A sex offender is accused of shooting and killing a female student who was a track standout in a car on the University of Utah campus.
The University of Utah has confirmed that there was a shooting on campus on the evening of October 22, 2018 and has released a suspect description. The campus was placed on lockdown.
ATTEMPT TO LOCATE: #homicide suspect Melvin Rowland, 37. Suspect wanted in conjunction with shooting on university campus.
The victim was identified as Lauren McCluskey, a 21-year-old scholar athlete whose family says broke off a brief relationship with the suspect after learning that he’d lied to her about his criminal history. Rowland has now been located deceased. You can read more about McCluskey here. Her family says Lauren briefly dated the suspect but broke up with him after learning he lied to her about his name and criminal history.
Authorities have now released a detailed timeline in the case that reveals Melvin Rowland was trying to extort McCluskey. You can read it here.
Statement from the family of Lauren McCluskey, the University of Utah star student athlete, who was killed on campus Monday night. The suspect is her ex-boyfriend, a registered sex offender, who lied to her about his age and criminal history, according to her family.
The suspect accused was identified as Melvin Rowland, a registered sex offender, and the call came in as a possible kidnapping. According to KUTV, the victim was found shot to death in a car; the victim is a female student.
Police say Rowland and the victim had a “previous relationship.”
The secure-in-place was later released as authorities believe Melvin Rowland left the campus area.
“SECURE-IN-PLACE LIFTED FOR CAMPUS Police believe suspect has left campus and is no longer a threat to campus. Continued police activity throughout the night. Please avoid the Medical Towers area,” the university wrote on Twitter.
Melvin Rowland
According to the Salt Lake Tribune’s Courtney Tanner, “U. Police Lt. Brian Wahlin says the suspect is Melvin Rowland. Rowland and the woman reportedly had “a dispute” before the shooting. She was found inside a car outside the dorms.”
You can see Rowland’s sex offender registry information here.
LIVE: Live from scene of reported shooting at the University of Utah.
“U of U ALERT: Shooting on campus. Secure-in-place. More info to come,” U of U initially wrote on Twitter. This tweet was followed by a suspect description: “Suspect: Black male, 37 years old, 6’3″, 250 lbs, wearing a gray beanie, black pants, white shoes and a white hoodie. He was last seen on foot leaving NB from the medical towers.”
Multiple officers are searching the area and every @UUtah officer will also be responding to assist.
The university also tweeted, “Shooting suspect still on foot. Secure-in-place. Updates on http://highalert.utah.edu . Next update 11p.”
Gephardt Daily reported that the victim was a female who was “found in the parking lot with multiple gunshot wounds and is deceased.” The shots were fired around 9 p.m., the news site reported.
Here’s a look at the scene. Officers are gathered around a car.
Courtney Tanner, Salt Lake Tribune reporter, wrote on Twitter, “There are a lot of officers here, many carrying large guns and several with dogs searching the area.” She also indicated: “Officers are gathered around a car.”
The Salt Lake Tribune reported that police were surrounding one specific vehicle.
The university sent out an emergency alert titled “shooting on campus.”
Suspect: Black male, 37 years old, 6’3″, 250 lbs, wearing a gray beanie, black pants, white shoes and a white hoodie. He was last seen on foot leaving NB from the medical towers.
The accused suspect Melvin Rowland was 37-years-old. You can see Rowland’s sex offender registry information here. His criminal history was serious, to say the least.
Melvin Rowland
The sex offender registry gives the following details of his background:
• Description: 76-4-401 – ENTICING A MINOR/2ND DEGREE FELONY
• Date Convicted: 07/19/2004
• Conviction State: Utah
• Release Date: 09/03/2013
• Description: 76-5-404 – FORCIBLE SEXUAL ABUSE-ATTEMPTED/3RD DEGREE FELONY (attempted)
• Date Convicted: 07/19/2004
• Conviction State: Utah
According to the Salt Lake Tribune, the minor enticement case involved the Internet.
There was an open investigation into Rowland at the time of McCluskey’s death; she had reported him to authorities for harassment, according to the university police chief, speaking in a news conference. University of Utah Police Chief Dale Brophy declined to provide many details about the previous complaint.
“We did have a case that was a police report filed on October 12 and the 13. There was some follow up. It was assigned out to a detective. The detective had been in contact with Miss McCluskey, and they were working to build a case against our suspect at that time,” said Brophy.
He added, “We’re not going to discuss the details of those cases at this point in time.”
He continued, “We don’t have a correct address for him. He was a walk away from Fortitude, which is a halfway house here. Didn’t have a correct address for him at that particular time.”
Brophy said that the way it works is that they take a police report and then it’s forwarded to an investigator, who reaches out to the victim. He says that happened in this case.
Asked if the harassment was severe enough where the university police provided protection for her, he said, “I’m not going to divulge those details at this point in time.”
He said authorities would provide everything they have on the situation once the investigation is complete.
“We suspected it may be a boyfriend once we found out Miss McCluskey was deceased. We were able to identify who that boyfriend was and place him at the scene,” said Brophy.
People Expressed Fear on Social Media
Fox 13 reported that, according to scanner traffic, there had been “a possible kidnapping and shooting in the area of 2200 East Red Butte Canyon Road” and there were also scanner reports “about a possible gunshot victim found in a parking lot near the medical towers, in the area of 224 Medical Plaza.” It’s not yet clear whether those were related, though.
The governor wrote in a tweet, “My heart goes out to all who have been dealing with the tragic #UofUShooting tonight. Stay safe, and please follow the instructions that come thru highalert.utah.edu.”
You can listen to the scanner here. According to Broadcastify, “Officer advised a female was found shot multiple times. Every available officer and K9 are responding.” Scanner traffic also showed authorities had a vehicle description.
One Twitter user wrote, “all my friends at the U, stay safe and stay in place. for anyone not at the U, this is the second shooting in less than a year there and every time I’m scared to death that the victim is one of my friends. I hope you don’t ever have to feel this way.”
Last year around this time there was a shooting at the U of U campus. Guess what I got tonight? A text message about another shooting on the U campus (no, I’m not there). The South Park episodes about shootings at school being “normal” are too real.
“Last year I was a senior in high school, and heard about the shooting… Today I’m a freshmen at the #UniversityOfUtah and I’m on lockdown… I really hope it doesn’t become a tradition,” wrote another student.
In 2017, a student was killed and a massive manhunt was underway after a shooting at the University of Utah on October 30. The victim was Chinese national ChenWei Guo, a computer science student.
Just had a shooting at university of Utah, I am okay but thoughts and prayers are no longer an okay response, #EnoughIsEnough gun control needs to be addressed, it’s all surreal until it happens to your school…
This article is being updated as more information is learned about the 2018 shooting.
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