Sextort before slaying
Extol coed he’d post illicit pix
A University of Utah track athlete killed just weeks after breaking up with a man who lied about his criminal background received threatening emails from her ex-boyfriend, demanding money in exchange for not posting illicit photos of the couple online, police said.
Lauren McCluskey, a 21year-old communications major, was found dead Monday from a gunshot wound in the back seat of a car parked near the Medical Plaza residential hall. University Police Chief Dale Brophy during a press conference Thursday night said her 37-year-old exboyfriend, Melvin Rowland, lurked in her dorm for hours before confronting the track athlete in the parking lot, dragging her into the car and then shooting her multiple times.
Rowland, a registered sex offender out on parole, then enjoyed a date with a woman he’d met online, who later tipped authorities off on his whereabouts. He killed himself in a church as police closed in.
“I can’t fathom how anybody with a conscious could murder their girlfriend and then go have dinner with someone else and act like nothing happened,” Brophy added.
Authorities said McCluskey met her killer in September while he was working security at a nearby bar. They dated for about month before she learned Rowland had lied about his name, age and criminal history. A few days later, she reached out to University Police to report having received suspicious messages she believed to be from her stages of the probe they did not uncover any information to pass onto authorities and didn’t sense McCluskey felt as though she were in physical danger. “There was no indication from Lauren to us at any point that he was threatening physical harm,” Brophy said. “He was very, very good at getting people to trust him. Lauren was no different.”
The student athlete emailed police the morning she died, telling them she had received a text from a spoof number claiming to be Deputy Chief Rick McLenon requesting she come to the police station. Authorities now believe this message and others like it were all from Rowland, working to lure McCluskey out of her dorm room.
McCluskey was on the phone with her mother when Rowland attacked her in the parking lot outside of her dorm. Police around 8:30 p.m. Monday night received a call from the victim’s father, who told them what his wife had heard on the phone.
Shortly after the shooting, Rowland was picked up on campus by a woman he’d met online. They went to dinner, visited the state Capitol and went to her apartment, where Rowland showered.
After she dropped him off at a coffee shop later that night, she phoned police having recognized him in photos of the man being sought in the campus shooting.
Police were able to track down the suspect to a church, where he died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Brophy said it appears the woman Rowland went on a date with after the shooting was tricked by the killer and will not face any charges.
“Rowland was a master manipulator. If his lips were moving, he was lying,” Brophy said. “I don’t think he told the truth to anybody, based on our investigation.”
Rowland was paroled in April after telling the board he’d changed having served as a peer leader in prison. He spent nearly 10 years behind bars after pleading guilty in 2004 to trying to lure an underage girl online and attempted sex abuse charges, according to court records.