(SALT LAKE CITY) — Utah corrections and parole officials have launched investigations into the handling of the case of a sex offender who killed a University of Utah student he had briefly dated while he was on parole, Gov. Gary Herbert said Thursday.
Action will be taken if the internal reviews determine mistakes were made, Herbert said Thursday during his monthly televised news conference at KUED-TV. The investigations will be internal reviews by the respective agencies, according to Herbert’s office.
“Clearly in hindsight, we’re going to say, ‘You should have done this, you should have done that,’” Herbert said.
He noted, however, “You never know when these things are going to occur.”
Authorities say Melvin Rowland, 37, fatally shot Lauren McCluskey, 21, on campus Monday and later killed himself.
The victim’s mother, Jill McCluskey, said her daughter had broken off her monthlong relationship with Rowland after learning he had lied about his name, age and criminal history
Campus police had been investigating a harassment complaint filed against Rowland by McCluskey before she was killed.
Kaitlin Felsted, a spokeswoman for the Utah Department of Corrections, said police didn’t make parole officers aware of the complaint.
University of Utah police chief Dale Brophy has declined to provide details about the complaint. He and other university officials are expected to speak at a news conference later Thursday.
Herbert said he’ll let university officials decide if it’s necessary to review actions by campus police.
Rowland was paroled in April after telling the parole board that he was a changed man after being a peer leader in prison had helped him tap into his empathy and learn to follow the rules.
He spent nearly a decade in prison after pleading guilty in 2004 to trying to lure an underage girl online and attempted sex abuse charges, according to court records.
After he was charged, a woman came forward to report he had sexually assaulted her after a separate online meeting a few days earlier.
Rowland, a native of New York, was twice sent back to prison for parole violations that included possessing pornography and failure to complete therapy.
He blamed his “thinking errors” for the actions that kept sending him back in prison, according to recordings of five parole hearings from 2010 to 2018 released this week by the Utah Board of Parole and Pardons.
He said at a hearing in 2012 that he was a womanizer who manipulated women to get what he wanted.
Hundreds of students attended a vigil Wednesday night to honor McCluskey, a senior from Pullman, Washington, who was majoring in communication.
