Utah campus cop showed off explicit photos of murdered Pullman track star
SALT LAKE CITY — A new report from the Salt Lake Tribune shows that a University of Utah campus police officer showed off explicit photos of Lauren McCluskey to his coworker shortly before her murder in 2018.
McCluskey, a Pullman native and senior track athlete at Utah, went to campus police after being blackmailed by someone, later confirmed to be her ex-boyfriend Melvin Rowland, who was threatening to release explicit photos of her unless she paid him $1,000. She paid the money, and provided the images and texts to campus police for evidence.
The Salt Lake Tribune reports that the officer assigned to the case, Miguel Deras, saved those images onto his personal phone, and even bragged to another coworker about getting to look at them whenever he wanted.
This occurred just days before McCluskey’s murder on October 22.
The University of Utah says they were not aware of this abuse of evidence until after Deras’ departure in late 2019.
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