Episode 6 - The Runner, The Liar and The Broken System

Katie Studios and I Heart Radio. I'm Courtney Armstrong, a crime producer at Katie Studios, joined by fellow producers Stephanie Ledaker, Beth Greenwald, and Jeff Shane. We've all worked for years on various crime podcasts and TV series, and as crime producers we talk murder all the time. One thing we've noticed is just how many of them stem from love. We're exploring the story of the runner, the fire, and the broken system. Since she was a baby, Lauren McCluskey

like to move. She learned to walk at just nine months old and quickly excelled at track and field. Hurtling and high jumps became her strong suit. At one point she even ranked tenth in the country, and before she knew it. Lauren had a plethora of colleges offering her scholarships. Smart and reserved, Lauren and her parents decided on the University of Utah, where she would major in communication studies.

Aside from its strong track program Salt Lake City was a safe place and Lauren's parents felt comfortable about sending her all the way from Washington State. Her father's biggest concern was her driving, and he spent hours researching the best car for her. At school, Lauren made friends quickly, but really focused on church track and her studies. Partying and dating took a back seat. It wasn't until the fall of her senior year that she met a guy

who caught her eye. On a night out with her best friend and roommate, Alex, she met a bouncer at a local bar, the London Bell. His name was Shaun Fields. Tall, dark and handsome. There was an immediate attraction. Throughout the night, Shawn kept an eye on Lauren and her friend, making sure they got drinks in a timely fashion. At the end of the night, on the way out of the bar,

Shawn asked Lauren for her number. The next day he called and asked her to dinner, and just a week and a half later, they were officially boyfriend and girlfriend. Here's Jeff first and foremost as producers were victims advocates. Our goal is always to shine a light on injustices and bring attention to stories that we feel need to

be heard. In our work, We've noticed that many of these crimes stem from the same thing, love, and that's why we decided to call together some of the most egregious, shocking, and terrifying stories of relationships that took deadly turns. Our hope is to not only raise awareness about the victim and what happened to them, but also help listeners learn to look out for some of the warning signs in toxic situations that are in their own lives. Lauren actually

chose the University of Utah because it was considered so safe. Interestingly, Utah is actually the fourth safest state in the United States, and this university specifically highlights safety as being such a big importance on campus. In fact, their admissions department actually has a packet that outlines all of their safety measures and it's listed as definitely one of the safest schools in Utah. You can't get much safer than being with

a former military guy who works as a security guard. Well, Jeff Shaun was a part time computer science student at a nearby community college. He also was in the military and trained as a security officer. And this was Laurences first relationship. And Shawn and Lawrence courtship was described as very old fashioned. He'd call her and ask her out and take her to these nice dinners, nothing like the drunken hookups that most college students deal with. And he

was older. He was twenty eight, so he was seven years her senior. But you know, remember she was really mature for age. Sean was not only Lauren's first boyfriend, but really the first guy that she ever spent any extended period of time with, even casually dated. Not only was she extremely excited, but she was also very inexperienced with guys in general. When Lauren told her parents about Sean,

they could tell that she was quote unquote smitten. Her dad remembers even thinking that very quickly, and Lauren seemed like she was in love. Well, Lauren was over the moon with her new relationship fairly quickly, her friends saw some disturbing cracks. Lauren, who was once very independent. Now seemed like she was at Shawn's beck and call. He would make her pick him up after his shift at the bar ended, without fail, sometimes as late as two am.

He also started to require Lauren to send him photos of where she was and who she was with. He wanted to know exactly what she was up to. The relationship continued to get serious, and after just a few weeks, he was basically living in Lauren's dorm. After becoming friends with other students, he was able to get in and out of the dorm without the usually required key card. Things took an unexpected and somewhat dangerous turn when Sean started telling Lauren he wanted to give her a gun.

He insisted it was for her safety. Here's Stephanie. In doing our research, we learned that Lauren's friends were immediately disturbed by this purchase of a gun, but Laurence seemed

to be less surprised or concerned about it. Sean, we know, had taken Lauren to the shooting range with some of his friends, and he always told her that he felt it was very important that she knew how to operate a gun, mostly so that she could always protect herself Lauren's friend and her are a the resident advisor on

their floor in the college dormitory. They actually were very concerned about their being a gun being held at the university, and they reported it, and despite the concerns, the universities seemed very unfazed and basically brushed it off. Just worth noting studies also do show that it's actually more dangerous to own a gun because there's a chance you could actually be killed with it by mistake. You know, Steph,

you know. Two thousand and fourteen review of the Annals of Internal Medicine concluded having a firearm in the home, even when it's properly stored, doubles the risk of someone becoming the victim of homicide, and it triples the risk

of suicide. The r A really was right in her thinking that this should be reported and taken seriously, and it must have been really frustrating that the University of Utah was kind of brushing her off and putting off any sort of disciplinary action against Lauren and Sean for

having this gun. Lauren was also really exhausted because Sean was increasingly getting more controlling in nature wanted to know who she was with, where she was, and friends remembered that laurencein said not like her usual bubbly self, but she would always make excuses for on behavior and maybe it was her inexperience in dating. She didn't really have a boy from before, and friends to tell her that this stuff is not normal, even if it's your first relationship.

These are red flags. This is also a clear example that Lauren has followed the rules perfectly. She's done everything correctly. She chose the right school because it was so safe. She's learning gun safety even though she might have some misgivings, She's at least learning it correctly, and her friends also did the right thing by reporting it. In early October, after about a month of dating, Lauren made a shocking discovery.

She happened to get a glimpse of Shawn's I D and while his photo was there, there was a different name. It was Melvin Rowland and Melvin's age was listed at thirty seven, not twenty eight like Sean had told Lauren. So Lauren did what any young person does when they have a question. They turned to Google, and what she found was pretty disturbing. She found out that Sean or Melvin as his real name is was actually a registered sex offender. He was convicted of forcible sexual abuse and

enticing a minor over the internet. Scared and confused, Lauren talked to her mom and her friends about the best way to break up with him. That's disturbing to no end. I mean, again, this is her first real relationship, Jeff Right, and to find out that the guy that she fell head over heels for was a registered sex offender who lied about his age. What else? What is true about this guy? I mean, that is shocking information to learn

about the person you love. Yeah, Stephen, you know, to your earlier point, we talked about her inexperience in dating. But again she did the right thing. She found the answers, and she immediately made the decision to break up with him. So she was not going to let this guy lie to her at this point, he was so woven into the fabric of her life. He was so friendly with other people in the dorm that he didn't need a

card to get in out. Her friends were his friends, and so this just must have been to the core disturbed ring for her. But he really kind of had a meshed himself in her world. And to find this out, you know, not only for Lauren's security, but those around her. She must be feeling, you know, some sort of responsibility

and guilt about. That's such a good point, Beth. And also imagine how devastated she must have been here you are choosing what you think to be this wonderful guy, only to find out that everything is a lie in a house of cards. Where do you go from there? These are big, big lies, And at this point that she needs out of the bottle and she can't go backward. But it's probably a scary thing to figure out how

to successfully break up with him altogether. Steph had also almost rock her to the core and just make her question her decisions. Here she was, she was in the stable relationship with the secure guy, and all of it turned out to be wrong. So I wonder if she lost like a lot of her confidence a hundred percent. And imagine this guy is presenting himself to be one way, and it's probably a very smooth talker and a well to do that very successfully. So yeah, she didn't do

anything wrong. She believed him is just the truth, and that's what people do when they're in love. My heart breaks for her because she finds out this information, and even though she loves him, how confusing. Where does she go from here? The night of her unsettling discovery, Sean who we now knew is really named Melvin, came over and Lauren tried to break up with him, but he ended up convincing her to let him spend the night. The next day, he left but borrowed Lauren's car. To Lauren,

this was the end of their relationship. The relationship was over. She just needed her car back. The plan was that Melvin would drop the car in a lot and Lauren would pick it up later. Concerned, Lauren's mom called campus police and explained the entire situation. Campus police set up an escort with Lauren to get the car, and it went off without a hitch. With the car back and the boyfriend dumped. Lauren thought this strange and unsettling chapter

was finally over. That was until just two days later, on October twelve, Lauren started getting a barrage of texts from different numbers. They all claimed to be friends of Melvin. At first, the texts were innocuous things like why did you do this to the big guy? Now he's upset, But soon they got increasingly bizarre. The so called friends told her Melvin was injured, and at one point even told her that he was dead. One exchange went like this,

will you come to a funeral? And unknown number asked Lauren responded, I know he's alive, Please leave me alone and don't Texas number I got the police involved. Understandably, Lauren was scared, and she called nine one one. Here's an excerpt from that call. I've been getting these texts about from some of these numbers are right, um of different people saying that they were saying that he was in the hospital and then saying that like that he passed away. But then but then I got a text

from him and he seems to be alive. So um, and then they were I got a text about, you know, asking if I wanted to go to m hm a funeral, his funeral. It's harrowing stuff. Again, this is a major cry for help. And at the time told her that there was really nothing that they could do about it because the texts weren't directly threatening her, and really all Lauren could do was block the numbers and hope that it would stop. We're going to take a quick break.

We'll be back in just a moment. I've been doing a little research about online harassment and what it means and how serious it is, and it actually happens to a lot of people. Forty one percent of people have reported experiencing some sort of cyber harassment. Furthermore, percent of woman report being harassed in general. So clearly it's an issue, and it's a shame that the campus police couldn't or wouldn't take it more seriously. Again, they're just working under

the law of what counts as harassment. This was serious, but the campus police only have about twenty officers for a campus of over thirty students, and so they can't follow up in great detail with every single call they get. Understood, But at the same time, her friends already reached out saying that there was a gun being held at the campus.

And now this is her, the person who's with the guy who has the gun, calling and saying something that would feel right, and she's getting all these texts that are bringing her concern. At some point somebody should look into it. I think that is a case of people not connecting the dots. Lauren's friend and r A reported the gun to the dorm authorities and Lauren's calling campus police, and so these two groups are not intersecting on reports, Jeff,

Everything that happened is already disturbing. But then the harassment seemed to escalate, and Lauren got an email that was threatening to release intimate photos that she took with Melvin if she didn't pay a thousand bucks. So they were basically going to publicly humiliate her unless she paid this money, which is blackmail, and Lauren really wasn't sure what to do.

You know, she paid the money and went in person to file a report with campus police, and what they had said to her actually was that it was a scam and to ignore it. And they even suggested that Melvin might be a victim to this too. How is that not looked into? Even if that's the case and Melvin's a victim and this as well, This to me seems like a tipping point of mounting evidence that at the bare minimum, somebody from the university should be checking

into it, even a very basic level. Now this points to a third time that there has been an instance that police or officials at the campus were notified of something that just didn't feel right and they chose not to act on it. Someone threatening to reveal this intimate photo is a violation of the state revenge porn laws. So I'm surprised that no one jumped into action on her nine on one calls. You know, you hear the

fear in her voice and kind of the trepidation. You know, she's a twenty one year old girl calling nine on one by herself. If anyone's ever been in fear, it is a very confusing place to be. And on the one hand, you have all these mixed emotions. You feel betrayed, you feel sad, you feel scared, and you kind of just want somebody to swoop in to fix it. Her friends were rallying for her, and now the university has been reached out to three separate times. What more could

she possibly do? Yest that from when I looked it up in Utah to class a missemeanor to knowingly or attentionally distribute sexual images to anybody without that person's consent. So that was a that was a crime right and should have been handled as a crime. Not to mention you know how much courage it takes to actually reach out and ask for help, especially if you've been in a controlling relationship, which we know this was. It's really

hard to see outside of it. Sometimes you don't trust your own gut, you don't trust your own instincts, and she was wise enough and brave enough to actually speak out and ask for help, help that honestly never came. Ten days after the breakup, in mid October, Lauren got a text that read, what did you tell the cops? We know everything? How did Melvin know that Lauren had gone to the police? Had her tech savvy x actor?

Was there a leak in the police department. Exasperated, Lauren decided to go to Salt Lake City Police with more manpower. She hoped they would help her, but frustratingly, they followed protocol and referred her back to campus police. The campus police continued to brush off her concerns. Lauren was angry and scared. She told her friends that the police didn't believe her. Here's a portion of another nine one one

call Lauren made. I'm worried because I I've been working with the campus police UM at the U and last Saturday I reported and then UM and I haven't gotten an update. Okay, but somewhat contacted me today. Someone who was harassed, said that that they know everything about the police. And okay, so you already spoke to the campus police. Did something. Did this happen on the University of Utah campus? Um? Yes, yes, yes, and they haven't updated or done anything. So the case

it involves extortion. And it's really maddening to hear this call because again now she knows that the university police are failing her and not taking her attempts to get some help seriously. So she has again the courage to actually call the real police on one to say please help, nobody's listening to me, and again she just gets benched

and given no support. Steph. You know, again going back to the beginning of this, this was her first boyfriend, and then to find out everything that she found out must have shook her confidence. And now she's doing what she thinks is the right thing to do, and no one's reacting with the urgency that she feels. So I'm sure you know, she's just kind of lost. Her whole life,

followed all the rules. You know, she went to church, she worked hard in school, she worked hard in track, and that got her to where she was, which is in a successful place. And now that she's in this place of fear. She's still trying to follow the rules and it's not working. Can you imagine how petrified she must have been to actually call nine one one and fear that they would ignore her again and that somebody would find out that she had called nine one one

and that he would retaliate against her. Yeah, and at any moment release these intimate photos that he's threatening her with, like, so that's another layer of juicing physical or he could just at one point just release the photos and her whole reputation at schools run. She was probably in such a dark place. It's really sad. And you can hear that, Jeff.

You know, remember back in in the middle of like October, she was getting a bras of these texts from different numbers, and one of these texts and it wasn't Melvin's number, she said, leave me alone. I got the police involved. So that leaves me to believe, you know, is that some sort of ghost number he was using, And she

did say I got the police involved. It's really unfortunate to Beth because we hear this time and time again that a victim or soon to be victim reaches out to authorities and either gets a restraining order or reaches out for help to loved ones, and as a result, that might make the perpetrator more angry and retaliate. So in her case, she's shouting from the rooftops to anybody who will listen, and outside of her friends in her immediate family, nobody is taking her seriously in any way.

And meanwhile, there's actual security footage that shows Melvin at various different campus locations looking for Lauren, which is super scary. So she was right to be fearful of this. We often have a bad feeling and somehow explain it away. We don't trust our own instincts and trust our gut, and this is an unfortunate reminder that we have to.

At one point, Lauren even sent screenshots of Melvine's criminal history to police, begging for help and really pointing to the fact this guy is we should take this seriously, and to that no one even responded. Unimaginable. That's your whole purpose is to protect these you know, the students.

And again she's giving you everything you need. There was a gun, there's harassment, there's blackmail, a violation of the porn law, and now this where she's basically saying, he's on parole, he's a sex offender and convicted of violent crimes and what was done Nothing. Yeah, she was betrayed by Melvin, but I think, honestly, the biggest betrayal in this case is the school to Lauren, how much they

failed her. And can you imagine how infuriating that must be for the parents of Lauren, Like her poor mother must be beside herself, because again, they were all shouting from the rooftops. Mrs McClaskey made multiple calls to campus police talking about the situation, explaining them even at one point thanking them for their help. So it's not like they were turning a blind eye of this either. Everyone in Lauren's life was trying to get her the help

she needed. At one point, Lauren even sent screenshots of Melvin's criminal history to police, begging for help, but no one responded. On the morning of Monday, October, a month and a half after meeting Melvin, Lauren got a text from an unknown number. It claimed to be an officer asking Lauren to meet. Concerned it was Melvin trying to lure her somewhere, she called nine on one to report him impersonating an officer. Police told her to simply ignore

the texts. That afternoon, Melvin was spotted on dorm security footage pacing the halls waiting for Lauren. Hours later, he was still in the dorm lobby. At eight pm, Lauren was walking back from class. She was on the phone with her mother. They were having a normal conversation. Lauren was talking about projects she was working on and at school was going well. She was hopeful to move past the Melvin saga. But what Lauren's mother heard next is

every parent's worst nightmare. Lauren was ambushed by Melvin in the parking lot. He dragged her in to his car, throwing her in the back seat, and shooting her several times. She died on the scene. All the while, her mother was listening to her daughter's final moments. So after hearing this horrible moment, Lauren's dad immediately calls campus police and tell this them what they think they just heard. Campus police react and immediately locked down the school and start

a man hunt for Melbourne. They ended up finding him hours later inside an unlocked church, and he had shot himself to death. Yeah, Jeff. And afterwards the police looked into Melvin Rowland's history and discovered he was on parole and he wasn't supposed to be carrying a firearm and even have a social media profile, both of which he did, you know, quite flavorrantly, and had the police looked into it when Lauren called, they would have been easily able to arrest him. You know again, I go back to

when Lauren reported the explicit photo extortion. One officer asked her to send over pictures that Melvin was reatening her with, and she did, and then this officer shared them around, commenting on how cute she was. They did that instead of helping her, and days after that she's dead. Let's

stop here for another quick break. After her death, at school finally launched an investigation into the tragedy, and after their review, they determined that there were, in fact, many shortcomings in their investigation that probably contributed to Lauren's death. But despite that, the university president publicly said this death could not have been avoided direct quote, and that is

blatantly untrue. This is a clean example of a death that should have been avoided and should never happen again. Even in saying that, the university said this death couldn't have been avoided. It's like murdering her all over again. Yeah,

I think the school bungled this from the start. And when you also read that after the investigation and after the president said what she said, not only did they not fire any officers involved in the incident, but in fact they promoted some of the officers who they actually

think did a good job. Their reaction is to not discipline anyone, but to actually just reward some of the people, Like it just doesn't make any sense not to mention they're actually sharing inappropriate photos of Lauren around the office. As a matter of fact, what kind of low life do you have to be to take a young woman's photos that she's calling for help about and then just a ignore her cry for help. And also now you're going to pass that around to your fellow officers to

say how cute she is? It disgusting. I mean, the McCluskey is they sent their daughter off to school with the idea that she was going to the safest place that could possibly send her. Like his you know, Mr Mclusky's biggest concern was what kind of car she was driving. She was living in fear. You know, her final days were literally spent looking over her shoulder, scared, tired, as

her friends described her, not like herself. And then she's murdered in a public parking lot that every student walks through to get to their dorm. It's just it's awful. And imagine the poor mother who's now hearing her daughter be murdered. That is so traumatizing. It's we can't even put that into words. How traumatic that must be. Well, those are the last words that you hear from your child. And they were obviously a very close family and extremely

supportive of their daughter. So I can't even imagine the loss and the outrage. Yeah, the loss in the outrage. Beth has said so well, And I think in large part that's why we do these cases, you know, each week, simply because some of this is so obvious in retrospect, and this is a perfect case of reminding us all what to do and what not to do, and hopefully school officials will pay more attention moving forward. She was kind of scoffed at, you know, she was just dismissed.

So along the way, things aren't feeling right for her, or she's seeing the red flags and is made to feel as though she's a fool, which ultimately is what sealed her fate. Report done by the university that I believe came up in the lawsuit of the family made thirty recommendations to the university of things that they can

fix or have done different. The president of the university, a woman named Ruth Watkins, actually made a public statement and she said, quote the report does not offer any reason to believe that this tragedy could have been prevented end quote. Heartbroken and frustrated, Lawrence parents sued the University of Utah and civil court for what they felt was their blatant negligence. Two years after lawrence murder, the school reached a settlement with the McCluskey family to the tune

of thirteen point five million dollars. The school would also build an indoor track facility in Lauren's honor. Additionally, three million dollars of the settlement would be donated to a foundation in Lauren's name that was designed to improve campus safety. Before her death, the final assignment Lauren completed asked, if you had one hour left to live, what would you say? Usually timid. Lauren was the first of volunteer to read

hers aloud. She spoke about her time on the track team, the thrill of winning, the disappointment of losing, but her final message was that despite obstacles and loss, you always have to keep hope alive. If you're enjoying Crazy and Love, listen to seasons one and two of The piked In Massacre, another Katie Studios production. Crazy in Love is produced by Stephanie Laie Decker, Beth Greenwald, Chris Raeves, Lisa Dgiovin, Jeff Shyne,

Tim Hamilton, and me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and sound designed by Jeff Tis. Additional editing by Davy Cooper Wasser. Crazy in Love is a production of I Heart Radio and Katie Studios. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.