers.
Police turn to video footage to catch longhorn bull prank suspects
It wasn’t until getting access to surveillance footage from the rival fraternity that they were able to narrow down the suspect pool.
Video footage from FarmHouse captured three of the frat bros get out of a white Ford truck and dump the steer’s body on the lawn, while the driver remained in the vehicle.
The truck was later determined to belong to another member, who had been approached by the four suspects shortly before they carried out their plan and allowed them to borrow it.
Once the four suspects realized that their “prank” had serious criminal consequences, they left the truck at the farm they took the steer from.
As the investigation continued, the owner picked up the truck from the farm and drove it back to his parent’s house in the middle of the night.
According to the police, the clandestine move was at the “suggestion of the fraternity, to avoid detection.”
When police finally got fellow fraternity members to talk about the incident, it became clear that many of the AGR members told the suspects not to carry out their plan.
No longhorn bulls were harmed in the fraternity prank war
Fortunately, the suspects did not actually harm any living longhorn bulls to make their prank happen.
A necropsy report on the animal revealed that it had died of an unidentified disease a full day and a half prior to being branded and gutted.
According to court records, the four OSU students have been charged with the misdemeanor of unlawfully removing or disposing of a carcass.
They all pleaded not guilty to the charges and were released on their own recognizance.
