Draper • In the months before he murdered Lauren McCluskey, Melvin S. Rowland gave the appearance of a convict who wanted to succeed at parole.
Rowland had switched jobs and phone numbers a few times and kept his parole agent informed of the changes. The 37-year-old used a dating app in May, tested positive for marijuana in August and missed some counseling appointments, but the agent opted to handle those violations of his parole conditions with warnings.
“I came down on him,” Rowland’s parole agent wrote on Aug. 15, about 10 weeks before McCluskey’s murder, “and told him to get his crap together due to missing treatment and hanging out with people that are smoking marijuana.