Georgia college murder has PSU students questioning safety of their own campus
By Lilli Weir
PITTSBURG, Kan. – On Feb. 22, 2024, 22-year-old Laken Hope Riley was found dead by the University of Georgia running trails after going on a jog alone. She was taken into the woods in plain sight and murdered by someone from off campus. This has Pittsburg State University students questioning the safety of the trails on their own campus.
Kiana Saintpierre, Pittsburg State senior, often goes for runs by herself on the campus trail and never questioned the danger of doing so—until now.
“I know there is crime on campus,” Saintpierre said, “but everything I have heard about is smaller things, like people stealing bikes or stuff out of cars. What happened to that girl makes me think to myself now, though—am I as safe as I thought?”
The 2022 Kansas Crime Index stated that there were 38 crime index offenses reported by the Pittsburg State University Police Department in that year. Thirty-seven of those offenses were logged under property crime, all being under the theft category. There was one violent crime offense, which fell under the rape category, reported in 2022.
Current students at the University of Georgia are frustrated with their university, saying that if they didn’t get rid of the emergency telephones across their campus and its trails that Laken Hope Riley still might be alive today. The emergency telephones that the University of Georgia got rid of are the same ones that Pittsburg State has had functioning across campus for more than five years.
Stu Hite, Pittsburg State University chief of police, said the campus police department and university have no intentions of getting rid of the phones across campus anytime soon.
“We rarely, if ever, get calls from those emergency phones,” Hite said. “But it has never been a thought in our minds to get rid of them because we see them as a deterrent for anyone who is even thinking of doing anything to someone on our campus.”
Hite hasn’t seen a murder involving a student at Pittsburg State since 1996, when 20-year-old Carrie Williams was stabbed to death by a 40-year-old neighbor and classmate who had been on parole for a separate murder he committed in 1977.
“That case was one that had several unique factors,” Hite said. “I truly don’t see something like that ever happening on our campus again. With that being said, I still want our students to be smart and trust their intuition. If you see something suspicious or you feel unsafe, please let me or the campus police department know.”
