By Joe Johnson
The three University of Georgia students who last month left animal remains at a frat house were members of another fraternity that possibly previously played a similar prank.
According to Athens-Clarke County police, in the early morning hours of Feb. 7, Alpha Gamma Rho members Carson Smith, Jackson Smith and Conner Donahoo went to the Chi Psi fraternity house on South Milledge Avenue where the Smiths left on the front porch the remains of a skinned coyote, three skinned racoon heads, two dead rats, several presumed racoon feet and “a variety of entrails.”
Sgt. Joe Geiger, who investigated the incident, said he determined that the animals had been “harvested legally for their pelts,” and that the Alpha Gamma Rho members dumped the animal carcasses on Chi Psi’s porch “as a tasteless prank.”
The Smiths, who are brothers from Laurens County, were arrested last week on charges of criminal trespass and improperly disposing of animal carcasses and released on bond.
Donahoo was only issued a citation for disposing the carcasses because he never left the vehicle that he and his frat bothers arrived in and did not step foot on Chi Psi’s property, Geiger said.
Five months before the incident at the Chi Psi house, in September 2019, a deer carcass had been placed on the fraternity house’s porch, but police said they never investigated because it was not reported to them.
Police only learned of the earlier incident when a Chi Psi member mentioned it to them as they investigated last month’s incident, saying that members of Alpha Gamma Rho were believed to be responsible.
UGA spokesman Greg Trevor would not say if the students charged in the most recent incident faced disciplinary action.
“We do not confirm or comment on student disciplinary procedures,” Trevor said.