College track star warned police about her ex-boyfriend 6 times in the 10 days before he killed her
New reports show that authorities were given multiple chances to intervene before Lauren McCluskey was murdered.
Women who are in abusive relationships, or relationships they fear will become abusive, are often told to reach out for help to prevent things from progressing further. Lauren McCluskey, a track athlete at the University of Utah who was murdered by her ex-boyfriend on October 22, 2018, did just that.
She alerted the campus police. She showed them threatening text messages from her ex, told them about his criminal record, which she found out about a month into their relationship.
Recent reports by the University of Utah Department of Public Safety and the Utah Department of Public Safety, along with publicly released 911 calls, reveal that McCluskey expressed concerns to police officers six times in the 10 days before she died. None of it mattered. She was left to fend for herself.
The cries for help actually began on September 30, when two of her friends reported their concerns over McCluskeys relationship and safety to the Resident Adviser at their dorm. The following day, an official report was filed to the housing officials, but after a brief review, they decided not to overstep in assistance to Lauren unless she was seeking support.
On October 10, a day after McCluskey broke up with Melvin Rowland after finding out the 37-year-old sex offender had been lying about his age and criminal background, McCluskeys parents called campus police. Rowland was supposed to return McCluskeys car, and they were worried he would hurt McCluskey when he did. Campus police did end up escorting McCluskey to the car exchange, which went off without any acts of violence.
But two days later, McCluskey herself started reaching out for help. On October 12, she called campus police for the first time, about disturbing text messages she was receiving from Rowlands friends, but campus police said they did not rise to the level of harassment. The following day, October 13, she called campus police again, this time with concrete proof of extortion text messages presumably from Rowland and his friends that threatened to post private pictures of her online if she didnt pay them money. The campus police said it would take time to review the materials.
The same day, October 13, she called 911 about the extortion threats. In audio posted online by KUTV, McCluskey is heard telling dispatchers that she is worried that campus police arent acting fast enough. Dispatch responds by telling her campus police has jurisdiction over her case, routing her call back to University of Utah Police.
Six days later after a detective had taken three previously-scheduled vacation days, and according to the university review, spent three days in various case assignments and follow-up investigations unrelated to Laurens case McCluskey finally talked to the the detective in charge of her case. However, she was once again told that it would take time to evaluate and investigate all of the text messages in question.
Later that day, October 19, McCluskey called 911 once again, to express concern to SLCPD over how long the campus police were taking to investigate. Once again, she was told to call campus police dispatch directly.