Campus Alert Archive
UofSC

'Last Seen at 715 Harden St. b/w 1:30 & 2:00': The Missing-Person Alert That Turned Into a Murder Investigation

SCmissing personmissing studentmedium confidence
Confirmed Threat

On the night of March 29-30, 2019, 21-year-old University of South Carolina senior Samantha Josephson disappeared from Five Points in Columbia after mistakenly entering a black Chevy Impala she believed was her Uber. Columbia police issued a missing-person alert Friday night naming her last-known location at 715 Harden Street between 1:30 AM and 2:00 AM. By Saturday afternoon her body had been found in a wooded area of Clarendon County, and 24-year-old Nathaniel Rowland was charged with kidnapping and murder. Josephson's death triggered a national 'What's My Name' rideshare-safety campaign and the federal Sami's Law.

Alerts
2
Response
—
Killed
1
Injured
0
Institution
University of South Carolina
Public R1 · SC
~35,000 studentsCarolina Alert
Confirmed Timeline

Alert Sequence

2 messages in sequence · 1 verified verbatim

Some alert texts below are approximate reconstructions from news coverage, not confirmed verbatim transcripts. Reconstructed texts are shown in italic with a dashed border. Verified verbatim texts have a solid border and are marked accordingly.

INITIAL ALERTTwitter/X
Verified verbatimCBS News quoting the Columbia Police Department missing-person tweet verbatim208 chars
#CPDSCInvestigates | Missing Person Alert: 21-year-old Samantha Josephson was last seen by friends at 715 Harden St. b/w 1:30 & 2:00 this morning. Loved ones have not been able to make contact with her since.
The alert was issued by the Columbia Police Department, not the University of South Carolina's Carolina Alert system — UofSC did not push a campus-wide Carolina Alert for an individual missing-person case
The hashtag '#CPDSCInvestigates' is the Columbia PD's standard incident-tracking tag
The address '715 Harden St.' is the location of Bird Dog (a Five Points bar) where Josephson and friends had been the night before
The phrase 'b/w 1:30 & 2:00' (between 1:30 and 2:00) is preserved here verbatim as the abbreviation Columbia PD used in the social-media-character-limit alert
FOLLOW-UPEmail
Approximate reconstruction663 chars
I write with the heaviest of hearts to confirm the death of Samantha Josephson, a senior political science student at the University of South Carolina. Samantha was reported missing earlier today after she did not return to her residence following a night out with friends in the Five Points entertainment district. Our prayers are with Samantha's family and friends at this difficult time. The University encourages every student to download the RAVE Guardian safety app and to verify the make, model, and license plate of every rideshare vehicle before entering. Counseling Services and the Office of the Dean of Students are available to support our community.

This text has been reconstructed from news coverage and may not reflect the exact original wording.

President Harris Pastides confirmed Josephson's death the morning of March 30, 2019 in a campus-wide message and television appearance
The reference to RAVE Guardian and rideshare-verification was not in the immediate confirmation; UofSC encouraged the safety app heavily in the weeks following
This message represents the institutional voice of UofSC's response — a student-life communication rather than an active-threat Carolina Alert
Context

Background

Samantha Josephson was a 21-year-old senior political science major at the University of South Carolina from Robbinsville, New Jersey, who had been accepted to Drexel University Law School and was scheduled to graduate in May 2019. On the night of March 28-29, 2019, she had been at Bird Dog, a bar at 715 Harden Street in Columbia's Five Points entertainment district, with friends. She left the bar around 2:00 AM EDT on March 29, ordered an Uber, and shortly after entered a black Chevy Impala that was not her assigned ride. The driver, 24-year-old Nathaniel Rowland, allegedly used child-safety locks to prevent her from leaving the vehicle. Her friends reported her missing later on March 29; the Columbia Police Department issued a public missing-person alert that evening. Around 4 PM EDT on March 30, hunters found Josephson's body in a wooded area of Clarendon County roughly 65 miles southeast of Columbia. The autopsy by the Kershaw County coroner's office determined she had died from multiple sharp-force injuries. Rowland was arrested early March 30 and charged with kidnapping and murder. He was convicted on July 27, 2021 after just over one hour of jury deliberation and sentenced to life in prison without parole. Samantha's parents Seymour and Marci Josephson founded the What's My Name Foundation to promote rideshare safety, with a four-step protocol: review the app's safety features, ask the driver 'What's my name?', match the make/model/plate, and share trip details with a friend. Federal Sami's Law — requiring rideshare drivers to display illuminated identification — passed the U.S. House unanimously in July 2020 and was signed into federal law. The case is included in the archive because it documents the public missing-person alert format used by Columbia PD and the UofSC institutional response, and because it illustrates the limits of campus alert systems for incidents that occur in the off-campus residential entertainment district while still triggering campuswide grief and policy reform.
Analysis

Key Findings

The missing-person alert that triggered the search was issued by the Columbia Police Department, not by UofSC's Carolina Alert system — UofSC does not typically push a campus alert for an individual missing-person case
Josephson's body was found approximately 14 hours after her last sighting; she had died from multiple sharp-force injuries
Nathaniel Rowland was convicted on July 27, 2021 after just over one hour of jury deliberation and sentenced to life without parole; the SC Court of Appeals upheld his convictions for murder, kidnapping, and possession of a weapon during a violent crime on August 21, 2024
The case prompted the 'What's My Name' rideshare-safety campaign and federal Sami's Law (HR 1237), passed by the U.S. House in July 2020
The verbatim Columbia PD missing-person tweet is preserved here, including the abbreviated 'b/w 1:30 & 2:00' format used in the character-limit social media alert
Outcome
Samantha Josephson was kidnapped, murdered, and her body discovered in a wooded area of Clarendon County by hunters around 4 PM EDT on March 30, 2019 — approximately 14 hours after she was last seen. Nathaniel David Rowland, 24, was arrested and charged with kidnapping, murder, and possession of a weapon during a violent crime. He was convicted of all three counts on July 27, 2021 after just over one hour of jury deliberation and sentenced to life in prison without parole; the SC Court of Appeals upheld the convictions on August 21, 2024. The autopsy showed Josephson died from multiple sharp-force injuries. Her death prompted USC to launch the 'What's My Name' rideshare-safety campaign and led to federal Sami's Law (HR 1237), unanimously passed by the U.S. House in July 2020 to regulate rideshare-driver identification.
Provenance

Sources

  1. Source
    Murder of Samantha Josephson (Wikipedia)
    en.wikipedia.org
  2. News
    Samantha Josephson: Missing college student confirmed dead in South Carolina (CBS News)
    cbsnews.com
  3. News
    24-year-old man charged with kidnapping, murder of UofSC student Samantha Josephson (WIS-TV)
    wistv.com
  4. News
    Slain South Carolina college student may have mistaken suspect's car for Uber (NBC News)
    nbcnews.com
  5. News
    Friends Search For Missing University of South Carolina Student (FITSNews)
    fitsnews.com
  6. News
    Cause of death revealed for USC student (FOX Carolina)
    foxcarolina.com
  7. Student Paper
    Murdered USC student's father says more ride-share education is needed (Carolina News and Reporter)
    carolinanewsandreporter.cic.sc.edu
  8. News
    TIMELINE: The death of UofSC student Samantha Josephson (WIS-TV)
    wistv.com
Tags
missing-personhomicidesouth-carolinauofscfive-pointssamantha-josephsonrideshare-safetywhats-my-namesamis-lawverbatim-confirmedoff-campus-incidentpolicy-reform
Added May 2026Updated May 2026Via ingestion