By SARA LENZ and EMILY JAMES

When Camille Cleverly was reported missing on Sept. 1, 2007, Brittanie Thayne, a member of Cleverly’s ward, was at the opening BYU football game. She received a text from her friend and thought it might be a joke, but it wasn’t.

“Holy cow, this is real,” Thayne said about finding out Cleverly hadn’t been seen for a couple of days.

That night, Thayne went to work with her ward searching for Cleverly, who many hardly knew. It was the beginning of the semester, but Thayne told her professors she would not be attending classes to assist in the search.

Thayne’s ward volunteered with the search party, printed out fliers and worked around the clock during the week sending out search groups. That next Sunday, she and other volunteers found out through the media that Cleverly’s body had been found near Bridal Veil Falls in Provo Canyon, where she had fallen during a hike.

Cleverly’s case is similar to the other 251 missing person cases reported to BYU police in the last 20 years in that almost all are closed. But, unlike Cleverly’s case, the majority of reports of missing persons at BYU involve children who are with groups visiting campus, said Lt. Chris Autry, who is in charge of investigations at BYU.

Autry said when this type of case is reported, the BYU police have the ability to broadcast on every radio on campus, regardless of the department. The police work closely with nearby jurisdictions like Provo, Orem and the highway patrol, depending on whether the person was riding a bike or driving a car when they went missing.

“With a missing child who is lost from say the Boy Scouts or a sporting event … the youth group has come to, most of those we were able to locate within just a few minutes and many times they are located before the first officer even responds,” Autry said. “So most of our cases are unfounded by the time we get there. They’ve already been solved.”

In the past year the Cleary Act, which deals with guidelines for how schools report campus crime, was amended. The amendment, which related to missing persons, states “institutions that maintain on-campus housing must establish a missing student notification policy for students who reside in on-campus housing and have been determined to be missing for 24 hours.”

Although this law only applies to on-campus housing, BYU police respond immediately to all cases called in, said Lt. Arnold Lemmon, police information officer for BYU. These cases include missing BYU students, missing BYU employees or missing visitors on BYU campus. Lemmon said it was easy to implement the law because BYU already takes immediate action with every case they get.

“We treat every one as if it is the most important thing we’ve got going,” Lemmon said.

When the police first get a call, they send an officer to the scene. The officers look at different scenarios of why the person went missing: accident, homicide, suicide, abduction or escape. First, they begin by gathering all of the information they can about the person that will provide clues as to where he or she is. This includes obtaining their financial accounts, interviewing co-workers, talking to past and current boyfriends or girlfriends, questioning roommates and looking through the missing person’s room.

“If you don’t want your life to become public, don’t go on a date or whatever and then show up four or five days later, cause we’re going to be hunting you,” Lemmon cautioned.

Lemmon said roommates should work with the police but not try and do their own searches.

“We don’t want roommates going and just randomly searching for them, especially if it’s in areas that require some skill,” Lemmon said. “We don’t want to end up searching for two people, then three people.”

Sometimes cases do go out of BYU’s jurisdiction and are taken over by the city or county police. In Cleverly’s case, BYU police worked hand-in-hand with other agencies in Utah because she lived off-campus. With the help of Provo police, BYU attained a security camera video of Cleverly at a local gas station the day after she was last seen. This helped direct their search.

“They were very cooperative and very much involved and very concerned,” said David Knell, a BYU senior who participated in the search for Cleverly. “Whatever their role was, they did it very well.”

After being involved in the search for Cleverly, Knell offered some advice to college students to help keep them safe. He suggested students let their roommates know where they are at all times, especially if they are away for an extended period of time.

Knell also recommended giving contact information of roommates to parents. This way if a parent cannot reach their child because they are studying or out with friends, the parents can check with roommates before calling the police if they are worried. Students should also give their parents’ numbers to their roommates, Knell said.

He said the search for Cleverly was overall a great experience for all those involved.

“We were very unified,” Knell said. “We were working hard, really, really hard for this common purpose … you need that positive communication and feedback and strength from each other.”

Lemmon has been working at BYU and with campus police for 30 years and said he cannot remember a BYU missing persons case which has not been solved.

“Nothing’s lost until you can’t find it,” Lemmon said.



Copyright Brigham Young University 2 Jun 2009