# Murder On Campus: The Case Of Lauren McCluskey
University police got security to open the door. “I’ve been getting these texts from these numbers with different people. I would like to request some help for my daughter.
I got a text about, you know, asking if I wanted to go to a funeral, his funeral. And I think they’re trying to lure me somewhere. She started dating this guy, like a bad person.
I don’t want her to go there by herself and have like something bad happen to her.”
“Do you feel comfortable with him doing that? I know your mom was really concerned about it.”
“I’m worried because I’ve been working with the campus police and I haven’t gotten an update. So, I’m dealing with this situation. I’m being blackmailed for money.
And I’m concerned there might be an insider who’s letting them know about the case.”
The University of Utah, October 22nd, 2018. Just after 8:00 p. m.
, 21-year-old Lauren McCluskey had left her evening class early. She was on the phone to her mom as she walked back to her dorm. It was a good conversation.
Lauren was chatty and happy. She was feeling positive, more positive than she had been in a while, and this was nice for her parents to hear. She was now a senior and as stressful as studies can be, she was making really good headway on an assignment and was on top of her work.
Suddenly, her mom heard a yell. Lauren was shouting “no” over and over. The phone then dropped to the ground and Jill heard what sounded like her daughter being dragged away.
Then, silence.
Lauren’s dad, Matt, called 911. “Hi, my daughter, Lauren McCluskey, was talking to her mom and then she just started saying, ‘No, no, no, no, no.’ And I don’t know, someone might have been grabbing her or something.”
“All right, we’re going to attempt to locate a suspect involved in possible kidnapping. The victim is Lauren McCluskey. Her mother heard her yell no, no on the phone, then the line went quiet.”
Lauren couldn’t have been far away from her dorm at the time, given the time she’d called her mom. But if someone had dragged her into a car, she could be on the move by now. And without her phone to track, things were really against the clock.
As everyone was scrambling trying to get ears and eyes everywhere, Lauren’s phone suddenly had a noise on the other end. Someone was talking on her phone.
“Hello.”
But it wasn’t Lauren. “University Police.”
“Hi, I just found a full bunch of stuff spread out all over the ground and a phone that had an active call. I picked it up.”
“Okay. This woman says she was on the phone with her parents. I’m having officers responding up that way.”
That cold October night, as police, reporters, and other students were trying to work out what was going on, Lauren McCluskey was nowhere to be found. A quick check of her name though told them everything they needed to know. And more alarmingly still, it was clear that the writing had been on the wall for a while.
One thing stood out about Lauren McCluskey from day one. Her drive, especially when it came to athletics. Her mom said she was climbing trees from the age of just two.
And from there, anything sports, outdoors, Lauren wanted to do it. And not just the same way that a lot of us enjoy. It really became Lauren’s whole life.
She was there to perfect skills and be the best in class. She had a pure drive and determination from such a young age.
When she was eight, her mom Jill entered her into three events. A 400-meter run, the high jump, and the long jump. Lauren not only won, but broke all three records.
A few years later in the Junior Olympic Nationals, she earned second place. She never complained even when the weather was really bad or practice was extra tough. And while many of her friends were playing at home and relaxing on their weekends, the fiercely competitive Lauren was being put through her paces and loving every minute of it.
Despite her get-up-and-go attitude, Lauren’s dad said she was a really deep soul. She would throw herself into everything, but at the same time pondered things very deeply and carefully. She quickly earned a reputation that surpassed her small school.
Her dad Matt would often introduce himself and people would say, “Oh, McCluskey, you’re Lauren’s dad.”
She loved animals, too, and volunteered at the Whitman County Humane Society, helping to socialize cats so they would be more likely to be adopted. The ambitious teen was drawn to the University of Utah as, firstly, no surprises, the athletics program was fantastic, and she got in on a full track and field athletics scholarship. Her major was in communications.
One of the people she met there, Diamond Jackson, described her as very smart and intense. She knew exactly what she wanted and how she was going to get it. She was dedicated to her church, her friends, and her family, and was committed to getting everything she could possibly get out of college.
She was ranked 10th on the all-time performance list for the Utah Utes in pentathlon and maintained a 3. 77 GPA as a communication major.
As always, video and pictures only show a small part of someone’s character, a snippet in time, but it’s clear to see that Lauren McCluskey was thriving.
Let’s go back to October 22nd. “Hi, my name’s Matt McCluskey. My daughter is Lauren McCluskey and she went missing tonight.
And we reported it to the University of Utah police. She’s a student there.”
The campus was lit up with police lights and a buzz of frantic activity. At the same time Lauren had been seemingly kidnapped, students had heard gunshots. Were they linked?
They didn’t know just yet, but it was time to lock down. Evening classes were all canceled. Everyone needed to stay inside, lock their doors and windows, and not leave until told otherwise.
“I’m calling to let you know my daughter, Lauren McCluskey, is missing.”
“We do have officers on scene handling right now. We’re actively looking for her. We’re doing everything we can to track her down.”
Campus police and Salt Lake City police were going through their logs and they had a long list of incidents that Lauren had told them about. She had phoned them too many times to count over the last few weeks. Her ex-boyfriend had been stalking, harassing, and threatening her with extortion.
𝒻𝒶𝓀𝑒 numbers, following her around campus, even crazy disguises. Everything had been logged, but no action had been taken. Lauren and the people that knew her were scared for her safety.
The first person her family and friends told police they needed to be looking for was her ex. The University of Utah put out his description on Twitter. A black male, 37 years old, 6’3 and around 250 lb.
He was last seen wearing a gray beanie, black pants, white shoes, and a white hoodie. A manhunt was now on.
Lauren had first met Shawn Fields on September 1st in a bar where he was working as security. The couple did really hit it off. Lauren gave him her number and they arranged for a date the following day.
Shawn was enrolled at Salt Lake Community College and worked part-time in a call center as well. Lauren’s friend Regina said it was like a fairy tale. Everyone was so happy for her.
She had really been swept off her feet. Flowers, nice dates, he was kind and wanted to know all her friends, too. Even people Lauren didn’t know, other students in the building, he made an effort to talk to.
But the honeymoon phase Lauren was in would quickly turn when a more controlling side of Shawn came out. It started off with repeatedly calling her and being a bit annoyed when she didn’t answer, which turned into demanding she answer the phone within a few rings, wearing clothes that covered her up, and giving her pepper spray because he was convinced other men would try something with her. He then started talking about guns and how he wanted Lauren to have one in her dorm, something which made everyone uncomfortable.
Her friends were noticing the 21-year-old starting to retreat, becoming more distant and anxious. They didn’t want to take any chances and one friend in particular, Diamond, who worked as part of the housing team on campus, wanted to take this further. Diamond sent an email to her supervisor about Shawn.
No sooner had that email been sent, Lauren would discover something that totally rattled her. She found Shawn’s ID. He was not at all who he said he was.
28-year-old Shawn Fields was actually 37-year-old Melvin Rowland. Worse still, searching his name, it turned out he was a registered 𝒔𝒆𝒙 offender. He was charged with rape and enticing of a minor over the internet of a 17-year-old student in 2003.
At the time, he was enrolled at university and was allowed to continue his classes whilst wearing a monitor.
The detectives and prosecutors recognized that it would be too traumatic for the victim to go to trial, so a plea deal was reached. Melvin was convicted of enticing a minor online and attempted forcible sexual 𝓪𝓫𝓾𝓼𝓮. He served time from 2004 to 2013, but after he got out, he violated his parole several times and went back to prison again.
One of his parole hearings was taped and it gives a chilling insight into Melvin’s history, state of mind, and how many women he’d affected over the years. “They didn’t tell me how many victims you have. So, I’d like you to give me kind of an idea of what we’re looking at, victim-wise.”
“I would say every female that I came across dating or met on the internet, I’d say every woman I’ve met or that I came across that I used my manipulation tactics to get what I wanted.”
“How many did you out and out rape like the one young lady?”
“Well, not like that. But me being a womanizer, I used other tactics to get what I wanted with them. I’d say something similar to, I’d say, two others.
But I see it in general just how I manipulated and used women in general.”
“How many women in general did you convince to have 𝒔𝒆𝒙 with you by manipulation?”
“I got locked up at 22 and my 𝒔𝒆𝒙 was friends, I’d say about 50.”
“Okay. Hopefully when you get out, you’ll have learned from this experience. Only time’s going to tell.”
“Yeah, I know I have that capability of reoffending, but again it’s something I’ll have to prove.”
Melvin was also accused of attempted rape, and another woman had got a restraining order against him. A few months after he was released from prison, he was given a warning by his parole officer Megan. She described him as arrogant and entitled, and really came down hard on him to make sure he wasn’t going to commit any further violations.
But just a few months later, Melvin met Lauren.
A disturbed Lauren went back home for a few days armed with a lot of information to try and process. She told her mom everything and said there was no way she could carry on seeing him. She made plans to end things on October the 9th, but Melvin had had her car while she was away, and she needed that back first.
When she was back, she asked him to come over, and he went up to her room where the pair talked. She told him what she found, and he had a very quick answer. It was a total misunderstanding.
He was at a college party years ago and started talking to a girl who had very convincingly lied about her age, but he didn’t attack her.
The next morning, Lauren called her friend to update her. She had chosen to end things regardless of what he said. Melvin had left, but he still had the car.
Lauren’s mom, Jill, said this made her nervous, so she called the campus police and asked if there was any way they could supervise the car being dropped off.
“Hi, I would like to request some help from regarding ’cause there’s a student at University of Utah, and she started dating this guy here 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. Yeah, 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.”
They called Lauren about 20 minutes later to see what the best way was for them to help. “Hello. Hi, is this Lauren?
Your ex-boyfriend’s dropping off your car. Do you feel comfortable with him doing that? I know your mom was really concerned about it.”
“I think I think it’s okay.”
At first, Lauren said she’d be fine to go and get it, and then changed her mind, asking them to drive her there instead. “We have a security officer that’s here in charge of escorts tonight. Do you want him to wait with you as well when the car’s getting dropped off?”
Her car was successfully retrieved, and Lauren hoped that would be the end of her story with Melvin. But 2 days later, she started getting texts from unknown numbers. The texts were saying that Melvin had passed away, and can this random person pick her up to take her to his funeral?
Then she got a text from Melvin saying he was alive, but he had gotten into a car accident and it was her fault. She blocked the numbers and called campus police again.
“I’ve been getting these texts about from these numbers and like different, they were saying that he was in the hospital and then saying that like that he passed away, but then I got a text from him and it seems to be alive. I got a text about, you know, asking if I wanted to go to a funeral, his funeral. And I think they’re trying to lure me somewhere.”
“Have you asked him to stop texting you?”
“I have not, but I’ve blocked a few of the numbers already.”
“All right. I will send a security officer to give you a call. Is that okay?”
The dispatcher told her she would have an officer call her, but that call didn’t come. The next morning, Lauren called again. She’d woken up to more texts, but this was far more alarming.
“So, I am dealing with a situation where I’m being blackmailed.”
Someone said they had intimate pictures of Lauren and Melvin. Unless she paid up, they would be sharing them across campus. Melvin then texted Lauren saying he’d got the same message, too.
Lauren felt sure it was either him or his friends, but understandably scared, she sent $1,000 on Venmo to the mystery person. The person then demanded more money, so she sent another thousand.
And not happy with the response from the officers on the phone, she went to the police in person with her friend Alex. Alex said it was hard to convince the officers that this was serious. They told her it was probably just a scam text, which given how many of those go around, wasn’t a completely terrible assumption to have.
But Lauren explained her ex was running off of 𝒻𝒶𝓀𝑒 IDs, was a registered 𝒔𝒆𝒙 offender, and had access to campus. This was all pointing to him.
She filed a report and was told someone would contact her by Tuesday. It was currently Saturday, so she still had a few days to wait. Her case was assigned to an officer who wasn’t in at the time, Detective Kayla Dolloff, but Kayla’s commanding officer told her not to come in, so she followed his orders.
No one searched for Melvin’s name on their system, or dug into his criminal past. Nothing was passed on, all of his previous charges and parole violations were missed.
The texts kept coming and getting more frantic that she wasn’t being taken seriously. At 5:45 p. m.
that day, Lauren passed the campus police and called 911 to talk to the Salt Lake City police. “I’ve been blackmailed for money.”
“Let me go ahead and get you over to University Police so I can try to check that. Just one moment.”
“I’ve talked to them already. But I just wanted to call here as well.”
“Usually we just take it where you live. And then that agency does the case.”
“Yeah, I was just concerned ’cause I wasn’t sure how long they were going to take.”
“Okay, let me get you up to them and see if I can see what’s going on with that. Just one moment.”
“Do you know when an arrest would be made?”
“You didn’t talk to an officer. If you want, I can arrange that, if you want that.”
“Okay. Yeah, that sounds good.”
They passed her right back over to campus police. She was in a vicious circle.
On October the 16th, Melvin made a confession to a co-worker and his supervisor. His work knew he was on parole, but failed to report any of what he said to his parole officer. “He just told me that he got into some trouble over the weekend.
And he was dating a girl from the university, and he had lied to her about his age, and 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, and he wanted money so that he wouldn’t release them. So he said that she sent him money through Venmo.
He said $1,000 is what he said she sent him. And then she sent him another $1,000, 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.”
“He said that he had access to her email on his phone because she had logged into her email from his phone before. 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.
And so he said he was afraid, he didn’t want to go back to jail. And he knew he couldn’t run forever.”
Melvin said, “Yeah, I don’t want to go. I don’t want to resign. Can I just go on a leave of absence?”
And his supervisor said, “I’m okay with that.”
His parole officer said there was no doubt in her mind this would have sent him straight back to prison, but she was completely unaware.
As hard as Lauren had been persisting, finally she had to take a step back. She told her friends that the right people were in charge of it and she was going to trust them and let them handle it. But what she didn’t know was that because she had logged into her emails on Melvin’s laptop one day, he could see everything.
All the screenshots, all the communication with campus police and Salt Lake City police. So, he was now two steps ahead.
One week later, October 19th, 2018. 3:16 p. m.
Melvin was outside of Lauren’s dorm dressed as Deadpool walking around looking for her. At 4:02 p. m.
, Lauren was walking into her building and a minute later, Melvin could be seen peering through the doors. She then got a message from Melvin, “I know everything. Why did you contact the police?”
Freaked out, Lauren and her friend Alex called Salt Lake City police again. “I’m worried because I’ve been working with the campus police at the U. And last Saturday, I reported and I haven’t gotten an update.
So, the case involves extortion and those people are still channeling. But someone contacted me today, someone who was harassed and said that they know everything about the police.”
“Okay. So, you already spoke to the campus police.”
“Yes, and they haven’t updated or done anything.”
“And what prompted you to call Salt Lake City police?”
“Well, I thought it was weird that there are people who know about the entire case and the harasser seemed to know about it more than me and I’m concerned there might be an insider who’s letting them know about the case.”
“Okay. With something like that, you would want to contact the campus police back and ask to speak to your detective.”
“How did he know this?” she wondered. “Was there someone on the inside relaying information?”
They sent her back to the campus police. Detective Kayla Dolloff said she was sorry, but she hadn’t had a chance to look over everything yet. Lauren had to go back through everything again, and Kayla asked her to put it all into one email.
So, just after 7:00 p. m. , Lauren sent her the email.
She told her mom Jill she felt like she was annoying everyone at this point, inconveniencing the campus police, to which Jill replied, “This is their job. You’re allowed to ask for help, and they should be helping you.”
It was now October 22nd. Melvin had left his apartment at 6:06 a. m.
And using a friend’s car, he drove around to Lauren’s apartment about 20 minutes away. He parked up and started walking around outside. Just before 9:00 a.
m. , Lauren got a message from Deputy Chief Rick McLennan, who was also working on her case. “Finally,” she thought, “some progress.”
The text said she needed to come into the station immediately. There was something important she had to see.
But, the more she read it, the more she noticed something was wrong. The spelling and grammar, even McLennan’s name, was wrong. It didn’t match the previous correspondence she’d had with them, but what it did match was the text that she had been getting about the extortion and the text from Melvin.
No shock when she found out that this wasn’t the real deputy’s number. Lauren was told to ignore the message, but nothing was done to see where it had been sent from.
At 11 minutes past 9:00 that morning, Lauren left her building, college work in hand, ready for a day of studying and practice. She got there a couple of minutes later and started with her counseling session where she had also been revealing everything going on. Just after 10:00 a.
m. Lauren went to her class. This was just as Melvin entered the campus.
She narrowly avoided him, but he spent the next few hours walking around looking for her.
Nearing 2:00 p. m. Melvin was now inside Lauren’s apartment.
He left briefly and then came back and was let in by another student whom he seemed friendly with. He stayed in the building until 10:08 p. m.
snooping around and opening doors.
Lauren got out of her evening class a little earlier than normal which was nice. She phoned her mom as she walked home ready for an early night. The next bit of footage has never been released, but Lauren reached the outside of her building at 17 minutes past 8:00.
You could see Melvin’s feet behind her in the shadows as she was about to reach her door. Seconds later he grabbed her and started dragging her away.
And this is where we find ourselves back on that fateful evening. The campus was still locked down, but there was still no closer to finding Melvin or Lauren. It’s looking like this might be a kidnapping.
Lauren’s dad Matt said he was just sat by the phone staring out of the window praying that every minute that passed without a police car pulling up meant that she was still alive.
“Hi, my name’s Matt McCluskey. My daughter is Lauren McCluskey and she went missing tonight. And I just want to make sure that you guys know about that.”
“We wouldn’t really need to other than her being listed. She would be listed as a missing person on the national database if you made a missing person’s report, but otherwise I know there’s nothing else.”
“No, no. Okay. So, this is more than that.
She was abducted while we were talking to her on the telephone. So, we heard her being assaulted and we called the University of Utah campus police. And I’m just calling you to let you know that this just happened like an hour ago.”
“Was it that they were in that silver Buick LeSabre?”
“I don’t know anything about a silver Buick.”
“Yeah, University let us know about it. We had our units, we notified them as well.”
“Okay. Okay. Thank you.”
Back at the college, though, a call came in on the radio at 10:00 p.m. “Hey, Sarge, can you come to my location?”
Lauren’s coach, of all people, had found her bleeding in the back of a silver car near some dorms on campus, a car that Melvin had borrowed. She had been shot multiple times. An ambulance was there quickly, but there was nothing they could do.
Lauren was gone.
“Rowland confronted Lauren, who was on the phone with her mother, in the parking lot right outside of her residence hall where we had viewed him on camera several days prior. In the altercation, she dropped her cell phone and her belongings. He dragged Lauren to a different spot in the parking lot where he forced her into the backseat of a car that he had driven to campus and he shot her in the car multiple times.”
It was clear that killing Lauren was the only thing on Melvin’s mind that day. He had been waiting for her with his gun, forced her into the car, and shot her right away. 3 minutes later, he was seen running away and through the parking lot onto the rail station.
He then caught a ride with a woman that he’d met on a dating site, and they went to dinner. He ended up back at hers where he took a shower. She then dropped him off at a coffee shop before she started seeing news reports about the shooting and subsequent manhunt.
Obviously, she recognized him right away and called the police.
Finally, they got a positive ID on him running through the streets. They followed him on foot to a small church. He’d broken the lock and forced the door to get in.
“I have officers chasing your suspect on the shooting. He is in foot pursuit right now.”
Once the police were inside, they found him. “We have your suspect inside this church. It looks like he has a gunshot wound, self-inflicted.”
Melvin Rowland was dead on the floor from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He had borrowed the gun from an acquaintance who was told by Melvin he wanted to teach his girlfriend how to shoot.
“Police in Salt Lake City, Utah say the man accused of shooting and killing a student at the University of Utah last night has taken his own life. Investigators say 37-year-old Melvin Rowland’s body was found at a church in the city’s downtown area. They were chasing him on foot.
They chased him to this location. After making entry into the church and searching the common area, shortly thereafter, in clearing the building, they found our suspect deceased in a room in the church.”
“The university identified the victim as Lauren McCluskey from Pullman, Washington. Police say McCluskey had previously been in a relationship with Rowland. They’d gotten into a dispute earlier in the evening.
The campus was placed on a temporary lockdown, which was lifted shortly after 11:00 p. m.”
“Coming to a college, you never want to be in a situation like this, especially in, I mean there’s more and more every day, but this is insane.”
“Rowland was not a student at the university, according to police. He’s currently listed on the Utah 𝒔𝒆𝒙 offender registry for a 2004 conviction involving a minor.”
Word spread like wildfire through the campus. And a heartfelt statement and emotional tribute was made by the Utah athletics director. “I don’t really have any words.
My heart and our entire department goes out to her family who I’ve been texting with her mom. You know, we’re blessed every day educators. And then in my role as director and all the coaches and staff to be around an elite group of students and student athletes.
So, when something like this happens, it defies any logic, any reason.”
“I mean every single counselor that the university had showed up this morning. And there were some hugs and words and, you know, they’re trying to figure it out. They’re kids.
This doesn’t make any sense. But our focus, my focus as leader of the department will be making sure they’re okay. The rest of our student athletes are gathering.
You know, we’re not one team, I mean we’re not 20 teams, we’re one. We’re one team and so, we’ll work really hard to make sure that they’re okay. We’ll honor her.
We’ll figure those things out. So, we’ll get through this. These are strong young people.
They’re resilient and we’re going to just do everything the rest of the year in Lauren’s memory. Thank you.”
Lauren had really done everything she could think of and handled herself with grace and strength the whole way through, despite feeling so scared and alone. He had been hired by an unlicensed security company, and all of his violations that were known about by his bosses were not reported to his parole officer. She trusted the system, but the system still failed her.
“Unbridled tears as students mourn a star athlete shot dead by her ex-boyfriend.”
“We will always miss her. And we will always always love her. She was an amazing, genuine, and caring person.
And she will be really really missed.”
In the aftermath of this tragic and preventable case, two investigations were concluded. One was by the State Department of Public Safety, which was looking at Melvin and how he was able to get away with 𝒻𝒶𝓀𝑒 IDs, parole violations, and the likes. And the second investigation was commissioned by the university itself in regards to how Lauren’s side of things was handled or not handled.
The officers that had logged her reports were deemed to have mishandled things.
“It is very important that our students know that I have confidence in our Department of Public Safety, and that our students and staff and faculty should not hesitate to reach out to our department as needed. I want to be clear that safety on our campus is a top priority for me and for my administration. This report does not offer us a reason to believe that this tragedy could have been prevented.”
However, at a press conference, the university president, Ruth Watkins, said the university felt that things couldn’t have been prevented, a statement which left Lauren’s friends and family completely staggered. Lauren’s friend, Diamond, who’d worked for the university herself, was disgusted. “It was all about pushing the responsibility and accountability around,” she said.
“These parents lost their kid. She is gone and you have the audacity to try and cover your ass.”
Detective Kayla Dolloff, who was in charge of her case, was ultimately dismissed. Another case also came to light in which it was alleged she did not take the appropriate action to help the student. “The former University of Utah detective who was warned about her handling of the Lauren McCluskey case and fired over her handling of another case now has a new job.”
She unanimously lost an appeal against her firing, but was later hired by the Weber County Sheriff’s Office.
More complaints of harassment, violence, and 𝓪𝓫𝓾𝓼𝓮 not being taken seriously by the campus police started to flood in. And things took an even more twisted turn when one of the investigations revealed something deeply disturbing. “Published today, an investigation by our content partners at the Salt Lake Tribune uncovered that days before Lauren McCluskey was killed, Miguel Deras, one of the campus officers assigned to investigate her being blackmailed over explicit photos, showed off at least one of the images to a male coworker and bragged about getting to look at them whenever he wanted.”
According to the Tribune, the university confirmed that information. Deras is currently working for the Logan Police Department. Today they posted on Facebook about this report saying in part, “We are very concerned about this allegation and are starting our own internal investigation to determine the facts.
At the end of the investigation, we will take whatever action is appropriate based on the facts we discover.”
And also tonight, the University of Utah releasing a statement in response to the article and said after an internal affairs investigation, they quote “found no evidence that a former officer had bragged or shared any image from the investigation that wasn’t considered a legitimate law enforcement reason.”
In June 2019, Matt and Jill McCluskey filed a $56 million lawsuit against the university. And in October 2020, the University of Utah accepted responsibility and admitted that Lauren’s murder was preventable. They agreed to a $13.
5 million legal settlement. Ruth Watkins said, “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.
As a result, we have failed Lauren and her family. If these employees had more complete training and protocols to guide their responses, the university believes they would have been better equipped to protect Lauren.”
As well as the settlement, they said they would donate $3 million to the Lauren McCluskey Foundation.
Which brings us to how Lauren continues to be honored year after year in so many ways. The Lauren McCluskey Foundation was created by her parents. And they actively work to improve campus safety and advocate for victims of dating violence.
And Lauren’s Promise, which is legislation aimed at improving communication and protections for students facing threats. The Lauren McCluskey Scholarship and Memorial Funds were also established at the University of Utah, providing financial support for female student athletes in track and field. Lauren has a running track named after her at the University of Idaho and a cat wing in her memory, too.
The summer before Lauren was killed, another University of Utah student, Mackenzie Lueck, whose case we have also covered and will link in the description box, was murdered as well. After this, an independent review committee created a list of 30 campus safety recommendations. And in just over a year, they had implemented all of them.
This prompted the university to invest a substantial amount into a new building to house the police department, new interview rooms, a new police chief, and a new detective who specializes in domestic and interpersonal violence.
Lauren’s bedroom is exactly as she left it. The medals still hang where she proudly displayed them, and the trophies she had worked so hard to earn still sit on the shelves. Her university memorabilia is there, too, a reminder of just how much she loved the life she built.
Her room represents a moment in time that never moved forward. Everything in there tells the story of a young woman with endless potential who was pouring everything into chasing her dreams.
She was an exceptional athlete, a dedicated student, a loving daughter, and friend. And while Lauren’s room may remain frozen in time, her story doesn’t. It continues every time a student is now taken seriously.
Every time someone is believed before it’s too late, and every time another young athlete walks onto the campus with the same ambition, determination, and passion Lauren once had.
