she does. she sounds like she s worried that this guy is out there and nobody is looking for him and nobody is really taking her seriously. that sort of what i hear in her voice? sure, absolutely. was lauren scared enough to pay the thousand dollars. 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. the campus police understand that? take it seriously? they kept saying, it s a scam, it s a scam. police seemed to think rowland s phone could ve been hacked to get the photos. and that both lauren and her ex might be targets of a scam. so, the attitude of the campus police is, they re both being victimized here? this is a scam using his phone number and her photo. yes. but this is not him victimizing her?
tribune newspaper, courtney tanner was the reporter on duty that night. she heard the police scanners butter. just heard some crackling, some possible kidnapping. on campus. reporter: she drove to the campus and found a parking lot cordoned off, students at their windows. i talked to a couple people who did not have any idea what was going on but had seen police. they were scared. shots fired. reporter: the university sent an alert to students, shooting on campus. secure in place. hours later, confirmation of the worst news possible. they said that the student had been killed on campus. reporter: the university released photos of the suspect, melvin rowland. the victim was a named. but lauren s friends knew. i was like, yeah, it has to be lauren. i knew it. reporter: it was. after all the calls to police, all the steps she took to
just there already. but she clearly seemed very happy about her relationship with this person. but lawrence parents, hundreds of miles away in washington state, new 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 shawn s back 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. lawrence friend alex said that she was put off by shawn s behavior when she and lauren went back to the bar when he where he was working. he was like, don t hurt forget pick-me-up at two in the morning. don t fall asleep. don t fall asleep. he said it jokingly, but i could tell that he was serious. in other words, 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 a
you know? with the relationship. then something more ominous. lauren told her friends shawn wanted to give her a gun for her protection. that immediately that was the first trigger. i was like, all. a trigger because diamond was then working for the universities housing department. at the time, she was lauren s resident assistant, living in a nearby building. which in any kind of danger that she would need again? not that i know of or just when i m with her, no. we never thought that meghan 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 still has to be concealed. so, you have to have a license for that, which means 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 was it would ve been against the rules. yes, it was. and it would been something you had to report? yes. and that s what i did. diamond says she called her superio
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. 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 9-1-1. my daughter is at university of utah and she just called us and it looks like she s being attacked. it sounds like he was being attacked. reporter: at the salt lake