S25 Ep13: Chapter 3: Help Me

Summary

Podcast Summary: Something Was Wrong

Host: Tiffany Reese (Broken Cycle Media)
Episode: S25 Ep13: Chapter 3: Help Me
Date: March 5, 2026

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Overview

In this deeply affecting episode, "Chapter 3: Help Me," the podcast investigates what happens when a university’s brand is threatened after a high-profile student athlete is accused of rape. Through the firsthand account of Marissa, a Utah Valley University student, listeners learn about her sexual assault at the hands of a well-known University of Utah football player, the subsequent institutional betrayal she experienced, and the long, painful fight for justice and recognition against a backdrop of cultural, religious, and athletic privilege. The episode candidly explores issues of gender roles, survivor support, community responses, the Title IX process, and the additional barriers victims face when their assailant is an athlete.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Dark Side of College Athletics & Title IX

• [01:00 - 05:11] Tiffany Reese presents a data-driven introduction, noting that while Title IX has expanded athletic opportunities for women, statistics show male athletes are disproportionately involved in campus sexual assault cases.
  • Quotes findings from various studies showing athletes, despite making up a small fraction of the student population, perpetrate a much higher share of sexual assaults on campuses.
  • Discusses studies indicating that public perceptions and "celebrity status" often shield perpetrators and vilify victims.

Marissa’s Story: Early Life & Campus Culture

• [05:40 - 14:00] Marissa introduces herself, her childhood in Utah, and the LDS (Mormon) religious environment that stressed male authority and left her unprepared for crisis.
  • Describes moving from a sheltered upbringing to college, herself as a social, high-achieving student unfamiliar with navigating trauma.
  • Highlights the lack of sexual assault education or clear protocols for support on campus:

    "I had an expectation for what I thought college would be...I was never spoken to about what to do in a situation like this, where to go." (Marissa, 08:48)

Relationship with the Assailant ("SL")

• [11:37 - 15:21]
  • Marissa narrates how she met "SL" in high school, maintained a distant, non-romantic relationship, and recounts his concerning behavior at a wedding (drunkenness, being picked up by police and told he had a “bright future”).
  • Illuminates the informal protection and warnings given to promising athletes even outside the university context.

The Assault

• [19:52 - 39:00]
  • Marissa describes the night of the assault—a group hangout that turned as her friends left her alone with SL. She details her escalating discomfort, explicit boundary-setting, and ultimately being overpowered:

    "I was just really wanting to make sure that my friend was safe and that she was taken care of." (Marissa, 24:59) "I continuously was trying to tell him, slow down, stop... But he wasn't listening." (Marissa, 34:40) "At that point I left my body. I had probably said no and stop 40 times." (Marissa, 36:40)

  • She runs from the house, contacts friends, and learns from them that SL verbally confirmed his awareness that she said no.

Friends’ Perspectives

• [25:59 - 44:26]
  • Sarah and Jane, Marissa’s close friends, recount their observations of the night and its aftermath—Sarah recalling Marissa’s distress and her own regret at not recognizing the severity sooner:

    "She did pull me aside before and she said, make sure I do not go in a room with him...I think we already kind of knew that he could be a little pushy in ways when he wasn't sober." (Sarah, 30:06) "In the time I've known Marissa, I had never seen her like that before...so to see her that shaken up...felt very big." (Sarah, 41:04)

Navigating the Aftermath: Hospital, Police & Title IX

• [44:26 - 57:07]

  • Marissa’s friends guide her to the ER for a rape kit (CODAR), but she’s wrongly told by hospital staff she must pay thousands of dollars unless she presses charges.
  • Importance of victim advocates and knowledgeable support is underscored. Eventually, she learns that rape kits are state-funded.
  • Describes the excruciatingly invasive physical exam and the trauma of repeated retellings for authorities.

  "It's so important that you have a rape kit. And I will forever be indebted to her for that." (Marissa, 47:48) "Victims who go forward in sexual assault cases, they don't win...They are completely torn apart publicly." (Marissa, 50:54)

  • When meeting with her own college’s Title IX office, Marissa encounters apathy and insensitivity:

    "He proceeded to tell me that he didn't really think I had a case with police... He kept telling me, you look like you're doing well. And I remember being so hurt by that because I was dying inside." (Marissa, 54:16) "He told me that probably my best route would be to turn it into the University of Utah so that they can scare him so he won't actually violently rape someone next time." (Marissa, 55:16)

  • No follow-up, counseling, or support from the school; she highlights how easy it is to give up in the face of bureaucratic barriers.

Family Support

• [57:07 - 61:07]
  • Marissa’s parents step in to advocate, provide emotional steadiness, and help push the process forward.

    "When I did finally end up telling my mom, she just cried with me. And it was really hard for her at first...she started really advocating for me." (Marissa, 58:35) "Because I had support from my family and friends I was able to keep...But people who don't have that...I could easily see how someone would be discouraged from moving forward." (Marissa, 59:40)

Institutional Responses & Accountability

• [61:07 - 63:27]

  • The University of Utah notes in its official statement that, upon learning the athlete’s identity, he was suspended and eventually pled guilty, but the university disclaims liability as the attack was at a private residence.

  • Utah Valley University declines to comment on individual Title IX cases but affirms commitment to safety.

    "The university had no involvement or control over the party at the football player's parents private residence...The University cannot be liable under Title IX." (University of Utah statement, 61:42)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

Institutional Betrayal

• “When institutions protect their image, who protects the student? And if Title IX promises equity, why does justice feel so uneven?”
  — Tiffany Reese, [04:58]

Survivor Realities

• “Victims who go forward in sexual assault cases, they don't win. …they are completely torn apart publicly.”
  — Marissa, [50:54]

• "He proceeded to tell me that he didn't really think I had a case with police... He kept telling me, you look like you're doing well. And I remember being so hurt by that because I was dying inside."
  — Marissa, [54:16]

Peer Support

• "She did pull me aside before and she said, make sure I do not go in a room with him. I don't want to be alone with him."
  — Sarah, [30:06]

• "She was very emotional. She kind of just explained to me in more depth what exactly happened in that room with SL and then I told her what Jay had told me about his conversation with SL and how SL had pretty much admitted to Jay that he knew she wanted to stop, and he didn't stop."
  — Sarah, [43:16]

The Aftermath

• "I was there for over six hours. After they finished the exam, the victim advocate handed me a folder of different things that could help me, different resources. And the first thing that she told me to do was to go talk to my college. There's what's called the Title IX office."
  — Marissa, [52:48]

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Important Timestamps & Segments

• [01:00] – Introduction: Title IX, college athlete sexual assault stats
• [05:40–14:00] – Marissa’s background, Utah/LDS context, college life
• [19:52–39:00] – Detailed account of the assault and immediate aftermath
• [44:26–50:43] – Hospital, rape kit process, police involvement, systemic failures
• [50:54–57:07] – Title IX process, institutional apathy, family support
• [61:07] – Official statements from both universities
• [63:27] – Teaser for the next episode: police and university mishandling, failures in case management

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Tone & Language

The episode maintains a candid, somber, and ultimately empowering tone, with Marissa’s narration alternating between raw vulnerability and resolute advocacy. Tiffany Reese’s hosting is direct and empathetic, offering context and support without overshadowing the survivors’ voices. All language remains consistent with the speakers’ perspective and the gravity of the subject matter.

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Conclusion

This episode of "Something Was Wrong" provides a harrowing but vital exploration of the compounded trauma faced by student survivors when their assailant is an elite athlete embedded in an insular and image-conscious culture. It highlights critical gaps in college support systems, the resilience of survivors, and the importance of advocacy—both personal and institutional. The narrative, rooted in Marissa’s experience, challenges listeners to reexamine how justice and support for victims are delivered in collegiate settings where PR can override student safety.

Transcript

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[Tiffany Reese]

Something Was Wrong is intended for mature audiences and discusses topics that may be upsetting. Please consume with care this season discusses sexual, physical and psychological violence. For a full content warning, sources and resources, please visit the Episode Notes Opinions shared by the guests of the show are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Broken Cycle Media. The podcast and any linked materials should not be misconstrued as a substitution for legal or medical advice. The University's responses to our outreach for comment are included within our reporting this chapter thank you so much for listening. When it was passed in 1972, Title IX began to transform the landscape of American athletics by prohibiting sex based discrimination in any federally funded education program, including school sports. Although the law does not specifically mention athletics, it has been impactful as opportunities for girls and women expanded dramatically in the decades that followed the passing of Title ix. As a result, athletics became both a battleground and a symbol of Title IX broader fight for gender equality in education however, the statistics of sexual assault show us a dark side to college athletics. A study by Dr. Koss based on national data from 2015 concluded that male athletes were involved in roughly one third of all reported sexual assaults committed on college campuses. Previously, a 1996 study using official records from 10 Division 1 collegiate institutions concluded that while athletes constitute 3.3% of the college population, they perpetrate 19% of all sexual assault on campus, end quote. And as a 2005 U.S. department of Education Higher Education center publication reports quote athletes account for less than 2% of the total college student population, but that 2% represents 23% of all sexual assault assailants and perpetrates 14% of the attempted sexual assaults on campuses. End quote Many victims of athlete perpetrated sexual harassment or assault face an added layer of scrutiny amidst their journey to justice. The public's opinion a 2024 study by Dr. Meyer highlights that when a well known perpetrator is involved, public recourse surrounding sexual assault vilifies women and allows celebrity status to protect male transgressors by tapping into gendered cultural contexts of rape myths and hympathy. End quote on college campuses, athletics are often the front door of the university brand. In chapter three, we examine what happens when that brand is threatened. Marissa, a student at Utah Valley University, experienced a devastating assault by an acquaintance who at the time was a well known football player at the University of Utah. And although her rape was devastating, the institutional betrayal Marissa describes while seeking support from both universities was equally as detrimental. Still, Marissa persevered, seeking accountability through every route possible, engaging the criminal courts, the civil courts, Title IX, and even the media. As a result, she would learn all too well that when an athlete is accused of rape, public reaction can become quickly polarized. Many people cast doubt on the accuser and defend the alleged perpetrator due to fame, perceived status, or a parasocial loyalty. When institutions protect their image, who protects the student? And if Title IX promises equity, why does justice feel so uneven? I'm Tiffany Reese and this is Something was wrong.

[Marissa]

You think you know me. You don't know me well at all. You don't know anybody till you talk to someone

[Sarah]

foreign.

[Marissa]

Hi, my name is Marissa. I was born and raised in Utah. Back in 2019, I was raped by a college athlete that I thought was my friend. After the assault, I was extremely vulnerable and confused. I was informed about my rights and the systems put in place for victims and hopeful that they would help me. My purpose for telling my story is to bring awareness to the failures that I encountered while working within those systems. It is so important to me that I am able to help victims understand their rights and the options that they have when deciding what to do after an assault. I want to make sure that survivors know they are not alone and just truly how much their voices deserve to be heard and that their voices do matter. Because my case was made so public, I feel the responsibility to speak on this and to help other victims and survivors. This is a painful story for me to tell, but I am in a unique position where I am able to tell it and I do feel an obligation to do so so that I can spread awareness. I grew up in Utah. I Grew up LDS or as most people know it, Mormon. It's pretty much all I've known for my whole life. And I think that in Utah, we live in a bubble. Things that happen outside in the world are not talked about as much. And there are things that are very nuanced. Rape is one of them. I sort of grew up thinking that men could do no wrong in the LDS religion. Everyone who is high up in the church, most of them are men. They've done better now. But growing up, that's how it was. I think that most of the direction that I took throughout my life was from men. I always had the impression that men were trustworthy and that men had the best intentions and that what men said was Bible, basically. And I know a lot of people around me who also grew up in Utah, not even necessarily in the church, felt similarly. Your job as a woman is to be there for men. It's common everywhere, but especially here in Utah, people get married very young and women don't always graduate from college. They take that role as being a young mom, and that gives a lot of control to men. I think in a lot of ways, if you have a good man, it works out. But I think if not, it's a very confusing avenue for a lot of women to go down and to try to relearn and re understand who they are and how they should be treated and the rights that they have. I think growing up here has been a blessing in some ways. I feel like I have been sheltered from a lot of things that happened, but it has also been a huge curse because when this did happen to me, I had no idea where to turn or what to do. It wasn't until I went through this experience and I had experiences with the universities and with different people who were meant to help me that I really realized the severity of what happens, even in Utah, even in the Mormon religion. Things that I saw in movies and meetings I had with counselors in high school, I had an expectation for what I thought college would be, the way I would be advised and how I would be helped through my degree. I was never spoken to about what to do in a situation like this, where to go. And so I just think along with signing up for your college classes and doing all these things, I also think it would be super helpful to have information on what you could do if something bad happened and prepare for the worst.

[Tiffany Reese]

You ended up ultimately attending Utah Valley University, which is in Orem, Utah. What made you choose that school specifically?

[Marissa]

Growing up, my whole family went to byu, which is a LDS school here in Provo, Utah. UVU was sort of the closest thing to BYU without the grades and the test scores that you had to get into byu. And it was always seen as a little bit easier. I knew I didn't really want to go to BYU because I didn't want to be super in that scene. I had a lot of friends who were at both UVU and byu. I would say I was a very social person even when I wasn't living down here, Orem. I was down here every weekend hanging out with friends and doing things.

[Tiffany Reese]

What would you say the college campus culture is like in general? Was the LDS population at the school pretty high?

[Marissa]

Yeah. Most people down Here are LDs and those who aren't, they all know about LDs, about the values and the culture here. I think there was a lot of people who were not making choices that aligned with the LDS faith. I had gone to a lot of parties with student athletes, both of UVU and byu, where they were drinking and they were doing things that the LDS faith doesn't really condone. I think especially if you grew up lds. Everyone has a time in their life where they find their faith or they find that they don't believe in a higher power or whatever it is. Everyone's just trying to figure out what they believe in. And being a young adult, they're trying to figure out their interests. They're away from home for the first time and they're trying to figure out who they are. When I went into college, I kind of went back and forth with my major and what I wanted to do. Eventually I landed on media public relations and I wanted to actually do sports media, to either be a sports announcer or be PR behind a sports team. We have a couple sports teams here in Utah, but I was willing to move. That's the major that I was in when my assault happened. And because of the nature of my assault, that all changed pretty quickly for me.

[Tiffany Reese]

When did you first meet sl?

[Marissa]

I did know SL while he was in high school. He was a little bit younger than me and we had a mutual friend and I was invited one time to go over to his parents house to watch a boxing fight. So that's the first time I got introduced to him. After that we were just kind of acquaintances for years. He graduated from high school, he went on to play football at Stanford, and I would hear about him through our mutual friend as we were catching up with life. We followed each other on social media, but it was always kind of distant. I thought of him, sort of like a little brother in a sense, but more distant than that because we didn't communicate a lot. It wasn't until this mutual friend was getting married that I had more contact with him. It's the rehearsal dinner before the wedding the next day. His whole family was there, but we were sitting at a separate table away from his family. They had sat him next to me with his little name card. And that was the first time I really talked to him in person for a long period of time. He was asking me questions like, why aren't you married yet? Because in Utah it's very common to be married by the time you're 21. I just remember kind of joking with him and saying, I just haven't found the right person. That's when I really started to notice things getting a little bit more flirty. He had a little flask under the table that he kept pouring into his drink. And he did tell me that he didn't want to sit by his family because he was intoxicated and they didn't agree with his choice to drink. I could tell that he was intoxicated. He was slurring his words a little bit. As the rehearsal dinner came to a close, he asked me if I could take him home because he didn't really want his family to know that he was drinking. I agreed. I had to go to the tanning salon before it closed for the wedding the next day. And he was telling me he didn't want to go home yet. So he came to the tanning salon with me and he sat there while I got my tan. And then I took him to his parents house and I dropped him off. That was that. Until the next morning I woke up and I had several missed calls from him, more than 10. I called him and I said, what's going on? And he said, I'll tell you at the wedding. When I showed up on the wedding day, he walked up with sunglasses on and he just looked tired and a little bit haggard. So I asked him what happened and what was going on. And he told me that the night before when I dropped him off, he actually didn't go inside. And he proceeded to walk somewhere. He wouldn't tell me where it was. He didn't tell me a lot about the in between. But he said that a police officer found him on the side of the road without his shirt and without his shoes and picked him up and drove him back home. The way that he explained it to me was that the police officer told him that you are sl and you have a bright future ahead of you and so I'm not gonna do anything to you today. But he needs to be safe and needs to be careful and he told me he went in and a couple hours later he had to get up and come to the wedding. After the wedding, he started to message me a little bit more on Instagram. He would respond to my stories with heart eyes. Several of his messages went unanswered because I always felt like he was a little brother. Because he was so much younger than me and because of the relationship I had with our mutual friend, I didn't view him in a romantic light. I didn't want to hurt his feelings, so I would respond on occasion, but there was no serious interest there.

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[Marissa]

The next time I saw him was at an on campus party at the University of Utah, which is where he attended. I was picking up one of my friends there to drive her home. It wasn't until later that day that I found out that as I Was walking up to the party, he saw me and he had two bottles of alcohol in his hands. And he handed them to another one of my friends and said, take these, Marisa's coming and I don't want her to know I'm drinking. Because he did know that I was LDS and that I didn't drink. We had a conversation about one of my other friends who wanted to hang out with one of his teammates and then another one of my friends who was actually talking to one of his teammates. We made a plan to all hang out one day. We communicated a little bit over text about what we were going to do and the plans that we were going to have. I felt like it was pretty clear that we were hanging out for my friend and for his teammate to kind of get to know each other. And I thought because of the mutual friend that him and I had together, we both had an understanding that this couldn't go farther than being friends. Clearly he didn't realize that I was very much a person that never wanted to make someone feel bad or embarrassed or I was shutting them down on anything. This was a really hard situation for me, which I also attribute to my upbringing and not wanting a man to feel less than because of me. To my understanding, the night was going to be just a group hangout with all of us. The football players had had a game and when the football game ended, that's when we started communication. And it was mostly at this time me communicating with SL because my friends didn't want to text the other players because they knew I was already communicating with him and they kind of wanted to make it seem like an accidental. We were downtown and SL told us to meet them at a party on campus. I was driving that night. We got to the party and I called him and he wasn't answering. And then he called back and he told me that he was actually driving home to his parents house. Keep in mind, he did tell us that he was driving and I know he was intoxicated that night, so he was driving under the influence. He told my friends and I to go meet him at his parents house, that they were going to do a little party there. SL had told us that at the house no one else was there and that his parents were allowing him to throw a party for his birthday. There was a lot of alcohol at the party. I knew that he had substance issues and I knew that his family was also lds. I was so confused why they would allow alcohol in the basement and why they were allowing this loud music. But he said it's because they were out of town. I was with my two friends, Sarah and Olivia. There was probably seven other football players at the house. And then me and my two friends, we were all just kind of hanging out. It was a casual thing from the get go. He was not making sense. He wasn't putting together proper sentences. And we could just tell something was off with him. But we attributed it to he's been drinking. And we just kind of went with it. My friend Sarah was trying to hang out with another athlete. We'll call him Jay. And he wasn't there. And so we were all confused because that was sort of the purpose of what we were doing. My other friend Olivia, the football player she was hanging out with, was there, and they were just kind of shooting the breeze. But really we were waiting for Jay to get there. And as the night went on, still no Jay. And so we went up and told SL that we were gonna leave and that we were ready to go. At this point, it was almost midnight, and obviously we were tired. It had been a long night. That's when he really started to act weird. He told us that he was gonna go call Jay. The mood and the vibe of the night had really died down. A lot of the football players had left. My friend Olivia, the football player she was talking to, he had left, and she had actually gone to FaceTime. A friend out in the car, S.L. came back, and he told us that Jay was on his way. Stick around a little bit longer. Once we knew that Jay was on his way, we went to the car to be with my friend Olivia. My friend Sarah was putting on perfume, getting ready for Jay to be there. We're just talking about what our plan is for the night. Olivia had said that she needed to go around the corner to pick up another girl who needed a ride. Sarah didn't want us to leave her there, and so I told her I would stay with her. I knew Jay a little bit, and so I felt like I could break the ice. But I told Olivia that when she came back, even if I'm not responding to your text messages, please come inside and please come get me, because I don't want to get stuck in any situation that I can't get out of. Obviously. Looking back now, this seems like a little bit of foreshadowing, but at the time, I was anticipating that maybe I would get in a situation with SL where he wanted to kiss or he wanted to cuddle, and I wasn't ready to do that. And I knew because he was not coherent, that it would be really hard to turn him down in that way because I didn't know what he was going to try. My friend Olivia said that she would be gone for just a couple minutes and then she would get me. This would give me the ability to talk with Sarah and Jay and get them comfortable and then I could go. The issue was that when Jay came, he came without a car. Someone dropped him off. And so it was going to be my job because I was the driver for the night to take him home after the night was over. And at this point, it's 12:31 o'. Clock. That's when kind of my nerves started. I realized that I was going to have to be there for a while. And I actually sent a text to my friends in our group message and I said, don't leave me alone with sl. Please come right back in when you get here. I was not anticipating anything like what happened could have happened at this point. I was just really wanting to make sure that my friend was safe and that she was taken care of.

[Sarah]

My name is Sarah. I know Marissa from high school. We have known each other for about 13 years now and have stayed friends ever since. Marissa is one of the most giving, kind, selfless people that I know and that's actually something that drew me to her all those years ago. She is a really, really good friend. She's always there for her other friends. Just a super reliable, great person. We hung out a lot. She was one of my best friends and we were spending most weekends together.

[Tiffany Reese]

How well did you know sl?

[Sarah]

I knew SL from high school. I had hung out with him a couple times. It had been a couple years since I had seen him, so not super well. But I was familiar with him. He did not have a great reputation. I think he was at Stanford and transferring to the U. I didn't think he had a great reputation, but I felt like maybe Marissa knew him better than I did.

[Tiffany Reese]

What did you understand or know about the relationship between Marissa and Sleep?

[Sarah]

I know that they had kind of texted here and there, but it felt more friendship. Like to me especially because he was like a few years younger than her. Maybe a little flirty here and there, but definitely more like friend vibes.

[Tiffany Reese]

SL's friend Jay, who was also supposed to be at this party that night. It sounds like somebody you had a crush on.

[Sarah]

Yeah. So we hadn't officially met before, but we were messaging on Instagram and would kind of just respond to each other's stories here and there. So that was the first time that we were planning to hang out, we were just there for a party. We were like, oh, let's see if he wants to come. Because we had talked about hanging out.

[Tiffany Reese]

What do you remember about discussing with Marissa going to this function and what was your guys impression of how the night was supposed to go?

[Sarah]

We had gone to a previous party before, but then we had heard that these guys were going over to SL's house and so we were like, oh, let's just go over there. We were mostly just trying to meet new people, hang out and see where the night took us. I had been there a couple times before in high school. It was a pretty big house. We just parked out front, went inside. It was kind of weird when we walked in and we felt like there were more people in the house asleep. It was definitely confusing. And then everyone was down in the basement. Once we went downstairs, there was like music playing and there was more going on down there. Some people were watching a movie, some people were like on the sports court playing basketball.

[Tiffany Reese]

What was SL's mental condition like when you arrived and throughout the evening?

[Sarah]

He was definitely off. We saw people drinking and so I thought maybe he was just intoxicated, but he was definitely acting strange. You know when you look in someone's eyes and they just like feel off and kind of foggy. I had heard that maybe other substances were being consumed, but for the most part everyone was drinking. Marissa did not drink, she was never a drinker. But most of the guys that were there were drinking and most of the other people there. We usually didn't hang out with Utah football players. And so it was kind of a new experience altogether. I was down in Provo, so definitely a different dynamic. But I did feel like it just felt kind of off and awkward. I kind of attributed it to not knowing any of them.

[Tiffany Reese]

Besides sleep, did you witness any in person interactions between Marissa and SL that night that flagged to you before the assault?

[Sarah]

She did pull me aside before and she said, make sure I do not go in a room with him. I don't want to be alone with him. So I felt like she was a little bit hesitant and maybe she felt like things were off. And something about him is. I think we already kind of knew that he could be a little pushy in ways when he wasn't sober. So I think that we already caught our guard up.

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[Tiffany Reese]

Here's Marissa again.

[Marissa]

The way the house was laid out. We were in a theater room and there was a front row and a back row. A lot of the football players had left and my friends Sarah and Jay were on the front row and me and Sl were on the back row. We were in separate seats, but he definitely started getting a little bit handsy. He's putting his hands on my legs and all the while still not making sense. I had obviously been around drunk people a lot at this time, and so I thought I could just make a joke of it and handle it that way. His room was attached to the theater room. He had started asking me if I wanted to go to his room and I kept repeating no. Like I want to stay out here with Sarah. I want to make sure she's comfortable and okay. And he keeps telling me, I know Jay, he's a good guy. She'll be just fine. Let's just go to my room and talk. I said, no, let's just stay out here, watch the movie for a little bit longer. But eventually, after so many times asking, I agreed and we went to his room and it just has a little sliding door. It's not even like a door that closes. It just slides with a tiny little opening. We were in there, and I turned around and I sat down on the bed. And when I looked up at him, he was already taking off his shirt. And at this time, there is so much going through my head, I am not even considering still that something so horrible was going to occur. And that's when he pulled my legs up and laid me back on the bed. He took off my pants, and immediately he said, I've been waiting so long for this. At this point, I'm still kind of taking it lightheartedly, but I am getting very nervous. My heart starts to race. And this is when the assault begins. And immediately I tell him that we cannot have sex. Sex was definitely my line. And I felt so much pressure and anxiety at this point. I just remember repeating to him over and over, we not have sex. He reassured me over and over, who says we're having sex? We're not going to have sex. Relax. Relax. And then the assault continued, and he continued to push it farther and farther. I thought that if something like this had ever happened to me, I would have been a fighter. But my body definitely shut down on me. I continuously was trying to tell him, slow down, stop. Slow down, stop. And he kept telling me, you have no idea how long I've been waiting for this. Relax. Nothing bad's gonna happen to you. I'm not gonna let anything bad happen to you. To me, this was a huge red flag because I already said nothing was gonna happen. We had already communicated that. Then he started to get more physical. I remember sitting up on the bed, and he would pull me back down, and he would find different ways to try to have sex with me. I would get up, and he would pull me back down. It didn't really feel like he was listening or that I was even in the room with him. I kept trying to communicate to him, stop, no. But he wasn't listening. Eventually, he ended up on top of me with his arms under my arms, holding me down. And that's when the longest portion of the rape occurred. And that's when I started speaking really loudly and saying, stop. Because I thought that my friend Sarah would hear me and that she would come in. No one came in. At that point, I left my body. I had probably said no and stop 40 times. And he just kept saying, what's wrong? What's wrong? Relax. He even told me that he loved me twice. And because of the nature of our relationship, that's why it felt like he wasn't talking to me because there was no previous interaction that would have given him a reason to say that. After some time passed, he had thrusted back. That's when I rolled to the side a little bit and he rolled over. And that's when I got up and I started to frantically put on my pants. Keep in mind, this whole time, my shirt stayed on and we never kissed on the lips. I grabbed my pants and I grabbed my shoes and I ran. I remember the first thing I saw when I opened the sliding door was a football player asleep on the couch. I looked back at him, and he was frantically putting on his pants and trying to get his clothes on. I ran up his stairs and I ran out the side door. I am running down this cul de sac. I'm trying to call my friend who was supposed to be right around the corner, and I can't even verbalize what's going on. I am so in shock. I tell her something bad happened immediately. She said, I knew it. I had such a bad feeling. She said, I'm just around the corner. I'm coming up. I'm continuing to run down the cul de sac. And she's coming up the street in my car, and I hop in the passenger side. She's asking me what happened. And I'm crying, and I'm trying to explain to her what's going on. And I keep saying, I tried so hard to get him to stop, and he wouldn't stop. And I don't understand why he didn't stop. We drove up the street because we still had my friend Sarah, who was up at the house. Sl was running down the street after me. My friend cracked the window down, and she said, will you please go get Sarah? And he said, what's going on? Is she okay talking about me? And my friend said, just go get Sarah, please. So he goes back in to get Sarah. Sarah comes out to the car, and we have a conversation about what happened. She's so confused, and Jay is not in the car. And she said, we have to wait for him. He's over talking to Sl. I'm asking Sarah what happened, and I was yelling for her, and she said that they had gone upstairs and they walked into a room and that his little brother was sleeping. So his parents weren't out of town. They were home while this was going on. And that was just quite shocking to me. Jay came out to the car, and we started driving, and he asked me, are you okay? And I said, yeah, I'm just tired. And he asked me One more time. And I said the same thing. And I was just kind of turned in towards the window. I didn't want him to see me crying. I was still so in shock from what had happened. I was so not in my body. We took Sarah and Jay to Sarah's car. They left, and then I went home. By the time I got home, it was probably five in the morning. And I went into the bathroom and I turned on the bathtub because the bathtub is like my comfort place. I stepped in, I sat down, and immediately this voice told me, you gotta get up. So I got up, and luckily I didn't use any soap. I didn't clean up or anything, even though I felt disgusting. And I went to bed. I woke up in the morning and one of my friends who was there the night before had texted me and said, I think we should all meet up and I think we should talk about what happened. So we go to our friend's house. I'm explaining the whole situation. I'm asking my friend Sarah if Jay said anything. And she says that she heard someone run up the stairs and slam the side door. And then five, 10 minutes later, SL came in and said, hey, Sarah, Marissa's ready to go. She's waiting for you outside. And Sarah explained it that as she walked out of the house, S.L. was sitting at a table with his head in his hands. And he said, hey, Jay, can I talk to you for a minute? And Sarah was just standing there kind of in the background, just waiting for them to talk. And S.L. said, Can I talk to him alone? So that's when Sarah came out to the car and Jay stayed back to talk to sl. And when Jay and Sarah got back to Jay's apartment, that's when he told her that he had talked to Sl. And SL Said that he was freaking out because I said that I didn't want to have sex. And he did it anyways, and he was really stressed. I think that has been a huge driving force for me throughout this, that conversation, because I tried to make so many excuses for him, thinking maybe he was too intoxicated and he didn't know what he was doing, or maybe he thought that I felt a specific way about him. But I always come back and ground myself on that conversation. He knew what he did.

[Tiffany Reese]

Here's Sarah again.

[Sarah]

Jay and I were upstairs hanging out, and I heard someone come up the stairs and completely rush out of the house and slam the door. Just a few minutes later, I was getting calls from her. She was very shaken up. She Was telling me to come outside, and it was time to go. After she had called me, Jay and I walked outside. He didn't have a car, so he was coming with us. When we left, I went and got in the car. She had told us that SL pushed her further than she wanted to be pushed, and she was saying, no, no, no, and he wouldn't stop. In the time I've known Marissa, I had never seen her like that before. Just very emotional. She was just very stressed. She is a very nonchalant person, and she's very like, everything's okay. Be positive. So to see her that shaken up and that emotional and making a big deal out of something felt very big and like something serious happened. There was a short period of time before Jay got in the car, and that's when SL pulled Jay aside and was pretty much telling him how stressed he was about what had just happened. Jay had told me about that conversation later that night.

[Tiffany Reese]

Did you hear directly anything that was said back and forth, or were they too far away for you to make out what they were saying?

[Sarah]

They were too far away for me to make out what he was saying, But I definitely saw his body language, and he seemed very stressed and seemed panicked. And then it was just like an hour later that Jay had told me what S.L. had said. He told me that S.L. was very stressed and that he and Marissa had done things that she didn't want to do and that he was feeling really anxious about it because of the way she reacted and the way she stormed out of the house. He was in, like, full panic mode. When Jay told me about it, he was kind of nonchalant about it. He was like, SL told me this stuff. I think Jay told me that kind of lightheartedly, not knowing that it was going to be such big evidence later on.

[Tiffany Reese]

Did you talk to Marissa the next day?

[Sarah]

Yes. She was still very shaken up. She was very emotional. She kind of just explained to me in more depth what exactly happened in that room with SL and then I told her what Jay had told me about his conversation with SL and how SL had pretty much admitted to Jay that he knew she wanted to stop, and he didn't stop. I realized how serious it was that next day. I had already felt the seriousness of it that night, but I was kind of like, oh, I'm sure she'll be fine. And that's why I didn't even spend the night with her. Which now, looking back and we've had conversations about this, I feel like a really awful friend for not Staying with her and going to the hospital with her and just being there for her through that. But that next day, I think I realized that she was going to need some serious support through all of this.

[Jane]

My name is Jane and I met Marissa in high school actually through Sarah. We became good friends. Towards the end of my high school experience. I would describe Marissa as loyal, supportive and loving. She has helped me through a lot of really hard times and always has good advice and has been there when I've needed her. We didn't always live very close. I actually lived like a plane right away for a portion of college. So that distance, we didn't talk quite as much. But when I moved back home, we actually lived together for a portion of my college career. And we were good friends. We spent a lot of holidays together and hung out on the weekends.

[Tiffany Reese]

How well did you know SL Prior to the assault?

[Jane]

I didn't know him too well. I met him through a friend probably a year beforehand. We talked a little bit. I noticed the way that he texted was extremely thin, forward and like really lovey dovey. He texted multiple times in a row, pet names and stuff like that. I'd only met him once or twice at that point. We actually did go on one date, but it didn't really go anywhere, Wasn't really interested. And then about a year later, this happened. I wasn't there the night of, but the morning after I got a call from Olivia and she said something really bad happened last night. SL raped Marissa. We don't know what to do. And I remember being horrified obviously by that news and scared and sad and hurt for Marissa. I called her after getting off the phone with Olivia. I actually felt fortunate because one of my older sisters had been an advocate for the Rape Recovery center for a couple years at that point. And I knew what she did and how things worked with the Rape Recovery Center. So I talked to her after I got off the phone with Marissa. Obviously I didn't say Marissa's name, but I said, what do we do? She said, first things first, you're going to want to go to the hospital. So I told Marissa, I think we should go to the hospital.

[Tiffany Reese]

What was her emotional state when you saw her at the hospital?

[Sarah]

I think she was in shock.

[Jane]

It was pretty obvious that she hadn't been able to grasp what had happened. I specifically remember her talking to the lady that was checking into the hospital and she had a hard time even saying the reason she was there. Like it seemed impossible or not real that that was the reason that she Was there. I mean, we were there for hours just waiting for the forensic nurse to get there to be able to do the exam. And then the exam itself required very invasive procedures and things that I was upset that Marissa had to go through all over again. I mean, no one wants to do that on a normal day. So the fact that she had just endured. She had the night before, it was really upsetting to watch her have to go through that.

[Tiffany Reese]

Here's Marissa again.

[Marissa]

I knew that another one of my friends had a sister who was a victim advocate for rape victims. She would go to the hospital while victims were getting their CODAR kits, which is also called a rape kit. She was also just such a supportive friend. And I called her, and she immediately told me that I needed to go to the emergency room. She said, whether you press charges or not, it's so important that you have a rape kit. And I will forever be indebted to her for that. The night after everything had happened, I went into the hospital and I started the CODAR process. This doesn't mean that you have to press charges, but the police do have to come. When I got there, it was sometime in the evening. My friend Olivia, and then my friend who had the sister who was the victim advocate, they both came with me. They were sitting in the emergency room with me. And the hospital registrar came up. She's the one who talks to you about how much things are going to cost and how much you're going to have to pay. And she's just kind of registering you into the system. She tells me the cost of everything, and the cost for the rape kit was $4,000. And my friend who was there with me said, she doesn't have to pay for that. Someone else pays for that. And she said, no, unless you press charges, you have to pay for the rape kit out of pocket. And I think for some reason, this is when a lot of everything hit me. I became super upset. I was trying so hard to do the right thing and do what I was told to do. And I was a college student. I couldn't fork up $4,000 for this. I was beyond inconsolable at this point. And she was so callous. She was so just like, I'm sorry, it's the law. And my friend is sitting there like, marissa, I know you don't have to pay for this. I don't know why you don't, but I know that you don't. And at this point, the victim advocate hadn't shown up to the hospital yet. And my Friend Olivia stepped out of the room and made a phone call. And when she came back in, she said, I'm sorry, this is gonna make me emotional. But spoke with my dad, and he said that he's going to pay for your rape kit and that you really need to get this done. I have been so moved by that all these years later. And it wasn't until later the victim advocate came and she told me that the state actually does pay for rape kits. And that's something that I really want every victim to know, that you are not responsible for a rape kit. After that, the police showed up and they do an initial intake. They do their first report. And so I'm repeating everything that I remember, trying to tell them all these things, which is just so traumatizing in and of itself. It's not even a day later. And they said, do you want to press charges? And I said, I'm not sure yet. I need to really think about this. They said, well, the process is after this. A detective will contact you, and you can move forward with pressing charges or you can close the case.

[Tiffany Reese]

Was there a part of you that felt more hesitant because of his position in school sports? Did it make you fearful that there would be more pushback because he was an athlete for the school?

[Marissa]

There were a few reasons why I felt hesitant. One, being, yeah, that he was an athlete. Two, being that he was adopted into a pretty affluential family here in Utah. Utah is small. And I knew that once I went through with this, that there was obviously going to be a lot of rumors swirling. And I think then when someone is in a position of being a student athlete, there's even more input from people that don't even know you or know him or know the situation. So I was pretty worried about that. And obviously, you hear about how hard going through the justice system processes. And I was so naive to the process, but I still knew it would be hard, and I knew that most likely I wouldn't be believed. I just think it's important to say that victims who go forward in sexual assault cases, they don't win. And I don't mean that they don't win in the justice system. I don't mean it that way. I mean that they are completely torn apart publicly. Even if charges do end up going through, they still have people who are not going to believe them. They still had to go through this horrible process, and they had to go through a rape kit that is so invasive and so demeaning in so many ways. A sane nurse came in they're the nurse that perform the CODAR kits. And she was God's gift to the world. She was the sweetest woman. She began the rape kit. It is super traumatizing. They take swabs of your body, of your mouth, of all of your private parts, and then they do an internal pelvic exam. And it's a super invasive, super sensitive process. And they take pictures of any bruising, and they also take your statement. I was already so sensitive from the rape that having the internal exam and even the outer exam, it was beyond painful. And they try so hard to make it as gentle as they can, but it was a super rough experience. I was there for over six hours. After they finished the exam, the victim advocate handed me a folder of different things that could help me, different resources. And the first thing that she told me to do was to go talk to my college. There's what's called the Title IX office. And they are supposed to help with an array of different things. They would be able to give me resources to help my emotional state and that they would also be able to walk me to my car after school so I felt safe. They'd be able to email my professors so that I could have extra time if I didn't think that I was going to be able to. To do school after such a traumatic event. She basically was explaining them as someone that's really just supposed to help me. They will give you your next steps. After the hospital, I called. I made an appointment with UVU's Title IX office. This was the first thing that I did. The detective hadn't called me yet. Initially, going into the meeting with uvu. I didn't bring anyone with me because I thought these people were there to help me. I was very wrong about that. I went into UVU's Title IX office and I went into a room with a man and a woman who was standing in the back. I told him what had happened. And I'm always putting on a brave face. I am not really able to cry in front of people. It's just not something that my body lets me do. So I'm explaining it to him. Very matter of fact. I was telling him, I don't know what the best route to go is. I don't know if I should go talk to the police. I don't know if I should just go talk to his family. He proceeded to tell me that he didn't really think I had a case with police and that because I don't live on the UVU campus, There's not a lot that they can do for me. They said because he was a University of Utah student, that they didn't think it was necessary for anyone to walk me to my car to make sure that I was safe. He kept telling me, you look like you're doing well. And I remember being so hurt by that because I was dying inside and I needed so badly someone to help me. I tried to voice that to him as much as I could. And I said, I think I'm just in shock from this all, and I really need help. I need someone to tell me what to do and how to figure this out. He told me that probably my best route would be to turn it into the University of Utah so that they can scare him so he won't actually violently rape someone next time. And I remember looking at the girl behind him. We both made eyes, and she made these big eyes. Like. He just said that after that, my body kind of shut down. That's when I said, okay, sounds good. And he said, would you like us to email your professors and tell them to give you more time? And I said, that would be great. They didn't even offer counseling services or anything like that. All the pamphlets that they're supposed to give you. He didn't speak of any of that. I didn't understand at that time that's what he was supposed to be doing, that he was supposed to be offering me these resources. I just think that that's really dangerous, especially in these situations, because at any university, but especially here in Utah, the community is small. Everyone knows everyone. If anyone wanted to find out my school, my address, any of these things, it would be so easy for them. So for him to say that he didn't think I was in immediate danger walking to my car after class at night, that's not for him to say. He didn't know enough information. And I think that's also a big point, is that they don't take in nearly enough information to get the context behind what's going on, to make the choices that they make. I think that so much of the damage is these things that you can't necessarily see. I think that for him to say that they need to stop him from violently raping someone next time, first of all, no bedside manner. And second of all, like, it's just an inappropriate thing to say.

[Tiffany Reese]

Why do you think he took that approach?

[Marissa]

I do think it was partially because he was an athlete, but I also think that he took the points that I said about it not being on campus. That I don't live on campus and that he doesn't go to our school. He realized, oh, not my problem. And so I think that that was the biggest thing. And he very much was trying to pass the buck on to someone else. Even though I was a full time student. And the hard thing too is I was a very normal student. I didn't ever ask for anything. I was just behind the scenes trying to do what I needed to do to graduate. That's my biggest qualm with all of this is there were so many roadblocks. And not just roadblocks like walls that I didn't think I was going to get through. And there were so many times that I wanted to quit. I started to feel pretty hopeless. I was never reached out to by my university ever again. There was no follow up, there was no asking if things were okay, how my semester was going. There was no message from even my advisor. When I met with uvu, my parents hadn't known yet about the assault. I was trying to figure out what my options were and what I was going to do. I've always been a person that wanted to have it all together. I didn't want to hurt them in a sense. Like I didn't want them to think that I was this broken person. I ended up telling them after the meeting with my college, I should have told them first thing, but you just don't know in the moment. And it's hard. Like my mom is my person. And so going to the emergency room and sitting in there without her and doing all those things without her was so hard. But at the same time, I felt like me telling her something like this would completely break her heart. When I did finally end up telling my mom, she just cried with me. And it was really hard for her at first. She had no idea what the process was like, who she needed to talk to, what she, she could do to help. We did have a long night. I think it was almost the whole night where we stayed up and we cried together and talked about it. The next day she woke up and she started calling people and she started really advocating for me. And honestly, I couldn't have gone through this process without her. I know that not everyone gets that. And that makes me really emotional to think about because of how big of a part she played in it. And then my dad, I was a little bit worried about him because you know how dads feel about their daughters and how protective they are. But he was the exact same way. He just stepped into gear. He really kept his composure and put his anger towards helping me in the ways that I asked for. And I feel really lucky that I have the family that I do because of how helpful they were throughout this process because I had support from my family and friends I was able to keep and I had people who were advocating for me. But people who don't have that, who are at school out of state, their family isn't around. I could easily see how someone would be discouraged from moving forward with anything. At every single turn that I hit. Once I told them and I wasn't so worried about them maybe finding out from somewhere else, I definitely felt a lot more fight inside of me. It also added a little bit of confusion because they also felt so strongly about different things that I needed to do. We had discussed like every single avenue we had discussed the universities, the police, even going to my perpetrator's parents and having a conversation with them. They had their own opinions about what I should do. And so in that way I think it made it a little bit confusing, but it also made it so much easier for me to feel confident to go talk to the University of Utah because this happened and there needs to be something done about it.

[Tiffany Reese]

The following is University of Utah's reply to our request for comment. Utah Valley University student Marissa Root reported being sexually assaulted by a University of Utah football player at an off campus party in 2019. After Root made an initial report to the University of Utah's Office of Equal Opportunity, staff repeatedly reached out to her to try to ascertain the name of the perpetrator. When the University of Utah learned the alleged perpetrator was football player Sion Lund, he was suspended and removed from the team. Lund pled guilty and was sentenced in 2023. This is a tragic case with far reaching implications for everyone involved. We hope Marissa and the people who love and support her find opportunities for healing from this traumatic experience. The University remains committed to engaging in work to prevent violence from happening in the first place and fostering a trauma informed community where students feel safe, supported and heard. As Judge David Barlow noted in his March 3, 2025 ruling, the university had no involvement or control over the party at the football player's parents private res. Additionally, reliance on the 2019 Players Policy Manual's general instruction that football players should treat women with respect both on and off campus does not mean that the University has control over the context of virtually every off campus location in which one or more of its athletes attend a private party. Because this record does not supply the required nexus between the University and the off campus party at a private residence. The University cannot be liable under Title ix. End quote. Utah Valley University responded to our request for comment with the following statement. Tiffany in compliance with privacy laws and institutional policy, the University does not comment publicly on individual cases handled through the Title IX process as those proceedings are confidential to protect the privacy and rights of all parties involved. The safety and well being of our campus community remain our highest priorities. End quote. Coming up on Something Was Wrong.

[Marissa]

One of the players who was there the night of the assault, he was one of their star athletes. I had mentioned him and that he was there and immediately she perks up and she's like, he wasn't the one that raped you, was he? And I said no. And then she literally said, oh good. My mom had called the police captain at the Special Victims Unit. He says, okay, so your daughter is Marissa? And she said yes. And he said, okay. So is she wanting to open an investigation on this? What do you mean do I want to open my case? We've been doing this for a full year. I'm not trying to throw her under the bus.

[Sarah]

But that's literally all I had was

[Marissa]

four entries in Marissa's case file. Like literally each report was like four sentences. I completely understand why you guys are frustrated because this case should have been closed a year ago.

[Tiffany Reese]

Thank you so much to each and every survivor and guest for sharing their experiences with us. And thank you for listening. Something Was Wrong is a Broken Cycle Media production created and executively produced by Tiffany Reese. Thank you endlessly to our team, associate producer Amy B. Chesler, social media Marketing manager Lauren Barkman, graphic artist Sarah Stewart, and audio engineers Becca High and Steven Wack, Marissa and Travis@WME AudioBoom, and our legal and security partners. Thank you so much to the incredibly talented Abiomi Lewis for this season's gorgeous cover of Glad Rag's original song you Think youk from their album Wonder Under. Thank you to music producer Janice JP Pacheco for their work on this cover recorded at the Grill Studios in Emeryville, California. Find all artists socials linked in the episode notes to support and hear more. If you'd like to share your story with us, please head to SomethingWasWrong.com if you would like to help support the show. You can subscribe and listen ad free on Apple Podcasts. Purchase a sticker from our sticker [e-mail], share the podcast with a loved one or leave us a review. Want to stay up to date with us follow us on Instagram and TikTok. Omethingwaswrongpodcast. As always, thank you so much for listening. Until next time, stay safe, friends.