A University Of Utah Co-ed Was Murdered On Campus

It happened in 2018

Murders happen all over the United States. Shootings and murders are fairly rare in Utah. We lived in Virginia for over a decade. The news around Washington, D.C. regularly reported on murders and violence. This murder happened in Utah just before we returned to live in the state in November of 2018. It was all over the news.

Lauren McCluskey was a twenty-one year old student athlete from Washington State who was attending the University of Utah. She reportedly went to a bar in Salt Lake City one night in September 2018 where she met a man named Melvin Shawn Rowland. He was a bouncer working at the bar. She was White, and he was Black. They started having a relationship.

McCluskey found out a month later that Rowland had lied about his name and age. He was thirty-seven years old and was a registered sex offender who had been in prison. She asked him about the information when they were in her dorm room. He admitted that he was registered as a sex offender.

The next day he borrowed her car to do errands. The mother of McCluskey contacted campus security and asked that they provide an escort for her daughter to get her car back from Rowland. The University police contacted McCluskey, who said that she did not need an escort. The security officers said they would be near the building and that she should call them back if anything changed.

Later McCluskey called them and said that she had been notified that Rowland had left her car parked in a parking lot of the stadium. She asked for a ride to pick up the car.

Two days later she contacted the university police to say that she had been receiving suspicious text messages. They were supposedly from Rowland’s friends saying that he was dead. She found that Rowland was still alive. She told the police that she did not feel threatened or that her life was in danger because of the texts. She said she thought that Rowland’s friends were trying to lure her somewhere.

The next day she contacted the police again. She said she had received more messages from the ex-boyfriend or his friends. They had demanded that she pay money to keep them from posting compromising photos on the Internet of her and Rowland. She had sent $1,000 to an account to keep the photos private.

The police started to investigate the extortion charges. McCluskey reported harrassment to the police many more times. She received a text from an unknown number claiming to be a deputy asking her to come to the police station. Police said they believed the text was from Rowland to try and get her to leave her dorm room.

On October 22, 2018, Rowland waited for McCluskey in her residence hall. Rowland confronted McCluskey in the parking lot outside the dorm. McCluskey was on the phone with her mother when Rowland dragged her across the parking lot. She dropped her phone and belongings.

He took her to a different spot in the parking lot and forced her into the back seat of a car he had driven to the campus. He then killed her by shooting her several times. He left her body in the car. He apparently was picked up by an acquaintance. [It is surprising that no one seemed to see the disturbance.]

McCluskey’s father called campus police to tell them he believed his daughter was in danger. He told them that his wife had been speaking to their daughter on the phone when she seemed to encounter trouble.

Police responded and found McCluskey’s belongings in the parking lot. They searched her dorm and the parking lot. Later that night they found her body in the back seat of a vehicle in the parking lot outside her dorm building.

The University sent out secure-in-place alerts to students that there had been a shooting on campus. Rowland was found the next day by police. As he was being pursued, he entered a church where he shot himself. He died.

The university did not accept responsibility so the McCluskey’s sued the University of Utah and the campus police for $56 million. They were awarded a settlement of $13.5 million two years after their daughter’s death. University of Utah President Ruth Watkins said at a press conference that the university had failed McCluskey. The police had irregularities which may have contributed to her death.

The university will pay $10.5 million to the McCluskeys with another $3 million to a foundation founded in their daughter’s name. Because she was a member of the track team, an indoor track facility will be built and named after Lauren McCluskey as part of the settlement.

Author’s personal note: My grandson was a freshman at the University of Utah at the time of this murder. He was living in one of the dorms adjacent to the parking lot where this crime occurred. He did not see any of what happened in the parking lot, but he did hear the alerts. His parents were concerned about his safety after they heard about this unfortunate incident and murder.

Generally, the University of Utah is a safe campus. The university has made or is making changes since McCluskey’s death to make it safer.

[Sources: ABC News, Salt Lake Tribune]