Dateline NBC - Lauren's Promise

Episode Date: September 18, 2021

When University of Utah athlete Lauren McCluskey is found murdered on campus, investigators learn that she had reached out to the campus police for help multiple times before her death. Josh Mankiewicz Josh Mankiewicz reports.Josh Mankiewicz catches up with Lauren’s mother, Jill McCluskey and shares what she thinks college campuses nationwide should do to ensure student safety after her daughter’s murder in 2018. She also discusses the global impact of the foundation she established in Lauren's memory.After the Verdict is available now only by subscription to Dateline Premium: DatelinePremium.comLearn more about the Lauren McCluskey Foundation here: https://laurenmccluskey.org/

Tonight on Dateline. She said that she met him in a bar. She was smitten. She really went all out for him. She couldn't see the red flags. I just didn't realize how much in danger she was. One of our friends actually looked him up and was like, this is not the guy that you think he is. He conned women to get what he wanted.

He was good at it. He was very good at it. She reported to the police that he had peeked through her dorm window, and she put up a blanket there. I'm being blackmailed for money. Lauren kept saying, well, the police will handle it. We got the notification on her phone saying lockdown at the U.

He had been lying in wait. I was like, this isn't real. This isn't happening. A young woman does everything right. So why did it turn out so very wrong? How do you not recognize that this girl needs your help? What should scare every parent is that this could be going on at any campus across our country.

I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline. Here's Josh Mankiewicz with Lauren's Promise. Graduation at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, home of the Utes. A time for selfies, smiles, and celebration. In May 2019, 8,500 graduates and their families packed the university's huge arena. Lauren McCluskey should have been here too, receiving her degree in cap and gown, as happy as her classmates. Except she wasn't. And the story of what happened and why is as sad as it is eye-opening.

This wasn't one of those things where it was out of everyone's control. It wasn't like a natural disaster. How many times do women have to call for help before the University of Utah realizes, you know what, we ought to step this up? What are the two of you thinking at that point? I couldn't really fathom what had happened. Neither of us slept at all that night. It's a story that could so easily have ended differently if just one person had stepped up.

If just one more phone call had been made. One dot connected. Tonight, the repercussions of a preventable murder that continue to this day. Lauren grew up in the college town of Pullman, Washington. Her parents both professors. And from early on, Lauren was a girl in motion. Her mom, Jill. She could climb trees when she was two years old.

As Lauren grew, she excelled at the hurdles and high jump. A stack of medals tell her story, which paid off with scholarship money from the University of Utah. Her dad, Matt. One of the attractions of University of Utah was that it appeared to be very safe. And they actually sell that, you know, that Salt Lake City is one of the safest cities. This is a safe place. That's part of the pitch. Yes, yeah. As she headed off to college, Lauren was a parent's dream, a dedicated athlete, studious, not a partier, not a drinker, not active on the dating scene. What were you worried about? Anything? The only thing I worried about was an automobile,

and so I wanted to research a really safe car. And so that was my only real worry. Lauren met Alex on day one of her freshman year. So we were roommates our freshman year, August 2015, and we became instant friends. Alex and Lauren hung out together, attended church together. And for the next three years, Lauren continued to focus on her studies, her track events, and her friends. As for boyfriends, not so much. Was Lauren somebody who'd had a lot of boyfriends? I would say no, but I would say she did hang out with her friends a lot.

Then came September 2018, the start of senior year. Lauren and Alex went to a bar downtown one night, and Lauren met someone. His name was Sean Fields, and he was working security at the bar. He let the two women in, kept an eye on them throughout the evening, and then as they were leaving, he made contact with Lauren. She was like, I gave him my number and I guess we'll see if he contacts me. He did. Lauren told Alex the next morning. She was like, oh, he texted me and we're going on a date this afternoon. Sean said he was a part-time computer science student at a nearby community college.

He was 28, a little old, but not a big deal. More dates followed, and Lauren told her parents about the man in her life. It sounded sort of old-fashioned, the way that he was paying attention to her and asking her out for dinner, you know, and doing all these things. Yeah, I used to say, oh, she's in love. You could hear it in her voice. Yeah. Things moved quickly. Lauren and Sean were soon exclusive.

When did you realize they were boyfriend and girlfriend? Probably like a week and a half after they met. She wanted to be his girlfriend, and it made her feel special. That special feeling would not last. Coming up, Lauren's friends start to worry about her new relationship. You could tell at least physically in her face that she was going through emotionally a lot with the relationship. He was asking her, where are you, who are you with? And she was just with me the entire time.

So they're brand new, and he's already kind of possessive and controlling. Yes. And before long, her friends had a new worry. I was told that he was going to give her a gun he had. And that would have been against rules. Yes, it was. And it would have been something that you would have had to report. Yes, and that's what I did. At the start of her senior year at the University of Utah, Lauren McCluskey fell hard for a guy named Sean Fields,

and soon he was her boyfriend. Lauren's parents, Jill and Matt, heard regular updates by phone. Her friends described Lauren as kind of smitten with this new guy. Did that come across in talking with the two of you? Sure, yeah. A lot of that happiness was just there already, but she clearly seemed very happy about her relationship with this person. But Lauren's parents, hundreds of miles away in Washington State, knew only what their daughter was telling them.

It was different for her good friends at the university. They began noticing that the very independent Lauren was now at Sean's beck and call. Every time he would text her, she would stop what she was doing to make sure she picked up the phone or text. Lauren's friend Alex said she was put off by Sean's behavior when she and Lauren went back to the bar where he was working. He was like, don't forget to pick me up at two in the morning. Don't like, don't fall asleep. Don't fall asleep. He said it jokingly, but then I could tell he was working. He was like, don't forget to pick me up at two in the morning. Don't like, don't fall asleep. Don't fall asleep. He said it jokingly, but then I could tell he was serious. In other words, like pressuring her to stay awake, to pick him up in the middle of the night after his shift ends. Yes. The very next night, Alex says, came something else that made her uncomfortable.

He was asking her, where are you, who are you with, that Friday, and she was just with me the entire time. So the fact that he kept asking, I guess, was also bothering me. You say something to Laura? Well, I did say it wasn't normal, but then I think she thought he would start to trust her. Right, so they're brand new, and he's already kind of possessive and controlling. Yes.

Another friend, a graduate student named Diamond, was thinking the same things. Diamond knew Lauren didn't have a ton of dating experience. She really went all out for him, was really investing, I personally think, too much time into it, like telling him where she was going to be and stuff. And to her, that just translated as, oh, this is a relationship. This is what we do. A lot of who are you with? Where are you going?

You ever say to her, this is not normal, acceptable behavior for a boyfriend or for any man? Yeah, I did. And I tried to do it as like, I'm coming to you as a friend, an older friend who's dated quite a few people, and just was presenting, well, him calling you or asking who you're with and wanting pictures of people around you is not, that's not protection. And that's not love. That's not, no.

And she'd say? She's like, oh, no, it's fine. You know, it's okay. He just wanted to make sure I'm okay. Carmen was in the same circle of friends. She says Lauren told her about a fight with Sean. He stormed off, and Lauren vowed she'd be the one to change. She just clearly said to us, I don't want to upset him that way again.

I don't want to see him that mad ever again. A couple of weeks into the relationship, Sean was practically living with Lauren in her dorm on campus. He'd made friends with other students there, and so was able to come and go without a key card. Lauren's friends thought she was sleep-deprived, and she seemed sad. We noticed she was tired. She seemed stressed. You could tell, at least physically in her face,

that she was going through emotionally a lot on her mind and, you know, with the relationship. Then something more ominous. Lauren told her friends Sean wanted to give her a gun for her protection. That immediately, that was the first trigger. I was like, hmm. A trigger because Diamond was then working for the university's housing department. At the time, she was Lauren's resident assistant, living in a nearby building. Was she in any kind of danger that she might need a gun? Not that I know of, or just when I'm with her, no.

We'd never thought that a gun was necessary. It's not illegal to have a gun on campus, but do a lot of students have guns? Not to my knowledge, but it still has to be concealed. So you have to have a license for that, which means you have to go through the necessary channels. From what I was told, he was just trying to give her a gun he had. And that would have been against rules. Yes, it was. And it would have been something that you would have had to report.

Yes. And that's what I did. Diamond says she called her superior in housing to report what she'd learned. She wrote an email, too. The university asked us to make clear that Diamond is speaking for herself. And what she says is that the response from housing officials to her alerts wasn't exactly proactive. It was a lot of, oh, we're going to have a meeting about it. We'll talk about it later. Or just stuff like that where it seems like... It's not a big deal deal. Yeah. Where like, this is normal. And I'm like,

this is absolutely not normal. And I don't understand why you're not heightened about it. It was one of many decisions that university officials would later look back on and regret. Coming up, Sean had a secret, an ugly one. I'm worried that he's dangerous. When Dateline continues. By late September 2018, Lauren McCluskey's good friends at the University of Utah were increasingly unhappy about her new relationship with Sean Fields. I would make comments like, this guy is literally not good for her. He throws us off. You were afraid of him? Yes.

Physically afraid? Yes, because he was a huge guy. And when Lauren's friends heard that Sean wanted to give her a gun, their concern intensified. We would just tell her, like, no, you don't need it. Your safety is fine. If anything, he's compromising your safety. Then in early October, Lauren made a frightening discovery. She had called me, and she seemed very shocked and scared.

Lauren had seen her boyfriend's ID. It had his photo with a different name. Suspicious, she turned to Google. Did she have any idea what she was going to find when she started searching? No. Because suddenly, Sean Fields is Melvin Rowland. Yes. It was stunning.

Most of what she thought she knew about her boyfriend was a lie. From his real name, Melvin Rowland, to his age, 37, 16 years older than Lauren. And finally this. Lauren's boyfriend was a registered sex offender. to his age, 37, 16 years older than Lauren. And finally this, Lauren's boyfriend was a registered sex offender. Melvin Rowland had been convicted of attempted forcible sexual abuse and enticing a minor over the internet.

And so you said you got to break up with this guy, and she said, I will? Yes, she was going to. Lauren talked with her mom, told her what she'd learned about her boyfriend and that she wanted to break up with him. And she sort of asked me advice about the best way to sever ties with him. And I'm thinking you said, get as far away from him as you can and make sure you never see him again. Yes. That night, Roland showed up at Lauren's room, peering in her window and startling her. When he finally came in, she confronted him about his lies.

He's like, I was set up, I was set up, I didn't do it, they're trying to frame me. But then she kept telling him they needed to break up. And every time he said he was going to leave, he would force himself upon her. He's, like, twice her size. I would say maybe four or five times her size. He was a huge guy, like, very muscly, very tall. So she would not have been able to resist him or fight him off. No, there's no way she could have gotten away.

Roland stayed until morning. And when he finally did leave, he was driving Lauren's car. And so letting him use the car was kind of the price of getting him out the door. Yes. So now, how to get the car back? Roland was going to leave it in a distant university parking lot where Lauren could pick it up. Jill didn't like that plan one bit.

And that's when she jumped into action. I'm worried that he's dangerous. Jill called the University of Utah campus police. Okay we can definitely have someone help her out. Can you have your daughter give us a call? The dispatcher got Lauren's contact information. Jill had more. Okay so let me tell you just a little bit more. So he was lying to her and he's actually a sexual offender. Okay. And lied about his age and things like that. Okay. And then he has her car, so I'm worried she's going to go there alone and someone's going to hurt her. In the end, campus police sent an escort with Lauren, and the car was retrieved without a hitch. The dispatcher called Jill back.

The McCluskeys were relieved. We were assured that they would be, in essence, on the lookout. And so we thought the situation was very safe. They were wrong. And had they known what Leah had, they almost certainly would have been on the next plane to Salt Lake City. Coming up. I'm being blackmailed for money. I didn't know her, but she sounds scared. She sounds scared of the two of you? Yeah, she does. New threats, but the campus police didn't seem overly concerned. They kept saying it's a scam, it's a scam. After Lauren McCluskey got her car back from her ex-boyfriend, her parents exhaled.

They believed the University of Utah police, who now knew Lauren had broken up with a registered sex offender, would keep an eye out for Melvin Roland, And Lauren hoped Roland was out of her life. A flurry of texts suggested otherwise. Messages to Lauren from people who identified themselves as Roland's friends. They're like, oh, why did you do this to the big guy? He really loved you. Now he's upset. The messages seemed to be anonymous, but Lauren and Alex wondered if it was Roland disguising his number. The texts told a dramatic story. Roland was in an accident, then at the hospital, then he died. Lauren blocked all the numbers and called her mom. We talked about it that, you know, he couldn't have

died in a car accident because it would have been reported, you know, that there was a fatal accident. Lauren saw some social media posts from Roland, so she knew he wasn't dead. Then she received this text. Will you come to funeral? Lauren answered, I know he's alive. Please leave me alone and don't text this number. I got police involved. She did and told the campus police dispatcher her fears. 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. What did they do about it? Initially, when she told them about the harassment, they told her there wasn't much they could do. Not much because the cops said the texts weren't threatening violence. They asked Lauren to call back if the situation escalated,

and it did. The very next day, she received an email saying explicit photos taken during their relationship would be posted on social media unless Lauren paid to keep them secret. She called campus police again. University of Place and Security, how can I help you? Hi, so I'm dealing with a situation where I'm being blackmailed for money. So a photo of me and my ex, they're threatening to send it out to everyone and asking for a thousand dollars. I didn't know her, but she sounds scared. She sounds scared of the two of you? Yeah, she does. She sounds like she's worried that this guy is out there and nobody's kind of looking for him and nobody's really taking her seriously.

That's sort of what I hear in her voice. Sure, absolutely. Lauren was scared enough to pay the $1,000 and then went to the campus police office to file a report in person. Alex went with her. What you're describing, that kind of cyber extortion, that's a crime. Yes. Did the campus police understand that and take it seriously?

They kept saying it's a scam, it's a scam. Police seem to think Roland's phone could have been hacked to get the photos, and that both Lauren and her ex might be targets of the scam. So the attitude of the campus police is they're both being victimized here. This is some scam using his phone number and her photo. Yeah. But this is not him victimizing her. Yes. However, Alex says Lauren was almost certain Roland was behind it all. That day, Lauren also told campus police about the frightening time she caught Roland peeking through her window. They seemed concerned.

This is like a boyfriend-girlfriend thing, not a big deal. I figured they thought we were overreacting in a way. Lauren was embarrassed by those photos and deeply concerned about them getting out. She shared them with campus police and hoped for an immediate arrest. The campus police had promised an update in three days, maybe hoping to spur them on. Lauren called the much larger Salt Lake City Police Department. Yeah, I was just concerned because I wasn't sure how long they were going to take to file the arrest. For not going to call you? I'll file arrest.

The Salt Lake City Police followed their usual procedure and referred Lauren back to the campus cops who had jurisdiction. University 991, what is your emergency? Hey, it's City. She's got a case number pending, but she's receiving additional blackmail threats. During the following days, Lauren called campus police repeatedly. One officer gave her his personal cell number, and the two exchanged 16 calls and texts. Lauren was still getting more harassing texts and still waiting for that promised update. And the police response would be what? For the most part,

it was just, oh, we'll get back to you later. The detective should be contacting you soon. By now, Lauren was worn out. Diamond saw her around that time. She was just like, oh, hey, yeah. Like, just not even making eye contact where I could tell something was up. But I was like, well, I haven't seen you in a while, and I hope everything's okay. But everything was not okay? Everything was not okay. Then, ten days after the breakup, Lauren received a particularly chilling text. What did you tell the cops, it said.

We know everything. Roland was tech savvy. Had he found a way to hack her messages? Lauren called Salt Lake City Police a second time. 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. Okay. But someone contacted me today.

Someone who was harassed said that they know everything about the police, okay? Once again, the city PD bounced her back to the campus police, a small force with some 30 officers responsible for more than 30,000 students on a big public campus. That day, Lauren did get a hold of the campus police detective assigned to her case. Alex listened in. Any sense, you know, of urgency in the way the detective was talking? No. I remember she said, send me an email with all the information later on when you can. And the detective even said it was a scam, like someone's probably just hacked into the account and is trying to scam you.

And so the idea being, this is not really anything to worry about. Yes. Now, it was Monday, October 22nd. Another text, this one claiming to be from a campus cop asking Lauren to meet him. Again, it was phony. The real police told her to just not answer it. Mr. Rowland, who's been stalking her, is impersonating a police officer. And the police response is, just don't text him back?

Yes. Right. Don't text him back and don't go to where he says. And that was it. But not, we're going to go to that place and find him. No. In the end, it was Rowland who found Lauren. Here he is on campus security cameras, loitering in Lauren's residence that evening around six o'clock.

He's waiting for her, holding a black bag and pacing. Two hours later, the camera shows him leaving Lauren's residence, heading out to confront her as she returns home from an evening class. At that moment, Lauren was talking with her mom on the phone. She sounded positive and, you know, telling me that she was going to go home and finish an assignment when she went inside. What happens next? Then I just hear her yell, no, no, no, and then she must have gotten tackled or something

because I hear some noise, and the phone fell to the ground, and then I kept calling for her, and she didn't answer. What happened after that would be almost more than Lauren's family and friends could bear. Coming up. My daughter just called us and it sounds like she's being attacked. An attack that some say campus police could have prevented. They missed that mark.

When Dateline continues. Jill McCluskey's phone conversation with her daughter had been suddenly interrupted. Lauren cried out. There was a noise. And then Jill, hundreds of miles away, was listening to her child being attacked. I thought she was abducted, and I thought it was him. I knew her life was in danger at that time.

She was talking about Melvin Rowland, formerly known as Sean Fields, the ex-boyfriend Lauren had caught in a series of lies. From the family home in Washington State, Matt called 911. My daughter is at University of Utah, and she just called us, and it looks like she was being attacked, or it sounds like she was being attacked. At the Salt Lake Tribune newspaper, Courtney Tanner was the reporter on duty that night. She heard the police scanners sputter. Just started hearing some crackling about a possible kidnapping on the campus.

She drove to the campus and found a parking lot cordoned off, students at their windows. I talked to a couple that, you know, just didn't have any idea what was going on, but had seen police dogs and police officers, you know, running past their doors, and they were scared. The university sent an alert to students. Shooting on campus, it said. Secure in place. Then, hours later, confirmation of the worst news possible. They said that a student had been killed on campus.

The university released photos of the suspect, Melvin Rowland. The victim wasn't named, but Lauren's friends knew. Yeah, I was like, it's Lauren. It has to be Lauren. I know it. It was. After all the calls to police, all the steps she took to protect herself, all the advice and concern of her parents, Lauren McCluskey had been murdered. She'd been shot multiple times. Her body left in the backseat of a car in a campus parking lot. It was almost like just being hit with a heavy object. I couldn't even, I couldn't really fathom what had happened. Then it's just, it's still, you know, you still even know it doesn't seem real. You know, we were just sobbing. I, in my head, was like, this isn't real.

This isn't happening. Diamond blamed herself. I really hated myself. I'm sorry. Because I felt like I didn't do as much. And I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to tell her parents or our friends. I could have helped her.

You have a badge? No. Yeah, you're not a police officer. That wasn't your duty. That was someone else's duty. I don't know why they didn't do it then. I've seen police at times moving around. They've been running, and some have guns drawn. Police launched a manhunt for Melvin Rowland, spotting him near a church not long after midnight. The doors were locked when police got there, and when they opened them, he had died by suicide on the inside. By then,

a key fact about Melvin Rowland had emerged. Not only was he a registered sex offender, he was on parole. Campus police finally learned that minutes after he murdered Laura. They missed that mark. Debbie Dujanovic is a former investigative reporter and spokesperson for the Salt Lake City FBI office. She now hosts a talk show here on KSL Newsradio. We have to think of parole as an extension of prison. Parolees don't enjoy the same freedoms you and I do walking around on the streets. They are supervised by the prison system.

And they're supposed to play by the rules when they're out on parole. Which means there might have been an opportunity to have Melvin Rowland pulled off the University of Utah campus and into custody. And that would have meant he would have been locked up and not able to hurt Lauren McCluskey or anybody else. Right. Except campus police never checked Roland's parole status, never knew that he could be in violation by having a gun or a social media account. He'd spent more than 10 years of his life in prison, paroled three times, and twice returned to prison for violations. During one parole hearing in 2012, which was recorded, Roland was frank about what

had been his approach to women to show he'd changed his ways. Every female that I came across dating or met on internet, I'd say I used my manipulation tactics to get what I wanted. By making one phone call, University Police could have learned so much more about Roland in plenty of time to act on that information. In this case, the University of Utah was not equipped with the detectives that had the know-how and the knowledge to investigate a case like this. Apparently, checking parole status simply wasn't part of campus police protocol. The sense I get is that the University Police Department was kind of not set up to sort of deal with the modern age.

The exact sense I got, and they didn't seem to have a culture of knowledge of how to investigate crimes that are happening against women at the university. Things like extortion, sextortion, social media extortion, date rape. At a news conference three days after Lauren's murder, campus police chief Dale Brophy faced reporters and defended his force. We did believe that Roland and or his associates both were threatening her financially and reputationally, but there was no indication from Lauren to us at any point in this investigation that he was threatening physical harm. Facing a PR nightmare, the University of Utah commissioned a review of the case and how it was handled. That review would reveal how profoundly the system and her own university

failed Lauren McCluskey. Coming up, how could your campus police department not check to see whether this guy was on parole? I don't know why that didn't happen. Tough questions for Lauren's school. And the latest. Parents deserve to know that the University of Utah to serious criticism. KSL News Radio host Debbie Dujanovic. Lauren McCluskey did absolutely everything right. Law enforcement did not do everything right. They dropped the ball, and now a young, budding track star has paid the price with her life.

Two months after the murder came the results of that review the university had asked for. Its conclusion, there were shortcomings both systemically and individually that contributed to Lauren's death. There were 30 recommendations for change. And then, university president Ruth Watkins said this. The report does not offer any reason to believe that this tragedy could have been prevented. That made me sick to my stomach,

and I just couldn't believe that she said that. I haven't talked to a single person who agrees with that statement. It was hard to reconcile those words with the review's own findings, that there were serious problems with campus safety procedures. We wanted to speak with both the administration and the campus police. Instead, we were offered an interview with Barbara Snyder, then vice president of student affairs. Lauren's death was a tragedy that affected all of us in very, very difficult ways.

And we know that mistakes were made. We own the fact that mistakes were made. The university was unprepared for this, and everybody was sort of slow to get out of their chair and realize how serious this was, and maybe didn't realize that until she was dead. I'm not sure that any institution can really fully prepare for a sociopath coming on their campus

and targeting one of their students. I don't think there's anything you could have done to prevent a homicidal maniac from coming on campus and killing someone. If that had happened in a vacuum, but it didn't. You knew about him. You knew who he was. You didn't know everything about him, but you knew what she was telling you. And you, I don't mean you specifically, but you as a representative of the university, you didn't do anything.

I think that's a very harsh critique. It's a critique that's yours to make. The report recognized that campus police did some things well, like helping Lauren retrieve her car. The review was critical of an understaffed campus police force that was not trained to recognize or deal with relationship violence. Did no one understand that extortion and looking in the window and harassing texts, that that's all sort of part and parcel of relationship violence or at least the potential for it?

Obviously, it was not put together in a way that made the difference that would have possibly prevented this. Remember, even though they knew Roland was a registered sex offender, campus officers never checked his parole status. How could your campus police department not check to see whether this guy was on parole? I don't know the answer to that question. I don't know why that didn't happen. The sense I get is that each one of these things was sort of taken as its own separate incident and that no one ever kind of put them together into a threat that was kind of growing.

You know, hindsight is always 20-20. It is, I think, a correct assessment that all the pieces of the puzzle were never put together. At all levels of university life, Lauren McCluskey's death has had a profound effect, sometimes institutional, sometimes personal. There are no words to express how sorry I am at the loss of this precious child. No words. There's nothing I can say to apologize significantly to have meaning, but we are truly sorry. You want to take a minute? I wish people could know how hard it's been. I'm sure that I wish people could understand. I'm sure this is exactly the thing

that you least wanted to happen. Since our story first aired in June 2019, much has happened. The university police chief retired in October of that year. The officer assigned to investigate Lauren's extortion claims was later found to have inappropriately shown off the explicit photos involved to his colleagues without a work-related reason. By the time that was learned, that officer had already left the force. Others were fired. University of Utah President Ruth Watkins says she's resigning. Then University of Utah President Ruth Watkins,

who shockingly said Lauren's death could not have been prevented, stepped down in the spring of 2021. The questions about how Lauren's case was handled never went away. The university says it has implemented the recommendations in the review to improve student safety and gone further, appointing a chief safety officer, overhauling the school's safety apparatus, adding specialized employees like social workers who can deal with relationship violence. In October 2020, the university settled a lawsuit brought by Lauren's parents, agreeing to pay the McCluskeys $10.5 million. The university acknowledges and deeply regrets that it did not... At the time, President Watkins finally acknowledged

the university did not handle Lauren's case as it should have. As a result, we failed Lauren and her family. Lauren's parents say their goal was always to get the University of Utah to start thinking differently about student safety, hoping other parents will not suffer as they have. The parents deserve to know that the university is going to do the very best job they can to protect their student. And that is not only increasing a budget or hiring a person, but it's going to be a cultural change where, in fact, they really embrace what went wrong and embrace responsibility. Under the settlements, the university paid another $3 million directly to the Lauren McCluskey Foundation,

which funds campus safety efforts across the nation. Remember, Lauren. The McCluskeys pledged their settlement money to the foundation, which also champions a pledge called Lauren's Promise, 11 words that professors, students, and law enforcement officers at more than 300 campuses so far have endorsed. It reads, I will listen and believe you if someone is threatening you.

There's nothing that I can do for Lauren except to honor her memory and maybe prevent some other parents from going through this. If colleges look at Lauren's case and make some changes, then maybe... That's what my great hope is, is that it will then lead to some very common sense, much-needed changes at colleges. Big price to pay to get that far. Yeah, too big of a price. At what should have been Lauren's graduation, other students looked to the future. It didn't stop her family and friends from thinking about the past.

I would love to hear her voice again. I would love to hear her laugh. I told people I won the kid lottery. And she was such a part of our lives that I would talk to her at least every day. She was a genuine person. She was super fun. Like, she lived to be with people and to just engage. And it was amazing. That's all for this edition of Dateline. We'll see you again Friday at 9, 8 central.

And of course, I'll see you each weeknight for NBC Nightly News. I'm Lester Holt. For all of us at NBC News. Good night.