Firm releases findings on MU swimmer’s suicide, rape claims

The independent firm released their findings on Friday about how the University of Missouri handled the Sasha Menu Courey case. The former swimmer claimed she was raped by a university football player before killing herself in 2011.

In mid-February, the UM board of curators hired the independent Dowd Bennett Law Firm to review the school’s response.

Investigators found the university should have taken action on the information it had in November 2012. They found steps by officials, including the general counsel’s office, were not consistent with the government’s guidelines on Title IX, the anti-discrimination law covering sexual violence. The Title IX coordinator and police should have been notified, and an investigation should have been started.

The firm also concludes MU employees and officials who saw the Columbia Tribune article in February 2012 should have given the new information to the Title IX coordinator. The article said Sasha had written in her diary about a sexual assault at the end of her freshmen year.

Dowd Bennett could not prove Sasha told anyone about the alleged attack while she was alive besides medical personnel, who can not disclose the information because of confidentiality rules. That conclusion also applies to a phone call made to a former MU staff member, Meghan Anderson, who was in a restaurant at the time.

A full copy of the report can be found here.