Running Out Of Time (Rebroadcast)

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Speaker 2 But there's something inside that I need to release.

Speaker 4 Which way is right?

Speaker 5 Which way is wrong?

Speaker 6 I don't say that I need to move on.

Speaker 3 Move on.

Speaker 3 University police, watch your emergency.

Speaker 8 This is Lauren.

Speaker 10 I am not dealing with the situation.

Speaker 8 I think they're trying to lure me somewhere.

Speaker 11 In 2018, University of Utah senior Lauren McCluskey repeatedly asked for help.

Speaker 12 He was deceptive. He was dangerous.

Speaker 13 Every woman I came across, I used my manipulation tactics to get what I wanted.

Speaker 14 I'm pissed.

Speaker 5 That could have changed everything.

Speaker 15 The people and institutions that were supposed to listen and protect her did not.

Speaker 16 The justice system failed her in so many different ways.

Speaker 18 Looking like this might be kidnapping.

Speaker 19 You have a powerful institution that is trying to protect his image.

Speaker 4 She did everything right.

Speaker 20 She said,

Speaker 21 no, no, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 12 And I knew something was wrong.

Speaker 11 This is the story of Lauren's life, her murder, and her parents' quest for answers.

Speaker 22 Good evening and welcome to 2020.

Speaker 22 You're about to witness right here tonight the results of a four-year ESBN investigation into the death of Lauren McCluskey, a beloved daughter, a cherished friend, a senior at the University of Utah.

Speaker 22 This investigation led by reporters TJ Quinn and Nicole Norin, and what it uncovers is surveillance video never seen before tonight, police interviews, documents, photographs.

Speaker 23 And at the end, you'll likely be asking what these two journalists asked and often, could Lauren's life have been saved?

Speaker 26 Lauren McCleskey grew up in Pullman, Washington.

Speaker 27 Lauren was just athletic from the very beginning. She could climb trees at two years old and she had no fear.

Speaker 27 She was pure determination.

Speaker 20 She was a very sensitive girl, and so the athletics really gave her a way to channel that. It just helped her be a more confident person.

Speaker 27 I put her in three events at eight years old and she broke the record for each event.

Speaker 33 400, high jump, and long jump.

Speaker 27 I told her, well, if you qualify for nationals, I'll take you.

Speaker 27 When she was 10, it was in Los Angeles, and she got second place in high jump in Junior Olympic nationals.

Speaker 27 She was competitive with anyone in the country as a young child.

Speaker 34 I remember meeting Lauren in dance class.

Speaker 34 I was about 13.

Speaker 15 She was awesome.

Speaker 34 It was fun to be around her. Whatever she did, she was amazing at.

Speaker 34 She really loved to sing. She always participated in things that was either new or challenging for her that made her a better person.

Speaker 35 Me and Lauren are going to do a conversation with you because we said, I'm like, they're just fine.

Speaker 37 3.14159-2653589-793-2384-6260538.

Speaker 37 Anyway.

Speaker 1 She was pretty famous at the high school.

Speaker 25 Oh, Lauren McCluskey, you're her dad.

Speaker 3 Oh, okay.

Speaker 34 She was the kind of friend that you could rely on. It wouldn't matter the time or the day.
If you needed someone to talk to, Lauren would be there for you. I would talk to Lauren every single day.

Speaker 20 The University of Utah, she really loved the athletic program.

Speaker 20 She liked the academics.

Speaker 27 She liked the coaches. She She liked the girls on the team.
She just enjoyed the whole experience. And I think she did want to experience living away from home.

Speaker 39 We first met August 2015. It was our freshman year.
Her eyes lit up when she talked.

Speaker 4 Super smart, super intense, very dedicated to, you know, her family, her church.

Speaker 4 She was such a multidimensional person. Like, you didn't just see her as an athlete.
She was Lauren, who was an athlete, but she was also a comedian. She was also a dancer.

Speaker 40 She was a communication major.

Speaker 29 She did extremely well.

Speaker 40 She was very excited about graduating.

Speaker 23 It was the beginning of their senior year, and Lauren and her friend Alex were heading to downtown Salt Lake City to a bar to have a good time. Alex requested that we only use her first name.

Speaker 39 I think it was a Saturday night in September. Our first encounter with him was outside.

Speaker 27 He was the bouncer. Lauren and her friend Alex were going out.
They liked to dance.

Speaker 39 I remember him being very huge, very big muscles.

Speaker 39 Throughout the night, he would come back and pass through and stop and talk to us a few times.

Speaker 39 Probably around midnight, we got up to leave. It was very crowded because people were dancing at this point.

Speaker 39 I was behind her and then all of a sudden I look up and then he has like his hands on her shoulders.

Speaker 39 So she gave him her number and they made plans to go on a date.

Speaker 27 She told me right away that she was dating him and I think he came in and tried to sweep her off her feet.

Speaker 39 He said his name was Sean. He was 28 years old.
He was enrolled currently at Salt Lake Community College.

Speaker 39 He also said that he worked at a call center.

Speaker 6 center.

Speaker 34 It started off really, really good, like

Speaker 34 a fairy tale, where it was just like, it's too good to be true, but it's like you're happy for that person because they're happy.

Speaker 27 He took her out for dinner and bought her flowers and asked her to be his girlfriend. I think she liked the attention.
He was very charming.

Speaker 39 She said, Sean said I could invite a few friends to go out on Thursday Thursday and meet him but I found it weird how she phrased it he said I could invite

Speaker 39 she said he told me to wear a t-shirt and jeans so that's why I'm wearing this she seemed very nervous around him

Speaker 39 he called her while we were at Target he sounded very mad like where are you who are you with and I found that very concerning

Speaker 34 I remember, you know, being like, why do you have to answer your phone when that person calls?

Speaker 34 And she's like, you know, they really want me to answer my phone right away because they have some insecurities from the past and they just want to make sure, you know, where I'm at, what I'm doing, and if I'm okay.

Speaker 34 At the end of the conversation, this person would manipulate it. You know, just as she's about to hang up, this individual would say, you know, I love you.

Speaker 11 You don't even want to say his name, do you?

Speaker 34 No. No.

Speaker 34 I'm not going to say that person's name.

Speaker 14 they don't deserve to have their name mentioned

Speaker 39 He got her pepper spray at one point. He's like, oh, I think you need pepper spray to protect yourself from other men.
Then

Speaker 6 he

Speaker 39 invited her to go shooting before she went. She told me he wants me to get a gun.

Speaker 39 And when I found that out, that's when I told a few other friends.

Speaker 4 They started outlining Lauren's seeing this new guy. He's not really a good guy.
She's not hanging out with us as much. And he's talking about getting her a gun.

Speaker 4 And then that's when, you know, it had passed the point of, oh, this is harmless gossip to this is actually something that could be detrimental to, you know, her academic career.

Speaker 4 And then I had to switch into professional mode.

Speaker 11 This was the moment when Lauren McCluskey's friends first alerted University of Utah officials of their concerns about her month-old relationship.

Speaker 4 I called my first supervisor and asked her, Hey, what some steps did you want me to take? Do you want me to call the police and have them go?

Speaker 4 Do you want me to try to contact Lauren and see if she can meet me somewhere? But my direct supervisor was new, so she didn't want to

Speaker 4 take the wrong steps and asked me to call our direct supervisor.

Speaker 11 Lauren's housing advisor and friend Diamond Jackson emailed her supervisor on October 2nd.

Speaker 11 The email that you sent says,

Speaker 11 maybe in a potentially harmful relationship, non-resident boyfriend staying with her at her roommate, boyfriend may be getting a gun to keep with her, concerned the boyfriend had been tracking Lauren.

Speaker 11 Also that Lauren is not taking care of herself, and these two friends are both worried about Lauren.

Speaker 4 I felt like there were multiple points in that that were grounds for us to act.

Speaker 15 A couple of days later, Lauren made her own alarming discovery.

Speaker 27 She and a friend

Speaker 27 found a picture that looked like him that was a sex offender.

Speaker 34 I was like, you know, are you 100%

Speaker 34 sure?

Speaker 39 Her voice seemed very hushed, and she seemed very scared.

Speaker 8 I think they're trying to lure me somewhere.

Speaker 23 Laura McCleskey had been dating her boyfriend Sean Fields since the beginning of her senior year at University of Utah.

Speaker 11 She thought she knew her boyfriend until she found his ID, which had a different age and a different name.

Speaker 27 She and a friend found a picture that looked like him that was a sex offender.

Speaker 34 And I was like, you know, are you 100% sure it could be this person? Because based on what I was reading online, it's like that was a really hard offense.

Speaker 11 It turns out Sean Fields was not his real name. He was Melvin Sean Rowland.
He was 37.

Speaker 11 And he pleaded guilty to two sex crimes crimes in 2004.

Speaker 15 Lauren had gone home to Pullman, Washington for a few days to visit her parents for fall break.

Speaker 27 She told me that she had found out that he was a sex offender and that he'd lied about his age and that she was going to break up with him and I said, yes, that's exactly the right thing to do.

Speaker 39 We were coming up with like a plan for how

Speaker 39 she should break up with him and I didn't want her to do it on campus because since it was fall break, a lot of people were out of town.

Speaker 15 Adding to Lauren's problems was that she'd loaned him her car when she was home visiting her parents.

Speaker 39 He had her car while she was gone, and

Speaker 39 she needed to get her car back.

Speaker 15 Lauren met Roland at her dorm that night.

Speaker 39 I get a message from her saying, I'll call you tomorrow. And yes, I'm home.
I was scared. I remember not sleeping that night.

Speaker 39 That next morning, Her voice seemed very hushed and she seemed very scared. And

Speaker 39 I was like, Warren, are you alone? And she's like, no, I'll call you later.

Speaker 39 I finally get a call from her and he spent the night.

Speaker 39 He was still denying anything happened. It was years ago.
He was at like a college fraternity party. The girl lied about her age.
He was still making excuses of how that's not true.

Speaker 27 And then the next day after she broke up with him and he had her car, I was worried about her safety.

Speaker 28 And that's when I called the police.

Speaker 38 University Police.

Speaker 48 I would like to request some help from my daughter who's a student at University of Utah and she started dating this guy there who's like a bad person and she found out he's a bad person and she broke up with him and he has her car.

Speaker 47 If he was lying to her and he's actually a sexual offender. I don't want her to go there by herself and have like something bad happen to her.

Speaker 15 After the campus police dispatcher spoke to Jill, she called Lauren.

Speaker 37 Hello? Hi, this is Lauren.

Speaker 50 Yeah,

Speaker 8 hi, this is University Police.

Speaker 3 Your ex-boyfriend's dropping off your car.

Speaker 47 Do you feel comfortable with him doing that?

Speaker 38 I know your mom was really concerned about it.

Speaker 10 I think it's okay.

Speaker 3 We have

Speaker 38 a security officer that's just in charge of escorts tonight. Do you want him to wait wait with you as well when the car's getting dropped off?

Speaker 36 That would be great.

Speaker 27 The car was there, so she had her car back. Then she started getting a lot of texts.

Speaker 35 I've been getting these texts

Speaker 35 from these numbers of different people.

Speaker 8 They were saying that he was in the hospital and then saying that like that he passed away.

Speaker 35 But then I got texts from him and he seems to be alive. I got a text about, you know, asking if I wanted to to go to

Speaker 10 a funeral, his funeral, and I think they're trying to lure me somewhere.

Speaker 32 He was very good at manipulating

Speaker 27 phones and social media.

Speaker 33 He could

Speaker 33 make

Speaker 27 spoofed numbers. So it looked like a bunch of different people were texting her.
And they were very

Speaker 27 mean

Speaker 27 text to her saying that he got in a car accident and it's her fault.

Speaker 15 Okay, have you asked them to stop texting you?

Speaker 43 I have not, but

Speaker 8 I've blocked a few of the numbers already.

Speaker 6 All right.

Speaker 37 I'll send a certain officer to give you a call again. Is that okay?

Speaker 36 Yeah, I sound good.

Speaker 11 The next day, Saturday, six weeks after she met Roland, she called University police again.

Speaker 9 So I'm

Speaker 10 dealing with a situation

Speaker 8 where I'm being blackmailed for money.

Speaker 51 A photo of my

Speaker 48 me and my ex.

Speaker 9 They're

Speaker 37 threatening to send it out to everyone.

Speaker 11 Lauren suspected Roland might be involved, but he lied to her that morning and said he was also being blackmailed. She sent $1,000 through Venmo.

Speaker 11 A dispatcher made radio contact with patrol officer Miguel Darris at 9, 12 a.m.

Speaker 3 The caller says her ex-boyfriend is texting her messages, threatening to expose an explicit photo in exchange for money over email and text. Email was received around 6 or 7 a.m.

Speaker 3 Text was received around 8 a.m.

Speaker 3 Sean Rowland around age 37.

Speaker 39 I see all these messages from her about the extortion. At that point, she had already contacted campus police.
It was like, you have to go in person.

Speaker 39 Saturday, October 13th,

Speaker 39 her practice ended, and then we headed to the police department.

Speaker 39 We went inside.

Speaker 39 The entire thing was conducted in the reception area of the police department.

Speaker 11 Miguel Darris was an officer with the University of Utah Police. When he sat down with us, it was the first time he'd spoken publicly about the case.

Speaker 19 She was with a friend.

Speaker 46 We walked in the lobby and I asked her about the payment she had sent.

Speaker 46 She gave me his full name, date of birth, and she had a picture of his driver's license. They showed us what they found on Google.

Speaker 39 He's a sex offender. He went to jail, and I actually had to Google it myself and hand my phone over to him.

Speaker 11 Was it a sex offender registry?

Speaker 46 It showed on his criminal history that he was on that list.

Speaker 39 I felt like they weren't taking it seriously because we had told them, like, she lives on the first floor, maybe she should move housing.

Speaker 11 Those charges that Roland had been convicted of were, I mean, those

Speaker 11 are serious charges. That didn't give you concerns.

Speaker 46 Yeah, there's concern there,

Speaker 46 but we weren't sure if it was him. Anyone could have been extorting her.
That's why there was random phone numbers, unknown emails that they wanted to blackmail her.

Speaker 39 She showed them one of the numbers that was sending her messages was the same number Roland had had when they were in a relationship together. She writes the report.

Speaker 39 I do remember them saying it's a scam, it's probably a scam.

Speaker 39 She gives them the report and then they give her the case number and then

Speaker 39 they tell her that the detective was currently not in the office and that Warren will hear an update by Tuesday.

Speaker 11 What did you think at that point you were dealing with?

Speaker 46 What an extortion case?

Speaker 11 The case was assigned to the on-call detective, Kayla Dalliff, who was not in the office that Saturday.

Speaker 11 But according to official reports, she had conversations about Lauren that day with other officers. Dallif then contacted her supervisor, Sergeant Corey Newbold.

Speaker 11 Newbold told Dallif not to come in. She was working on several other cases that week.

Speaker 15 That evening, Lauren called 911 to tell the Salt Lake City police about the blackmail and how she'd reported it to campus police earlier that day.

Speaker 37 I've been blackmailed for money.

Speaker 52 Let me go ahead and get you over. University of Police will probably take the case then, just one sec.

Speaker 53 I've talked to them already,

Speaker 53 but I just wanted to call you as well.

Speaker 52 Usually we just take it where you live, and then that agency does a case.

Speaker 43 Yeah, I was just concerned because I wasn't sure how long they were going to take.

Speaker 52 Okay, let me get you up to them so they can see what's going on with it just one moment.

Speaker 8 Do you know when an arrest would be made?

Speaker 9 You can talk to an officer if you want. I can arrange that if you want that.

Speaker 47 Okay.

Speaker 53 Yeah, that sounds good.

Speaker 39 She was still being harassed and she was still getting messages.

Speaker 39 She was still in constant contact, though, with the University Police, specifically Miguel Darris. So anytime she was getting messages, she would just forward them on to him.

Speaker 39 She had his personal number. I know she was nervous and she was still waiting to hear from the detective.

Speaker 34 Throughout that whole process, I remember saying, call the cops, and she said that she did. She said, you know, I don't want to talk about it.
The police have it under control.

Speaker 34 I shouldn't have to worry about it anymore.

Speaker 11 Lauren didn't realize it, but her problems were just starting.

Speaker 34 It's unbelievable. The amount of times that she called the police.

Speaker 38 University police.

Speaker 54 As alarming as this already was, Lauren McCluskey likely had no idea the awful turn this was about to take.

Speaker 15 Someone is lurking in the parking lot of her dorm, dressed as the movie assassin Deadpool.

Speaker 11 University of Utah senior Lauren McCluskey was worried about strange texts she was getting after she broke up with her boyfriend Melvin Roland, so she alerted campus police.

Speaker 15 This video is from Friday, October 19th, 10 days after they broke up and seven weeks after they first met.

Speaker 15 Roland is dressed up as the comic book character Deadpool and walking around outside of Lauren's dorm.

Speaker 15 At 4.02 p.m., here she is walking in the west entrance. And then a minute later, see Roland walking around outside the north entrance.

Speaker 11 Lauren and her parents didn't know that Roland was stalking her. They also didn't know that he had access to her email because she had once logged into her account on his phone.

Speaker 11 So he knew about her communications with campus police.

Speaker 39 She got a message saying, I know everything. Why didn't you go to the police? I said, stop speaking to campus police because we went a week ago and they still haven't contacted you yet.

Speaker 39 And so I went up to her apartment and that's what she called Salt Lake City Police.

Speaker 53 I'm worried because I've been working with the campus police at the U.

Speaker 37 And last Saturday I reported and I haven't gotten an update.

Speaker 53 Okay, but but someone contacted me today, someone who was correct and said that they know everything about the police.

Speaker 6 Okay.

Speaker 48 So you already spoke to the campus police department?

Speaker 53 Yes, and they haven't updated or done anything.

Speaker 48 What prompted you to call Salt Lake City police?

Speaker 37 Well, I thought it was weird that there are people who know about the entire case, and the harassers seem to know about it more than me.

Speaker 53 And I'm concerned there might be an insider who's letting them know about

Speaker 37 the case.

Speaker 9 Okay.

Speaker 37 So with something. Because I haven't gotten updates.

Speaker 3 Yeah. It's been a week.

Speaker 48 With something like that, you would want to contact the campus police back and ask to speak to your detective.

Speaker 39 So she calls Daris. The first thing she says is,

Speaker 39 can I speak to the detective? And he wants to know why. And she's like, because my family is concerned that nothing's being done.
And he's like, oh, what? You told your family. I'll contact her now.

Speaker 39 A few minutes later, the detective finally contacts Lauren.

Speaker 15 According to official reports, Detective Kayla Dalla first spoke to Lauren on Friday, October 19th at about 5 p.m.

Speaker 39 Lauren had to relay a lot of information to the detective that I felt like the detective should have already known.

Speaker 39 So either information wasn't passed along to the detective, or if it was passed along, the detective hadn't read it at that point.

Speaker 39 They were on the phone for a while and then the detective tells Lauren to send her an email of everything and so Warren actually does it that night.

Speaker 27 She told me I think I'm annoying them that I'm calling so much. She specifically told me that and then I said it's their job.
They're supposed to listen to you and help you.

Speaker 41 That's their job.

Speaker 4 She went to the necessary people that could have taken an extra step to take him away.

Speaker 4 She did everything right.

Speaker 34 It's unbelievable.

Speaker 34 The amount of times that she called the police,

Speaker 34 how long it took for them to look into

Speaker 34 her case.

Speaker 39 I remember her saying, hopefully in a few years when I'm in a better place and married to someone else, we can look back on this and laugh.

Speaker 11 Early on the morning of October 22nd, 12 days after Lauren and her mother first spoke to police, Melvin Rowland left his apartment, headed to campus in a silver Buick borrowed from his neighbor, and parked in the lot outside of Lauren's building.

Speaker 11 Surveillance video shows him outside at 6.26 a.m.

Speaker 15 Lauren received a text message that morning from someone claiming to be Deputy Chief Rick McLennan of the Campus Police Department.

Speaker 39 Lauren calls me and

Speaker 39 She tells me that she got a message from a deputy chief saying that she had to come to the department now.

Speaker 39 She noticed that there are certain like grammatical errors that were consistent that she had seen in the past and she we figured that was probably not a real deputy chief.

Speaker 39 She was very scared and she was concerned. She's like, what do I do? She said she was going to tell Miguel Darris.

Speaker 15 According to Lauren's phone records, she called campus police officer Miguel Darris at 10 a.m.

Speaker 46 She said,

Speaker 46 I've been receiving these messages. It claims to be your deputy chief.

Speaker 46 And I was like, oh, what's the phone number that he's texting you? And I told her, no, that's not him.

Speaker 11 Here's Lauren six minutes later entering Heritage Hall. A minute after that, she's walking across campus.
And here's Roland nine minutes later.

Speaker 11 He walks into the same building, looks around for a few minutes, then leaves. He goes back to her dorm.

Speaker 15 Lauren's phone calendar shows that she had an 11 a.m. appointment with her on-campus counselor.

Speaker 27 She saw the counselor twice in the time that she broke up with him.

Speaker 27 and I encouraged her to do that because I know that she wasn't telling me everything and I hope that she could tell it to the counselor you know and get some guidance on what to do.

Speaker 11 After seeing her counselor she calls Miguel Darris again at 1155. She tries again at 1208.

Speaker 11 He calls her back at 1214.

Speaker 46 Then I was at the Union

Speaker 46 center. on campus and she happened to be there.
So she showed me those messages and I told her personally.

Speaker 11 So you actually saw her that morning? Yeah.

Speaker 11 How'd you end up connecting with her in person?

Speaker 46 I told her that I'm at the Union Center.

Speaker 46 And somehow we both said, oh, we're here. I'm here too.

Speaker 46 She let me look at those text messages.

Speaker 19 I told her as well, screenshot those and forward them to the detective.

Speaker 28 And we both left.

Speaker 46 I went back to my car and

Speaker 46 she left.

Speaker 39 I had texted her soon before 2 p.m. asking her if she had told Daris and she said she had.

Speaker 39 That was the last I ever talked to her.

Speaker 15 Melvin Rowland walked in and out of campus buildings all day, narrowly missing Lauren.

Speaker 23 The incredible thing is with all of the security cameras on campus, you can see that he was roaming around campus carrying this small black bag.

Speaker 32 He's like, if you guys knew what I had in here, you'd be tripping.

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Speaker 15 On Monday, October 22nd, Lauren McCluskey went about her day. She had a counseling appointment and then later went to study in the student union.

Speaker 15 Meanwhile, Melvin Roland walked in and out of campus buildings all day, narrowly missing Lauren.

Speaker 11 Security video captures Roland inside Lauren's dorm carrying a small black bag. A student let him in the locked door multiple times.
They're fist bumping in the hallway.

Speaker 15 Campus police later interviewed that student. He was one of Lauren McCluskey's neighbors.

Speaker 11 We obtained this recording through public records requests.

Speaker 11 The university blurred his image and altered his voice.

Speaker 32 As I'm walking up, he's like, what's your name, by the way? So like, I'm Apollo.

Speaker 25 Nice to meet you.

Speaker 32 And I go back to my room. About two or three minutes after that, I hear a knock.
I open the door. It's him.

Speaker 11 Roland, calling himself Apollo, asks if he can hang out with that student and others in their rooms.

Speaker 32 He says he's a student here. He says he's a senior with a 3.7 GPA majoring in software engineering and that he was an ex-Marine and that the Marines are paying his whole tuition.

Speaker 11 Then Roland shows him the black bag he'd been carrying around campus.

Speaker 32 And he's like, if you guys knew what I had in here, you'd be tripping. You'd be like, well, and we're like, what is it? He showed me, and it was a gun.
He said it was a military issue Beretta.

Speaker 31 He showed you that in your room?

Speaker 31 So he shows you the gun

Speaker 26 and then you look at it, hold it.

Speaker 32 Yeah, hold it, I'll look at it, and I put it in the light, and I'm like, okay, cool. And I hand it back to him in like 10 seconds.

Speaker 14 Right.

Speaker 17 And then what happens?

Speaker 32 And then

Speaker 32 we're hanging out for a little bit more. And then around that time, it's probably

Speaker 32 7.30-ish, 8. And then I'm like, okay, man, sorry, but I got to go study at the library.
And, you know, then I go head to the library. He walks off the opposite direction of the way I go.

Speaker 15 Roland left Lauren's dorm for the last time at 8.10 p.m. Around the same time Lauren was leaving her class.

Speaker 27 The class had gotten out a little bit early. As she was going home, she called me.

Speaker 17 I was in this room right where I'm sitting right now,

Speaker 60 and Jill was right behind me, over here.

Speaker 20 And she was talking to Lauren on the speaker phone.

Speaker 20 So I could hear their conversation.

Speaker 17 It was very lively, very happy.

Speaker 30 Lauren was looking forward to things.

Speaker 20 She was proud that she was making progress on an assignment that was not due for a few days. So it was a wonderful conversation.

Speaker 11 She was so happy and

Speaker 12 I

Speaker 30 and then and then

Speaker 32 she said no no no no no no

Speaker 25 and I knew something was wrong.

Speaker 27 I hear her yell, no, no, no.

Speaker 27 And then I sort of hear her being dragged away and her phone fell and then no one answered the phone

Speaker 25 we were yelling into the phone Lauren Lauren

Speaker 27 I knew that her life was in danger at that time

Speaker 61 oh units attempt to locate a suspect involved in possible kidnapping the victim is a Lauren McCluskey when you saw her name What went through?

Speaker 46 I was in shock, like, oh my God.

Speaker 26 She just started saying, no, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 62 no and it sounded

Speaker 64 like someone might have been grabbing her or something we were scrambling trying to figure out where she might be

Speaker 55 i was sitting in the newsroom at the salty tribune all of a sudden you could hear this crackle on the police radio kidnapping university of utah kidnapping you know just kind of kept repeating that

Speaker 61 oh yeah it's attempt to locate a suspect involved in possible kidnapping. The victim is a Lauren McCluskey.

Speaker 26 Hi, my daughter, Lauren McCluskey, was talking to her mom, and then she just started saying, No, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 63 And it sounded

Speaker 63 like someone might have been grabbing her or something.

Speaker 29 We were scrambling, trying to figure out where she might be.

Speaker 26 All right, and you said she was walking to her car from one building

Speaker 14 from

Speaker 26 the DC, which is the

Speaker 26 Gardner Commons.

Speaker 26 Oh, someone's been talking on her phone. Hello.

Speaker 26 Hi. I have a bath club, and I know you and I.

Speaker 26 Okay.

Speaker 26 Um, could you just uh stay there? Uh,

Speaker 26 I think she was mugged.

Speaker 26 I'm trying to get a good location. All right, where exactly where does that back back out? Can you get a location for me?

Speaker 36 Hi, I just found a whole bunch of stuff spread out all over the ground and a phone that had an asset call.

Speaker 37 I picked it up.

Speaker 51 Okay. Um, this in and says...

Speaker 18 Yes, I was just on the phone with her parents.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 26 I'm having officers responding up that way. I had a X-box 7 who was possibly making threats with us.
East, south, east of the South Pedro Tower in the parking lot.

Speaker 26 It's looking like this might be kidnapping.

Speaker 55 I got up to the dorms and it was chilly. It was a cold night.

Speaker 15 And everything was just caution taped off.

Speaker 55 I mean, this huge perimeter.

Speaker 18 Okay, we do have witnesses that heard a couple shots and they found a showcase.

Speaker 19 Information was not being shared readily. All we knew there was an active manhunt.
Very limited details were pouring in at that time.

Speaker 55 There was a lot of focus on this one particular parking lot and there were police everywhere. I mean from multiple agencies, there were police dogs.

Speaker 55 There was really this atmosphere of fear and no answers. You know, what were they looking for? What was going on?

Speaker 3 They're getting multiple calls from students, wondering what we want students to do, do we have any searches for them? Yeah, we want them to secure a place,

Speaker 3 They lock down to place.

Speaker 63 Hello, this is Matt.

Speaker 61 Hi, Matt. This is Belle with the University of Utah

Speaker 3 Police.

Speaker 50 And have you guys heard from her or anything?

Speaker 25 No, we have not. Okay.

Speaker 11 Officials issued a campus-wide shelter-in-place alert and soon followed with a suspect description at 1010. The manhunt was on for 37-year-old Melvin Rowland.

Speaker 18 We're heading westbound from the North Medical Medical Tower. The city has a group of

Speaker 18 six officers in a K-9 heading northbound.

Speaker 14 I'm talking about my daughter, Lauren.

Speaker 23 We do have officers on scene handling right now.

Speaker 18 We're actively looking for her. We're doing everything we can to track her down.

Speaker 29 I would look out the window, and as long as I didn't see any police cars coming to our house, I thought we were okay.

Speaker 18 Okay, Sergeant,

Speaker 27 It was actually her coach that told me that they found her.

Speaker 27 And I said, Is she okay? And he said, I'm sorry, she's not. She's gone.

Speaker 27 And

Speaker 27 that was when I just started crying.

Speaker 28 And Matt knew

Speaker 27 what he had said by my response.

Speaker 32 It's hard to even describe.

Speaker 60 I didn't cry.

Speaker 25 I was totally shocked.

Speaker 20 It was like trauma, like getting hit by a baseball bat.

Speaker 25 It was that physical.

Speaker 42 I remember getting a text

Speaker 53 from Mrs.

Speaker 42 McCluskey and

Speaker 42 she said that we lost her. And I was like, what do you mean that we lost her?

Speaker 42 And I remember calling her, and she said that

Speaker 42 Lauren had been shot.

Speaker 42 And that she was murdered.

Speaker 42 And I just remember going outside and just looking up,

Speaker 42 looking up in the stars and just hoping, I just hope you didn't suffer, Lauren, and that when you left this world,

Speaker 6 that you weren't in pain.

Speaker 11 Lauren McCluskey had been shot, and police are scouring the campus and beyond for her killer.

Speaker 65 All units on the shooting, the suspect is going to be a male black, white hoodie, black jacket with white stripes, wear gray beanie, and white shoes.

Speaker 17 It was just an awful discovery.

Speaker 54 They find Lauren has been shot and killed in that car and now police are frantically searching the campus and the community looking for the killer.

Speaker 11 The manhunt was on for 37-year-old Melvin Rowland. Melvin Rowland was last seen getting into a car with another woman.

Speaker 49 New details about a college athlete that is murdered in Utah.

Speaker 54 A mother's horror.

Speaker 22 She was on the phone with her daughter, authorities say, as she was about to be shot and and killed by her boyfriend.

Speaker 66 New questions about whether authorities did enough to help her with chilling 911 calls to police days before her murder.

Speaker 23 Lauren McCluskey had no idea that on that Monday evening, back in October of 2018, as she was walking across campus, her normal routine, that her former boyfriend, Melvin Rowland, was actually stalking her, waiting for her outside her dorm at the University of Utah.

Speaker 15 According to the police report, surveillance video shows Lauren as she was about to enter her dorm, and Melvin Rowland's feet can be seen standing several feet behind her.

Speaker 15 He steps toward McCluskey and grabs her.

Speaker 15 At 8:18, he can be seen carrying her north away from the door. This video was never released by the university.

Speaker 11 Roland carried her to this nearby parking lot, forced her into the back seat of his neighbor's car, and shot her seven times.

Speaker 11 He's seen here three minutes later, making his way south through campus parking lots and across this bridge, ending up at a light rail station on campus.

Speaker 65 All units on the shooting, the suspect is going to be a male black, white hoodie, black jacket with white stripes, wearing a gray beanie and white shoes.

Speaker 11 He was picked up at the station by a driver in a silver Hyundai Sonata.

Speaker 27 Within minutes of shooting her, of shooting Lauren, he went out on a date with a woman that he arranged on a dating app.

Speaker 55 They went out to dinner.

Speaker 32 They hung out at her place.

Speaker 55 He took a shower. It really seemed like he was just having another normal night afterward with another woman.

Speaker 11 The woman contacted police that night. The police blurred her image and altered her voice.

Speaker 32 When I got home,

Speaker 62 I saw the picture of this guy, and then I

Speaker 62 that he may have been picked up in the silver sonata which is like a description of my car. I saw the picture but the name isn't the same or the age.
I just really am just like all around just

Speaker 62 nervous for my safety.

Speaker 32 I don't know what like I need to do.

Speaker 21 100% safe in here.

Speaker 32 You are fine.

Speaker 38 I have officers chasing your suspect on the shooting.

Speaker 37 He is in foot pursuit right now.

Speaker 11 Around 1 a.m., Salt Lake City police officers spotted him in the area of 200 East and 500 South downtown.

Speaker 64 They were chasing him on foot and they chased him to this location where they found a hidden forced entry to this building.

Speaker 36 We have the suspect inside the church. It looks like he had the gunshot wound self-inflicted.

Speaker 64 In clearing the building, they found our suspect deceased in a room in the church.

Speaker 23 It turns out that Melvin Rowland died by suicide. Police say using the same gun he used to kill Lauren McCluskey.

Speaker 23 So many of us won't forget those images on campus that day.

Speaker 17 All of those young students who had gathered, you could see the tears

Speaker 23 coming down their faces, those who knew her, those who loved Lauren.

Speaker 23 Suddenly, the nation knew the story of this young woman with so much promise whose life was stolen.

Speaker 49 We gather today to honor the memory of Lauren McCluskey,

Speaker 49 a remarkable, talented young woman whose bright life was ended on Monday in a senseless act of violence.

Speaker 11 She was a joy to coach.

Speaker 67 It is

Speaker 67 an immense and deep pain that my team and that all of our student athletes are feeling.

Speaker 28 She was an amazing, genuine, and caring person.

Speaker 28 And she was

Speaker 28 really missed.

Speaker 19 It made national headlines. We knew there was going to be accountability issues.

Speaker 1 We wondered, could this have been prevented?

Speaker 55 And then there was also the focus on Roland as kind of the villain in this case.

Speaker 55 Looking at his past, his criminal history.

Speaker 19 He was like a con man, a sweet talker. He had used various aliases.

Speaker 55 We talked to two or three other women that had dated him that said, you know, he did the same thing to us and we could have been Lauren.

Speaker 55 Women that he had dated for short periods of time that he just became kind of obsessive with.

Speaker 55 There were just so many pieces of information that we realized that the you didn't have and never found out that we were starting to find out in the first couple of days.

Speaker 55 I would say within a week or two at most, the focus shifted. It became how the university made mistakes, how the institution failed Lauren.

Speaker 19 You have a powerful institution that is trying to protect his image.

Speaker 19 that is promising transparency. We know Lauren had called, she had complained that she was being harassed by an ex-boyfriend.
There's only two things that could have occurred.

Speaker 19 One, the writing on the wall was there and it was simply ignored, or those who were looking at the wall couldn't read.

Speaker 12 He was deceptive, he was dangerous, and in my mind thinking, how could we have not known?

Speaker 20 The facts that they uncovered were shocking.

Speaker 15 Police learned that 22-year-old Roland had sexually assaulted a 17-year-old high school student.

Speaker 27 I just felt sick sick to my stomach when I heard that.

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Speaker 23 The murder of Laura McCleskey now sets into motion two investigations into her death in Utah.

Speaker 11 While the state's Department of Public Safety focused on Melvin Rowland's history with the criminal justice system, the University of Utah commissioned its own independent review.

Speaker 55 They presented this report that showed all of these ways that the university mishandled it, how the officers mishandled it. They had all these recommendations for things that should be fixed.

Speaker 55 And then President Ruth Watkins made the kind of infamous statement.

Speaker 49 This report does not offer us a reason to believe that this tragedy could have been prevented, but instead I was shocked that she would say that.

Speaker 27 I just felt sick to my stomach.

Speaker 63 I think the statement defies logic.

Speaker 17 It defies facts.

Speaker 17 It was written by a lawyer.

Speaker 4 Everyone was really trying to avoid it. Well, we didn't do anything wrong.
We didn't do anything wrong. I'm like, these parents lost our kid.
She is gone.

Speaker 4 And you have the audacity to try to cover your ass.

Speaker 15 What did your journalistic instinct tell you about that approach that they were taking?

Speaker 19 That they would protect the integrity, the reputation of the university at all costs.

Speaker 20 The facts that they uncovered were shocking.

Speaker 25 The sheer number of times that she was trying

Speaker 49 to get help from the police, when in fact it should have just been one phone call.

Speaker 20 But the most shocking thing was the large number of

Speaker 20 flaws in the system.

Speaker 15 In June 2019, Jill and Matt McCleskey filed a $56 million lawsuit against the University of Utah and several staffers, including members of the campus police department, alleging deliberate indifference and failure to intervene to protect their daughter, Lauren.

Speaker 29 I do not want to be in this world without Lauren, but Being stuck here,

Speaker 29 I have no choice but to try to make this world better.

Speaker 27 Women must be believed and taken seriously when they ask for help.

Speaker 11 The state's investigative report gave a bit of Roland's background. He grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and said he was adopted by an older couple who died when he was young.

Speaker 11 Utah officials say they found no juvenile criminal record for Roland, but he attended a high school for troubled youth in Colorado. He moved to Utah when he was about 20 years old.

Speaker 15 A summary of the report stated that Roland was sentenced in 2004 to 1 to 15 years in prison on charges of enticing a minor over the internet and attempted forcible sexual abuse.

Speaker 31 I first heard about him because I represented the Internet Crimes Against Children task force, a bunch of different people working together from a bunch of different law enforcement entities.

Speaker 15 One agent on that task force was assigned to pose as a teenager in online chat rooms.

Speaker 31 He was acting as a 13-year-old girl and Melvin asked him if he wanted to meet for wild sex. They make the arrangement to meet and met in downtown Salt Lake.

Speaker 15 And when Roland arrived, who was waiting for him?

Speaker 31 The Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.

Speaker 15 Police learned that two nights before, 22-year-old Roland had sexually assaulted a 17-year-old high school student.

Speaker 31 So they had met online. It had been a period of about a month.
He went out to her home. She indicated she was really tired and she wanted him to leave.

Speaker 31 He would not. When he began to rape her, she put a pillow over her face and

Speaker 31 covered herself up. After he finished, he left and said,

Speaker 31 you won't have to hear from me again and I won't take anything on my way out.

Speaker 15 The 17-year-old went to the hospital for a rape exam and to be treated for her injuries.

Speaker 31 He was a one-man sex crime wave that was just looking to commit sex crime. The initial charge was rape because of the crime against the actual victim and then enticement of a minor over the internet.

Speaker 16 Two serious felonies.

Speaker 15 Roland lied to officers and FBI agents at the time and told them he was a football player at the University of Utah. Although he was enrolled at the school from the fall of 2003 until spring 2004.

Speaker 31 You just seem like the consummate manipulator. Someone who is very smooth and engaging and convincing, compelling,

Speaker 32 but

Speaker 17 who you shouldn't believe a word of what they say.

Speaker 11 As those cases were proceeding, Roland was on supervised release. He wore a monitoring device on his ankle while he attended classes.
He dropped out as he reached a deal to plead guilty.

Speaker 11 He was sentenced to 1 to 15 years in prison.

Speaker 31 There was a strong likelihood that the victim in this case was not going to be able to withstand trial. And so that was a strong motivation for me to reach a plea bargain.

Speaker 15 What was the next thing you ever heard about him?

Speaker 31 When I saw the report on TV that he had killed Lauren and himself, it hit me like a ton of bricks. He was a predator.
We did the right thing by stopping him. How did he get out? Why was he out?

Speaker 31 And, oh my God.

Speaker 23 One of the most heartbreaking things about this case is that Melvin Rowland has this stunning criminal history and so many questions about could he have been stopped long before this?

Speaker 23 And so much of this has not been made public until now.

Speaker 11 So we hear him say flat out he rapes two other women.

Speaker 11 What's your reaction to hearing that?

Speaker 5 I am just appalled that I didn't know.

Speaker 15 Megan Thompson was Melbourne Rowland's final parole agent. She was assigned to his case in 2018.

Speaker 11 When you were signed, Melbourne Rowland, how many other cases did you have?

Speaker 5 Maybe 70 or 80

Speaker 5 people on my caseload.

Speaker 11 There was a parole hearing he had had years earlier. where he essentially admitted to committing two rapes that he had not been charged with.
Had you ever heard that?

Speaker 32 No.

Speaker 11 Is it the first time you're hearing it?

Speaker 6 Yes.

Speaker 11 All right, so this was from 2012.

Speaker 69 They didn't tell me how many victims you have.

Speaker 69 So I'd like you to give me kind of an

Speaker 69 idea of what we're looking at victim-wise.

Speaker 13 Is that including the women I dated in college or just

Speaker 13 I would say every female that I came across dating or met on the internet, I'd say, I used my manipulation taxes to get what I wanted.

Speaker 69 How many did you out and out rape like the one young lady?

Speaker 13 Well, not like that.

Speaker 13 But me being a womanizer, you know, I use other taxes to get what I wanted with them. I'd say

Speaker 13 some similarities, I'd say

Speaker 13 two.

Speaker 11 Two others.

Speaker 13 But I see it in general, which is how I

Speaker 13 manipulated and used women in general.

Speaker 69 How many women in general did you convince to have sex with you by manipulation?

Speaker 13 I got locked up at 22, and my sexual experience, I'd say about 50.

Speaker 14 Okay.

Speaker 11 So we hear him say flat out he raped two other women.

Speaker 11 What's your reaction to hearing that?

Speaker 5 I am just appalled that I didn't. No.

Speaker 5 It should have been investigated because there's no statute of limitations.

Speaker 11 Have you heard of situations like that where someone essentially admits to two violent felonies in a hearing and nothing happens?

Speaker 6 No.

Speaker 11 We asked the Board of Pardons and Parole why Roland's admission to two additional rapes wasn't investigated.

Speaker 11 The board replied, the individual retains their right against self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment.

Speaker 11 The board's role is to ask questions and respond to the information provided, but it cannot be a fair venue if we are also involved in investigatory or prosecutorial actions.

Speaker 31 He got away with other crimes, and it makes me feel horrible that I wasn't able to do anything about that, because I was unaware of it.

Speaker 69 Hopefully when you get out, you'll have learned from

Speaker 69 this experience. Only time's going to tell.

Speaker 13 Yeah, I know I have that capability of reoffending, but again, it's something I'll have to prove.

Speaker 11 Roland had been denied parole in his first three attempts, but a month after that hearing, in July 2012, he was released.

Speaker 11 Within a few months, he was sent back to prison for failing to participate in sex offender therapy and for having links to pornography on his phone.

Speaker 15 In 2013, he was paroled again and out of prison for two and a half years. During that time, he fathered a son.
He also briefly dated Kara Stroppel.

Speaker 70 I feel like it's important that people understand that he was just very skilled at

Speaker 70 getting what he wanted. I didn't hear from him or see him at all for a couple of months.
And then 25 missed phone calls and just like, just a slew of text messages.

Speaker 27 He said that his parole officer stopped by and I'm like,

Speaker 45 you have a parole officer? Like, what's

Speaker 70 he knows that his parole officer is going to take him away for whatever was on his cell phone. He takes his cell phone and throws it under the oven in his kitchen.

Speaker 70 And then he books it out the door and runs from his parole officer.

Speaker 11 Stroplaw says she persuaded Roland to turn himself in, and he was sent back to prison for four parole violations, including absconding from parole agents and using social media.

Speaker 11 During his parole violation hearing, Roland's public defender addressed a threat Roland had made against a parole agent.

Speaker 15 We played audio from the hearing for Paul Amon, the man who first prosecuted Roland.

Speaker 67 It is rather disconcerting, the comment that he made that he did not wish to parole again and if an agent were to come conduct a field visit, he might become violent.

Speaker 67 Mr. Rowland expressed to me that he was mad at the time and

Speaker 67 that

Speaker 67 he was just making that statement and that he didn't mean it.

Speaker 31 That was just a wake-up call to the Board of Pardons. He sends up all these flares that I'm a problem.

Speaker 25 If I get out, I'm going to hurt people. I mean, his probation officer is an armed, trained law enforcement officer, and he's threatening violence to that person.

Speaker 16 Lauren McCluskey didn't stand a chance.

Speaker 11 Melvin Rowland was in prison for nearly two years, then had another parole hearing in January 2018.

Speaker 11 The board faced a choice, keep him in prison until the end of his sentence 16 months later, or release him on parole so he'd be supervised in the community.

Speaker 13 I understand I haven't been

Speaker 13 the best model citizen when I release and it shows by two paroles that

Speaker 13 you know I I just hope taking consideration they've given me this chance so I can redeem myself.

Speaker 27 I wish you the best of luck.

Speaker 14 Thank you. Okay.

Speaker 11 In April 2018, Roland was paroled for the third time. Megan Thompson was assigned to be his parole agent.

Speaker 11 What were your impressions of him?

Speaker 5 Arrogant, entitled. I knew that he had a history with women, so I was very

Speaker 5 overly, I guess you could say, assertive and rigid

Speaker 5 to where he knew

Speaker 5 and saw me as an officer, not as a woman.

Speaker 39 He

Speaker 5 would clearly say he didn't like the rules, but he knew he had to follow them. He was just kind of more focused on his life after parole.

Speaker 11 During a search, you found that he'd been accessing a dating site. What did you discover?

Speaker 5 On his phone, he had...

Speaker 5 Some meetup apps he was socializing with women on

Speaker 5 and

Speaker 5 there were several women on.

Speaker 5 As far as violating him on that and him going back to prison, there's no way the supervisor or the Board of Pardons would have approved that he go back to prison on just that.

Speaker 11 In August, he tested positive for marijuana.

Speaker 5 Yes. There had been no previous concerns about drug use in his history or in

Speaker 5 my encounters with him. I came down on him pretty hard, if I remember right, during that visit with him.
This would be a verbal warning.

Speaker 11 People, after the fact, after he killed Lauren, after he died, look back and think, oh my God, there's a chance right there they could have violated him. When you look back at it, what do you think?

Speaker 5 Oh, there's no way

Speaker 5 I would never have gotten it. I warrant

Speaker 70 what I did was what

Speaker 41 would have was appropriate.

Speaker 11 How do you feel you handled all the information that you got about him?

Speaker 5 I handled things very appropriately.

Speaker 34 I was told

Speaker 5 I handled things very appropriately.

Speaker 11 We contacted the Utah Department of Corrections about Roland's behavior and potential parole violations.

Speaker 11 Officials responded that the type of violations APNP was aware of during Roland's parole would not have typically returned someone to prison, and responses were consistent with state guidelines.

Speaker 23 One of the really difficult things about this case, and there are so many difficult questions to this day, but had Melvin Rowland served his entire prison term, had he not been released until May of 2019, that would have been seven months after he murdered Lauren McCluskey.

Speaker 23 Instead, he's paroled in 2018, the year before. He gets a job at that downtown bar in Salt Lake City, and that's where they meet.

Speaker 31 This is a girl who has come to us with a problem. We need to take it seriously.

Speaker 55 There was just a lot of shock that this had happened. Every system that Lauren tried to get help through failed.

Speaker 23 So amid all of these questions about whether or not campus police could have been doing more to help Lauren, if anything at all, now there's this brand new question.

Speaker 23 What had they done with the intimate photos that Lauren had shared with them, trusting them?

Speaker 23 We now know it was one week after Lauren McCluskey met Melvin Rowland at that bar where he worked at Salt Lake City that his fellow bouncer at the bar, Nathan Vogel, asks a friend to help Nathan buy a Beretta handgun at a gun store.

Speaker 23 And the incredible thing is it was just later that month Melvin Rowland borrows this new handgun to take Lauren McCluskey's shooting.

Speaker 23 And authorities would later learn it was the same gun he used to kill Lauren.

Speaker 11 Vogel pleaded guilty to making a false statement to obtain the weapon.

Speaker 15 When Lauren's friends learned that her new boyfriend wanted to take her shooting and get her a gun, they became concerned and told housing advisor Diamond Jackson.

Speaker 15 Jackson sent an email to her supervisor on October 2nd with a list of concerns.

Speaker 11 During that period of time from the 2nd to the 22nd,

Speaker 11 how much were you hearing about Lauren and what was going on with her?

Speaker 4 It was never brought up unless I brought it up. What's being done? Have y'all changed rooms for her yet? What's going on? And there was just like, oh, you know, we're going to handle it.

Speaker 4 And, you know, the director of conduct is going to look into it. And just very nonchalant kind of, it's going to get done.

Speaker 4 Nothing happened.

Speaker 11 In the hours before Lauren's murder, campus housing officials at the University of Utah discussed the concerns that resident advisor Diamond Jackson had first raised by email three weeks before.

Speaker 11 She spoke to Jill McCluskey after Lauren's death.

Speaker 4 I was able to call her mom and tell her exactly what I did on my end.

Speaker 4 I told her that I was sorry and I thought, I wish I could change. I wish I could go back.

Speaker 4 And I told her exactly what I did,

Speaker 4 who I spoke to. I laid it all out and I really told her that I really wish I would have went and helped her.

Speaker 7 And

Speaker 4 she was just being so kind to me. And I'm like, why are you being kind to me?

Speaker 4 Your daughter, like, is gone. And I could have helped her.
She's like, Damn, there's nothing you could have done.

Speaker 15 We contacted campus housing officials who were named in the McCluskey lawsuit. None of them would speak with us on the record.

Speaker 11 Lauren's friends had spoken with her housing advisor, and Lauren McCluskey had repeatedly contacted campus police.

Speaker 9 I'm

Speaker 37 dealing with a situation

Speaker 8 where I'm being blackmailed for money.

Speaker 15 The University of Utah sent a statement to us saying in part, Lauren's death forced the university to reckon with its dysfunctional police department, siloed campus operations, and incomplete employee training and communication.

Speaker 11 The detective in charge of Lauren's extortion case was Kayla Dalliff, who had been on the job for less than a year. Her supervisor was Sergeant Corey Newbold, who died in 2021.

Speaker 11 School officials told us there is no record that Newbold ever instructed her to follow up on Lauren's case. Dallif is now a deputy sheriff for a county in Utah.
She declined our interview request.

Speaker 15 Miguel Darris is the officer who took Lauren's initial police report.

Speaker 11 What sort of threat did you think Melbourne Rowland might be to her?

Speaker 46 We weren't 100%

Speaker 46 sure that it was him.

Speaker 46 Lauren didn't think it was him.

Speaker 46 She kept saying it was Roland's friends,

Speaker 46 an unknown, or

Speaker 46 possibly Roland.

Speaker 11 Why didn't somebody at that point just go interview Melvin Roland?

Speaker 46 Because we were not sure if it was him.

Speaker 11 But why not ask him?

Speaker 46 That's when,

Speaker 46 that's where I needed more experience on these type of cases,

Speaker 46 doing follow-ups, but

Speaker 46 we were trained as

Speaker 46 first line officers to document everything and pass it over to the detective. They

Speaker 46 wanted detectives to do the follow-up.

Speaker 11 You gave a very long pause when I asked you about contacting him. I mean, sitting here today, what do you wish you had done?

Speaker 46 Contact him or told someone to.

Speaker 46 When I had dispatched run his criminal history, that's where

Speaker 46 I

Speaker 46 saw that he was, he had convictions.

Speaker 11 What did it show about his parole status?

Speaker 46 We weren't trained to look at that, so I had no idea to even check for that.

Speaker 11 Had you ever run someone's parole status before?

Speaker 46 No.

Speaker 15 According to the university's review, no one in the campus police department checked Roland's offender status to see if he was on parole, and no policies or procedures were in place to require such a check.

Speaker 11 Had they seen it and saw that he was on parole and contacted you, what would have happened next?

Speaker 5 My next step would be contacting him, locating him.

Speaker 11 Did you ever hear from campus police at any point?

Speaker 6 No.

Speaker 11 What concerns did you have for her safety at that point?

Speaker 46 None, because she

Speaker 46 not

Speaker 46 report any fear or

Speaker 46 concerns of domestic violence.

Speaker 11 Were your supervisors aware of what was going on?

Speaker 46 Everything.

Speaker 11 What should have happened that week?

Speaker 46 There's a lot, what is.

Speaker 31 There should have been a lot more emphasis placed on the fact that this is a girl who has come to us with a problem. We need to take it seriously.

Speaker 31 We can't brush her off and say, we'll get to you next week when Detective so-and-so comes in. We need to take a hard look at this now.

Speaker 15 When Lauren reported the blackmailing, campus police requested that she send the intimate images to Officer Daris.

Speaker 15 He forwarded them to Detective Daloff as instructed, but two days later, he allegedly showed them to other officers.

Speaker 11 A public records request the ESPN submitted in October 2019 prompted the university to open an internal investigation into what Daris did with the photos.

Speaker 11 The Salt Lake Tribune, which also submitted public records requests, published a story in 2020.

Speaker 15 How did the community respond?

Speaker 55 There was just a lot of shock that this had happened. The U either said they didn't know about it or that they didn't have records on it until two years after Lauren was killed.

Speaker 11 According to a Utah Department of Public Safety investigation released in August 2020, multiple officers said under oath that Darris showed the explicit photos for non-law enforcement reasons.

Speaker 11 Two officers told DPS investigators that Darris made an unprofessional comment about the photos. Another officer admitted making a similar comment, while a third said he might have but didn't recall.

Speaker 45 It hit me very hard.

Speaker 45 If she'd asked me for advice, I would have told her, Absolutely, share embarrassing, compromising pictures with the police because they are professionals and it would have been very bad advice looking back on it.

Speaker 27 It's just really a betrayal of trust. She went to the police expecting to get help.

Speaker 46 There was no way

Speaker 46 I was

Speaker 46 bragging or sharing these photos. I wouldn't do that to her.

Speaker 11 There were two officers who reported they remember hearing some unprofessional comments being made when you showed the pictures.

Speaker 46 I don't remember any unprofessional comments.

Speaker 11 Did you ever say to anyone that you could look at those pictures anytime you wanted?

Speaker 46 I never said that.

Speaker 45 It wasn't just this one officer. Keep in mind, he showed it to several officers who obviously were partaking in the fun.

Speaker 15 The ripple effect of Lauren's case was felt throughout the campus police department. In 2020, Deputy Chief Rick McLennan resigned, and two campus police officers were fired.

Speaker 15 And Miguel Darris was fired from a job he had taken with another police department.

Speaker 11 McClennan, Darris, and three other members of the campus police department filed a notice of claim against the University of Utah with the Attorney General's office.

Speaker 11 They alleged that they were scapegoated by the university during the Lauren McCluskey investigation.

Speaker 15 The Utah Peace Officer Standards and Training Division investigated Darris' handling of Lauren's photos and found there was not sufficient evidence to take disciplinary action against him.

Speaker 15 Campus police weren't the only ones who knew about the harassment of Lauren. It turns out, Roland confessed to coworkers about what he'd done.

Speaker 71 He said that

Speaker 71 he had access to her email.

Speaker 11 How many violations did you just hear described?

Speaker 6 Well, I didn't hear violence.

Speaker 5 There were crimes, actually. He would have gone back to prison.

Speaker 56 Mother's dead. He shot two men.
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Speaker 15 From the prosecutor to the parole board to even his coworkers, convicted felon Melvin Rowland had numerous encounters with people to whom he confessed his crimes.

Speaker 11 Some that stood out were conversations that he had with his coworkers at General Dynamics Information Technology. He worked in one of its call centers.

Speaker 5 I'm familiar with that employer.

Speaker 11 What expectations are there of them to take any sort of action if they see something in the workplace that you'd want to know about?

Speaker 5 Well, obviously anything that's involving a crime.

Speaker 11 On October 16th, six days before Roland murdered Lauren, he told his co-workers that he had extorted money from her.

Speaker 11 Melvin Rowland told two colleagues, including the supervisor, on October 16th that he had been sextorting Lauren McCluskey. Did you ever hear the interviews that police did with those employees?

Speaker 6 No.

Speaker 15 Within a few days of Lauren's murder, General Dynamics Information Technology hired a local criminal defense attorney, and all of these interviews were done in that attorney's office.

Speaker 15 The University of Utah altered the voices on these recordings.

Speaker 11 It's a supervisor who

Speaker 11 basically lays out the whole story.

Speaker 71 He just told me that he had gotten into some trouble over the weekend and that he was dating a girl from university and he had lied to her about his age.

Speaker 71 She had recently found out that he lied and she broke up with him. And so he got angry.
And over the weekend, he had sent her messages from another phone telling her that he had

Speaker 71 and that he wanted money so that he wouldn't release them so he said that she sent him money through Venmo he sent a thousand dollars is what he said she sent him and then she sent him another thousand dollars and the second time he said he kind of freaked out He knew that he was going to be in trouble, so he tried to send the money back to her.

Speaker 71 He said that he had access to her email, his phone, because she had logged into her email from his phone before.

Speaker 71 And he said that he could see that she sent messages to the campus police of screenshots of the conversation. So he knew that she had contacted authorities about it.

Speaker 71 And so he said he was afraid he didn't want to go back to jail. And he knew we couldn't run forever.
Melvin said, yeah, I don't want to go. I don't want to resign.

Speaker 71 Can I just just go on a league with vaccines? And I said, I'm okay with that.

Speaker 11 How many violations did you just hear described?

Speaker 5 Well, I didn't hear by there was crimes, actually.

Speaker 15 He is

Speaker 5 entrapping someone.

Speaker 11 When you heard what that supervisor just described, what's your reaction to that?

Speaker 5 I'm pissed.

Speaker 5 That's just another thing that could have been brought to my attention.

Speaker 5 That could have changed so many, changed everything.

Speaker 25 I guess I didn't really realize that there was a supervisor who had the whole story

Speaker 14 and

Speaker 31 didn't do anything.

Speaker 27 Yeah, I'm just surprised that no one, it seems like no one is willing to step up and do the right thing.

Speaker 15 A General Dynamics spokesperson declined comment.

Speaker 11 If somebody had called you and told you, what he had said, what would have happened?

Speaker 5 Right then I would have gone out to to pick him up. I would put him in handcuffs and take him to my office and

Speaker 5 interview him.

Speaker 11 Based on what he said and what we know happened, what would have happened to him?

Speaker 5 He would have gone back to prison.

Speaker 11 What do you think people need to know about this entire case?

Speaker 5 It was a lot of misses. a lot of opportunities where interventions could have been made.

Speaker 11 What are some of the examples that stand out to you?

Speaker 5 His supervisor at General Dynamics.

Speaker 11 That one really got to you, didn't it?

Speaker 6 Yeah.

Speaker 6 Yeah, it did.

Speaker 31 Well, first and foremost, you have to blame Melvin Sean Rowland.

Speaker 31 But systemically, as far as the system goes,

Speaker 31 I place the lion's share of responsibility for her death with the Board of Pardons because

Speaker 31 Melvin Sean Rowland had given so many signs that he was not capable of surviving in society without putting others at risk.

Speaker 16 The justice system failed her in so many different ways.

Speaker 44 She did everything right.

Speaker 25 We let her down.

Speaker 31 The system let her down.

Speaker 12 There were processes in place that didn't function the way they were intended. There was communication that should have taken place that didn't, all combined.

Speaker 12 We failed Lauren in that sense.

Speaker 11 What goes through your heads about the number of people whose lives were touched by this?

Speaker 20 We've heard about people who actually.

Speaker 34 I can remember our conversations talking about us being 90 years old and still running.

Speaker 34 And I'd be like, do you still plan on running? And she's like, of course, you're going to be running with me, remember?

Speaker 56 There's just this terrible gap in our lives that won't be filled.

Speaker 17 So it's the absence that hurts. The memories are actually good to hold on to, I think.

Speaker 27 And we do have wonderful memories of her, but we're

Speaker 27 still.

Speaker 27 You know, we just still miss her terribly.

Speaker 5 Your daughter goes off to college and you never think something like that's gonna happen.

Speaker 11 What would you say to them if you could?

Speaker 55 I have always just wanted to be able to

Speaker 5 just look at them and tell them that

Speaker 6 I'm sorry I couldn't protect their daughter.

Speaker 5 There's so many things that I would have known I would have.

Speaker 31 They sent their daughter to where they thought she would have an ideal education and she's gone.

Speaker 27 Accountability is very important. That allows them to truly move forward, make things better, and make real change.

Speaker 63 It's not a good strategy to try to keep secrets. It's not the right thing to do and it's not very smart either.

Speaker 11 Lauren's family filed suit against the University of Utah in 2019.

Speaker 27 We had to file a lawsuit because otherwise we're powerless.

Speaker 49 The university acknowledges and deeply regrets that it did not handle Lauren's case as it should have and that at the time its employees failed to fully understand and respond appropriately to Lauren's situation.

Speaker 15 The University of Utah settled with the McCluskey family for $13.5 million.

Speaker 27 All the money from the settlement will go to support the Lauren McCluskey Foundation missions,

Speaker 27 which include campus safety, animal welfare, and amateur athletics.

Speaker 11 In addition, the university created a campus center for violence prevention and agreed to build an athletic facility with an indoor track, both bearing Lauren's name.

Speaker 27 There is a Lauren McCluskey cat wing at the County Humane Society.

Speaker 27 Lauren used to volunteer there and just really cared about them. And so she would be happy about that.

Speaker 44 Yes.

Speaker 25 I think people really remember her and want to honor her memory as much as possible. Not only how she died, but how she lived, too.

Speaker 11 What goes through your heads about the number of people whose lives were touched by this one way or another?

Speaker 20 We've heard about people who actually.

Speaker 17 got closer together because

Speaker 14 of what happened.

Speaker 33 Yeah, I just hope it makes...

Speaker 27 makes a change so it doesn't happen in the future to other for other parents. I mean, I feel like that's what

Speaker 27 helps me to

Speaker 27 keep going each day.

Speaker 20 There are girls who are as precious to their parents as our daughter is to us, and they do not receive this level of attention. I think people should really think about that.
I certainly do.

Speaker 25 There are lots of Laurens out there who you don't hear about.

Speaker 23 Those parents honoring their daughter's legacy.

Speaker 23 To learn more about their journey, you can go to the Lauren McCluskey Foundation and you can watch the ESBN documentary, Listen, streaming now on ESBN Plus.

Speaker 24 I'm David Muir from All of Us here at 2020 ABC News and ESBN.

Speaker 23 Thank you for watching. Good night.

Speaker 73 I'm Dennis Cooper, host of Culpable, and I want to tell you about this case I've been following in a small Ohio town.

Speaker 73 When 17-year-old Danny Violet stormed out of his house one afternoon in 1998, his family thought it was just another episode of Teenage Angst.

Speaker 73 But their worst fears materialized when his lifeless, asphyxiated body was later found in a nearby cornfield. The question remains: what happened to Danny?

Speaker 73 From Tenderfoot TV, an all-new season of Culpable is available now.