Police have closed a rape investigation that involved University of Missouri football players and a Missouri swimmer who committed suicide several months after she told a friend and mental health professionals about the alleged incident.
The Columbia (Missouri) Police Department announced its decision Wednesday in a news release, more than 13 months after "Outside the Lines" reports prompted the investigation, stating, "After over a year of following leads, reviewing evidence, and taking multiple statements, CPD Detectives have been unable to identify a suspect in the case."
Police cited "several obstacles" during their investigation, including Sasha Menu Courey's death in June 2011, a lack of evidence, uncooperative witnesses and the lack of a clearly identified suspect. "Although several people have speculation on the identity of a subject who may have sexually assaulted Sasha, there is no information available to clearly establish that this person actually committed the act," the release states.
Yet supplemental materials attached to the report show that police were provided the name of former players suspected to have been involved in the alleged assault. One, Gil Moye, admitted to police, as he did to "Outside the Lines," that he had sex with Menu Courey on the February 2010 evening in question, but that it was consensual. Another player was named by Moye as having left the room where Menu Courey was allegedly sexually assaulted.
Rolandis Woodland, a former receiver who was friends with Menu Courey, also implicated the second player as being in the room with Moye that evening. Woodland said he knew that was the case because he saw a video of the alleged incident in which players were "switching up" on Menu Courey.
Reached by "Outside the Lines" on Wednesday, Woodland criticized the police department's decision to drop the case as lack of willpower, given the other evidence in the case, including diary entries, medical records and materials that seemed to point to an alleged sexual assault.
"It's just ridiculous," Woodland said. "All I wanted was justice for Sasha and for the truth come out. We tried to do what's right and nothing came of it. The police department is saying there was a case of he said, she said. But if they wanted to prosecute somebody, they could prosecute somebody."
Columbia police said they interviewed, by phone, the possible assailant who was with Moye that evening, but he denied having any sexual contact with her. Woodland told the detective that Menu Courey had implicated that player in a letter she wrote to him shortly before she died.
Police said that Moye told them Menu Courey was crying at the foot of his bed after the former teammate left the room. "Moye went on to state Sasha asked him how he could let him (the player) do that. He advised he did not realize the player had done anything until Sasha made that remark. Moye said that whatever happened occurred within a matter of seconds."
Menu Courey's father, Mike, said of the case closure, "It's disappointing to say the least."
Columbia police spokesperson Latisha Stroer said that police did the best they could with the evidence available to them. "There was limited information from Gil Moye and what he witnessed and didn't witness," she said. "Sounds like his memory had lapses, and we didn't gather a lot of information except for a name. We can't change his memory or the fuzziness of his memory."
In the notes by Columbia Det. Brian Grove of his interview with Woodland, Woodland said the video was included in a package that he received from Menu Courey shortly after she took her life. Grove wrote that Woodland told him there was a "close-up shot of a penis going into a vagina" and that "Rolandis stated that he could hear Sasha saying, 'no.' Rolandis also stated that he was sure Gil Moye and [unnamed player] were present." According to Grove, Woodland told him that it was "too dark to make out the faces of the people involved."
However, Woodland told "Outside the Lines," "You could see faces at times, and at other times you couldn't. And you could tell by voices who they were."
Moye and the other player were roommates. Police were given the names of two other roommates. The records released do not indicate whether either was interviewed by police.
Also unmentioned in the police materials is information about what happened to 11 pages from one of Menu Courey's journals and a five-page suicide note obtained by Columbia police after an April 2011 failed suicide attempt. A department records custodian told "Outside the Lines" as it prepared its stories that evidence from that incident had been destroyed. Menu Courey's parents said no one contacted them back then to see if they wanted the materials.
"We don't really know what was in that journal and her suicide note," Mike Menu said Wednesday.
In a March 4 informational memo, Grove wrote that no forensic evidence exists, that "much of the information obtained from listed witnesses is hearsay," and that some witnesses refused to cooperate. He also noted that no video evidence could be located and her journal contained no names of suspects. Further, he stated that there were "chain of custody issues with Sasha's computer being accessed several times after her death and prior to it being delivered into police custody." He also wrote that there were chain of custody issues "with ESPN possessing Sasha's phone" and accessing its contents prior to police receiving it. (Menu Courey's parents had given her phone to an ESPN producer ahead of ESPN's reports in an effort to determine with whom she had been communicating. The producer returned the phone, unchanged, to her parents the week after the stories aired and were published.)
"We interviewed people for over a year, and we still have questions to this day," Stroer said. "We do not have the ability to interview the victim. And we just don't have any more information than a year prior. But we did conduct an investigation. It was looked into."
As for the copy of the video, Woodland told "Outside the Lines," he blames himself. He said he stored the video -- allegedly taken by the players from a closet in the room -- at the home of a family member but that it inadvertently was thrown out. The package also included a letter from Menu Courey describing the alleged assault, which he did not learn about until she passed.
"I wish I could go back in time and turn in everything [to police] when I first received it," he said. "I hold myself liable for not doing the right thing. But I was in shock, and I wasn't sure what to do with it."
Still, he questions the department's resolve in getting to the bottom of what happened. He told police that he heard several players talking in the locker room about "how Sasha likes to be filmed during sex" and that when he approached them, "everyone but Moye denied having sex with Sasha." It is unclear whether detectives interviewed the players whom Woodland named.
The family provided the detective with the name of an additional source of information. Felix Cote, a friend from Canada, told police that Menu Courey text-messaged her on what might have been the night of the event. From the detective's notes: "Felix stated that Sasha told her that she was in a dorm room with three football players and was being pressured to have sex. Felix said that Sasha told her that she was ashamed because, initially, she wanted to participate but changed her mind." Cote said Sasha told her "it was she and one person, then the two other guys came in. She stated Sasha told her that 'this is not what I want to do.'"
Cote told police that Sasha told her they kept pressuring her, and that she was hiding in a bathroom and afraid to leave. She stated Sasha told her these individuals were football players. Sasha did not provide names to Cote.
In its original reports, "Outside the Lines" said that after the alleged assault, Menu Courey's behavior became increasingly erratic, and she committed suicide in June 2011. Menu Courey's doctor told "Outside the Lines" the alleged assault aggravated an underlying mental illness, later diagnosed as borderline personality disorder.
After the "Outside the Lines" reports, University of Missouri system president Tim Wolfe initiated efforts to revamp campus treatment of sexual assault and mental health. Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill also cited the Menu Courey case in pushing for reforms on the national level regarding sexual assault of students.
On Wednesday, Wolfe and Chancellor Bowen Loftin issued a joint statement that highlighted the university's efforts and stated, "Though we cannot bring Sasha back, we can make the University of Missouri a safer and stronger place in her name. ... As a result of our external and internal reviews, we are a stronger and safer campus community, but there is more work to be done. We must be vigilant in our awareness campaigns, our education and training, and ensuring that every single member of the Missouri community can learn in a safe and secure environment."
Nicole Noren is a producer in ESPN's Enterprise and Investigative Unit.