On February 9, 2025, 18-year-old CU Boulder freshman Megan Trussell disappeared from campus.

Megan was last captured on CU surveillance video at approximately 9:50 p.m. near Folsom Field. The video shows her still on campus. CUPD later reported checking numerous additional campus cameras but could not locate her again.
Megan remained missing for six days.

Her family was told she may simply be staying with friends. No campus-wide alert went out asking thousands of CU students and employees whether they had seen her. Potential witnesses visible around Megan in surveillance footage were not publicly asked to come forward while their memories were fresh.

Megan was found dead on February 15 in Boulder Canyon.
Her case has left CU parents with questions that go far beyond what happened to one student.

If campus security cameras fail, who knows they have failed?

How quickly are they repaired?

When a student disappears, how quickly is surveillance footage identified and preserved before it can be overwritten?

What triggers communication with the campus community?

Who is accountable when those systems fail?

Parents send their children to CU Boulder expecting reasonable systems to be in place to protect them. No university can eliminate every danger. It can make sure its safety systems work and that a missing student is treated as a missing student.

We are asking CU Boulder and the CU Board of Regents to conduct and publicly report the results of a comprehensive review of:

-campus security-camera functionality, monitoring, 

-maintenance and repair;
surveillance-video retention and immediate preservation procedures when a student is reported missing;

-missing-student response protocols, including when the campus community is notified and asked for information;

-coordination between CUPD, university administration and outside law enforcement;

-procedures for identifying and interviewing potential witnesses captured on campus video;

-and the specific changes CU Boulder has made since Megan's disappearance.

We also ask CU Boulder to publicly report how many campus security cameras were not operational during the period Megan was missing and whether any potentially relevant footage was unavailable, lost or overwritten.

This isn't about promising parents that nothing bad will ever happen at college. No university can make that promise. It's about what happens when something does.

Megan's disappearance exposed questions about CU Boulder's systems that parents deserve to have answered.

We are asking CU Boulder to answer them publicly and fix what needs to be fixed.