In March of 2019, 21-year-old Samantha Josephson was a senior at the University of South Carolina. She was mere months away from starting law school on a full scholarship at Drexel University’s law school when she was out with friends & mistakenly got into a car she believed was her Uber. Her roommates who had been out with her that night, filed a missing person’s report with Columbia police after they were unable to reach her the following afternoon.
On the night of Thursday, March 28, 2019, Samantha & her friends headed out to the popular location in the Five Points district in downtown Columbia. At approximately 2 am, now in the early hours of Friday, March 29, 2019 Samantha left the Bird Dog bar & utilized her Uber app to catch a ride home. The area gets very congested at this time of night, the streets crowded with young adults looking for a bite to eat after a night out or like Samantha, looking to get a ride home.
Samantha had come to the University of South Carolina from Robbinsville, New Jersey where she majored in political science & was getting ready to graduate in two short months. She had gone out that night with friends who wanted to celebrate the fact that Samantha had gotten accepted into law school. The night was winding down & Samantha was getting tired & just wanted to get home & go to bed. Since Samantha didn’t want to spoil the festivities for the others still out, she left the bar to call an Uber.
Soon, the Uber app indicated that the ride was confirmed & the driver was enroute to Samantha’s location. Both surveillance & phone records showed that she spoke on the phone with her boyfriend as she waited for her ride to arrive. Samantha was supposed to meet her driver to the right, but went left instead so the two never got synced up together & eventually the driver canceled the ride because he was unable to find her.
Samantha was unaware of this fact & continued to wait on the street corner for her driver. Despite the late hour, the area was still heavily populated with people coming & going & as she waited, surveillance video depicted several other rideshares coming by in that time as Samantha tried to approach those cars until she quickly realized it was not her intended car.
Each time, Samantha went back to the corner to wait for the car that was supposed to be a dark-colored Dodge. Instead, a dark-colored Chevy Impala drove up. Video later showed that this Impala had circled through Five Points for the previous fifteen or so minutes. The car circled the area only five minutes prior, never stopping or engaging with anyone, only circling the area repeatedly. As Samantha stood outside alone, the Impala did a U-turn a block away & came back around & approached the location where she stood.
As investigators reviewed the surveillance footage, it was clear that the driver had been on the hunt for a victim that night & had taken advantage of the fact that Samantha clearly believed this car to be her Uber. During her night out, Samantha had consumed alcohol, but review of the footage showed that she appeared to be in control of what she was doing. As Samantha climbed into the back of the Impala, it was the last time she was seen alive.
The darkened windows of the car made it impossible to see what was happening inside, but the car pulled away, driving in the wrong direction, away from Samantha’s apartment. It would not have taken long for Samantha to realize that something was seriously wrong, however, the driver had the child locks engaged & the windows locked making it impossible for her to escape.
Samantha lived in the Hub Columbia, a high rise apartment building downtown with roommates. When they hadn’t seen her or heard from later that morning, they initially just assumed that she had gone somewhere else for the night. As the day progressed & she still hadn’t returned, their worry began to grow. Samantha was a server at a restaurant & was scheduled to work that morning. Being a reliable employee, Samantha was never late or a no-show for her shift. Her friends utilized a “Find My Friend” app to find her location & realized that at some point in time her phone had just stopped tracking in the Rosewood neighborhood only blocks from Five Points.
Samantha’s friends went back to the Bird Dog bar in order to review the surveillance video. As they watched their friend climb into the back of the dark car, they realized it was time to contact the police. Samantha was reported missing at 1 pm that Friday, about eleven hours after she vanished. As investigators reviewed the footage, they realized this was more than a missing persons case & was instead, an abduction.
Samantha was consistently in contact with her family & called her parents on a daily basis, but that day, they hadn’t heard from her. A BOLO or be on the lookout was released & indicated that Samantha, who had been born on August 13, 1997 had dark hair, brown eyes & stood at 5 ‘7″. Police could see from the video that Samantha had gotten into a black, late model Chevy Impala, but they were unable to visualize the license plate.
Police knew that they were working against time & needed to find Samantha as quickly as possible if there was any hope of finding her alive. Investigators were later alerted to a possible suspect after her debit card or credit card was attempted to be utilized multiple times at two different banks, once at a Wells Fargo ATM at 5:45 am that was in Sumter, South Carolina about 45 miles or 72 kilometers away from campus & nine unsuccessful attempts at a location in the Columbia area. Each video recording showed the suspect wearing a hood that fully concealed their appearance.
The staff at a Wendy’s drive-through also reported that they may have seen the suspect in his car with a white sheet covering part of the headrest as well as the backseat, but there was no sign of Samantha in the car.
When Samantha’s parents, Marci & Seymour Josephson got word that their daughter was likely abducted, they immediately headed toward South Carolina, driving from their home in New Jersey. They were obviously in a complete panic & about 4-5 hours into their 11 hour drive they got a phone call from the Columbia police department & for the second time, they asked Seymour about their ETA. As he hung up the phone, Seymour’s heart sank, sure that bad news awaited their arrival.
What Marci & Seymour were unaware of as they drove was that tragically, at 4 pm that Friday, fourteen hours after Samantha went missing, two turkey hunters had been in a wooded area off a dirt road in Clarendon County, about 65 miles (105 kilometers) from Columbia, when they came across a deceased female with wounds to her head, neck, face, upper body, leg & foot.
The victim was Samantha Josephson & she was covered in her own blood. Police in that department contacted the Columbia PD requesting a photo of Samantha & they were provided with a photo from the surveillance video from the early hours of that morning when she vanished. They immediately noted that the victim wore the same clothing as Samantha wore in the video.
Samatha was laying on her back, her shirt was lifted & her platform sandals were broken but still attached to her ankles by the straps. Her fingernails appeared to be torn & broken. An earring was missing from her ear & has never been recovered. Based on the lack of blood at the crime scene, it was clear that she had been murdered somewhere else & moved to this location.
When Seymore & Marci arrived at the police department, they were escorted into a conference room & informed that a female victim had been found in Clarendon County. Due to the extent of the wounds on the victim’s body, they weren’t yet 100% sure at that point that it was Samantha, however, they were confident that it was their daughter.
Seymour & Marci recall the moment when he had to make the hardest phone call of their lives to New Jersey to tell their other daughter Sidney the devastating news that her younger sister was gone. Seymour could hear Sidney drop to the ground & begin to scream as she learned of her sister’s murder, helpless & unable to be there to comfort her.
Police vowed to the Josephsons that they would find the faceless man that drove the dark Chevy Impala who killed their beautiful daughter. In the meantime, students & residents within the community lived in fear, knowing that a predator was still out on the loose. Every available officer in the area was in the search of the dark Impala. Prior to starting their shifts, on-duty officers would watch the surveillance video from the night of Samantha’s abduction, over & over so the image was fresh in their minds.
Officer Jeffrey Kraft began his shift & decided to patrol around the Five Points area where Samantha had been abducted & circled the area for hours on end when within a couple of blocks of where she had been abducted, Officer Kraft spotted the car. It was about 2:30 am on Saturday, March 30, 2019, just about 24 hours after Samantha had been murdered.
As the lights of the patrol car flashed to life, Officer Kraft could feel his adrenaline kick in & noticed that it took a couple of seconds for the Impala to pull over. As the driver pulled the car to the curb, Kraft could see movement inside the Impala. At the time he was pulling the car over, Officer Kraft was unaware that Samantha’s body had been found & was hopeful that he would find her alive. As he approached the Impala, he immediately smelled the distinctive odor of marijuana.
The driver of the car was asked for his license & indicated that he didn’t have it on him & admitted that he had smoked marijuana earlier when he was at home. He was asked to step out of the car & was told that he had been pulled over because his car matched a car they were looking for. Within seconds, the driver who was wearing gray sweatpants & a gray sweatshirt bolted & began to run down the street & he easily out-ran the officers.
In the meantime, the officers that remained at the Impala noted a female passenger inside the car & she told them that the driver was Nate. Because of the pungent odor of marijuana, officers had reason to search the car & as they looked around, they found a set of keys with a pink key chain attached as well as a pink iPhone. When they glanced into the backseat, they could clearly see blood. Officers knew at that moment that the car was likely where the murder had taken place & they backed off & called in the crime scene unit. In the meantime, the suspect was caught & placed in handcuffs about two blocks away. The man was arrested & claimed that he was sick with the flu which prompted officers to call in EMTs to medically clear him for questioning.
The suspect was soon identified as 24-year-old Nathaniel Daniel Rowland. He was evasive with questioning & denied being in the area of Five Points the night prior & said he had attended house parties, but he was unable to provide any specific information in terms of where he was or who he had been with. He also denied being anywhere near the town of New Zion where Samantha’s body had been found. However, investigators soon learned that Rowland’s parents lived in the small town of New Zion & their home was only a mile from where her body was found.
Police were both baffled that Rowland would have been bold enough to drive his dark Impala around the Five Points area only one day after Samantha had gone missing rather than hiding out & laying low. They were exceptionally grateful that criminals tend to make bad decisions.
Only six weeks after Samantha was murdered, graduation was held & a seat was saved in her honor. Marci & Seymour were in attendance & Samantha received her diploma posthumously. When Samantha made the decision to attend the University of South Carolina, her parents were a little nervous for her to be so far from home in a different environment from the northeast where she grew up. But because they only wanted their daughter to be happy, they fully supported her decision & felt that she would be safe on campus.
As Samantha headed off to college, Seymour instructed her to utilize the Uber app with his credit card any & every time she needed to get home as a safekeeping, never fathoming it would be this very thing that would lead to her death. Realizing that college students tend to go out & stay out until the wee hours of the morning, he never wanted her to take chances & wanted his daughter to be as safe as possible. When Samantha left the Bird Dog on the night she was abducted, she did exactly what she should have done.
Police were tasked with proving that it was Nathaniel Rowland who was driving the black Impala on the night that Samantha was abducted & murdered rather than someone else who may have borrowed his car, as he claimed. Surveillance video did not prove that he was driving the car when Samantha got inside nor had the videos from the various ATMs of the masked suspect attempting to withdraw cash from her account.
The autopsy concluded that Samantha had been stabbed a total of 120 times & she had not been sexually assaulted. No DNA from Rowland was found on Samantha’s body, including under her fingernails. When Rowland had been arrested, he was wearing multiple layers of clothing which would have potentially prevented Samantha from scratching his skin directly. Police realized that it was going to be up to the State Police’s forensic team to comb the Chevy Impala for evidence that could directly link Nathaniel Rowland to Samantha Josephson.
A footprint was found on the inside of one of the backseat windows which proved that Samantha had struggled to free herself from the car. The car was processed for any & all DNA, fingerprints, hair as well as any paperwork that was found in the car. This included an eviction notice that had been written by a female friend of Rowland’s which led investigators to a home where he had been staying.
Maria Howard had known Rowland for years & at the time of Samantha’s murder, he had been regularly spending the night at her home. The day after Samantha disappeared Maria met up with Rowland & as she drove his car, he sat in the passenger seat & she noticed that he began to make attempts to clean the car. He wore rubber gloves & was wiping down the console & she saw him grab a tool that had a knife attachment & he began to clean what appeared to be blood from the blade.
Maria said that she repeatedly asked him to explain what was going on & he would only tell her to mind her own business. Police searched her home in order to corroborate her story & in the garbage outside they found valuable evidence that included the knife which contained both Samantha & Rowland’s DNA, wrapped up in plastic grocery bags as well as used wipes & paper towels, Rowland’s clothing that Maria had seen him wearing for the past couple of days which were covered in blood & a black leather jacket with markings that appeared to be from fingernails.
Because of the eviction letter found in the Impala, police were able to collect the evidence before the garbage could be picked up & taken away. They also asked Maria about the surveillance video taken from the Wendy’s where staff indicated Rowland had pulled up in his Impala with a white sheet over the headrest & backseat of his car. This was the late morning to early afternoon after Samantha had been abducted & corroborated Maria’s story when she told officers that as she got into Rowland’s car, she noticed a white sheet draped over the backseat. The sheet had been utilized to cover the blood in the backseat.
The prosecution desperately needed Maria to testify against Rowland but she was terrified for both her own life as well as her child’s. As the trial began, the prosecution knew to be prepared about the lack of DNA evidence anywhere on Samantha’s body that could tie Rowland to the crime. On day 2 of the trial, Maria Howard bravely took the stand to testify against her boyfriend, Nathaniel Rowland.
Maria indicated that the first clue that something was wrong that day was when she noticed that the visor she wore as part of her uniform for her job at McDonald’s was missing from the Impala. She remembered leaving it in the back window & when she asked him where it was, he told her that it was in the country. She asked him to explain & when he told her that it had blood on it, she asked him why & he replied, Mind your business. Each time she tried to clarify what was going on, he would continue to repeat this statement. She spoke about how she saw dried blood on the dashboard, next to the seats as well as the backseat. She also saw the sheet over the backseat which matched what the surveillance from Wendy’s captured. According to Maria, on the night of the murder, Rowland was at her house when she went to bed, but when she woke up early the next morning, he was gone.
Maria continued to text him since he was supposed to take her to work, but he didn’t respond & when he finally showed up to her house, she noticed he was wearing the same clothes that he’d worn the night before. This was when she noticed that her work visor was missing & there was blood inside the car. Rowland was supposed to pick her up after her shift, but never showed up. When Maria got home, Rowland still wore the same clothes & he agreed to take her to pick up her young daughter. This was when as she drove, she noticed that he was making attempts to clean the car. He utilized cleaning wipes that had a chemical smell like bleach & she saw him clean the knife. He told her that he didn’t want her daughter to ride inside the car because of the blood it contained.
When they got home, Rowland left & came back later with a rose gold iPhone that was in perfect condition. When she asked him where he got it, he told her he was getting it ready for her to use, but she said she didn’t need a phone. Maria admitted that when she saw a news report about Samantha’s case that featured the black Impala, she began to put the pieces together & realized that he was responsible for her disappearance & subsequent murder. She explained that she hadn’t called the police to report him due to fear for both her life & her child’s. Marci & Seymour Josephson were exceptionally grateful for Maria’s testimony & after the fact, the woman went on to receive death threats for testifying against Rowland.
On day 3 of the trial, a witness who worked at a cell phone repair shop, took the stand & indicated that his store’s cameras depicted a man who came inside on the morning of Samantha’s abduction. The customer attempted to sell Samantha’s cell phone & the employee positively identified the man in his store as Nathaniel Rowland. He said he arrived in a dark Chevy Impala & Rowland wouldn’t accept the $125 offer for the phone because he wanted more money, so he ultimately left with the phone which police later found inside his car. The witness indicated that the phone had not been registered as lost or stolen & it was unlocked which allowed him to see a photo on the phone that looked like Samantha.
The Josephsons indicated that since their daughter’s brutal murder, they could only imagine the horrific details of what her last moments entailed, but living through the trial & seeing the evidence made it so much worse than they could have ever imagined.
Investigators indicated that in the early morning hours of Friday, March 29, 2019, Samatha Josephson inadvertently climbed into the black Impala driven by Nathaniel Rowland, who did not work for Uber or any other rideshare company. At some point after the car left the Five Points area, Samantha, who had been unable to escape due to child locks on both the doors & windows, was stabbed to death by Rowland. He drove to a remote area in Clarendon County, South Carolina, about seventy miles away, where he disposed of her body in a wooded area which he was familiar with as it was only two miles from his childhood home.
The defense honed in on the fact that at the time of his arrest, no defensive wounds were located on Rowland’s body, including his face & his DNA had not been found anywhere on Samantha’s body, despite the fact that Samantha had fought her attacker based on the fact that her nails were broken & torn. They also argued that scientists couldn’t be absolutely certain that Rowland’s DNA was on the murder weapon which was the double bladed knife. The defense called no witnesses & Rowland did not testify.
During the trial, the prosecution spent a week presenting evidence & called nearly three dozen witnesses to the stand. Closing arguments were held on the sixth day of the trial & the prosecution focused on the fact that Samantha’s blood had been located all over Rowland’s car as well as on the blade of the knife he was seen cleaning inside that car. Her footprint was also found on the window inside his car.
Other evidence included cell phone tracking data that pinpointed Rowland’s location on the night of the crime. DNA collected from Rowland’s fingernails also matched Samantha’s genetic material & DNA from both Samantha & Rowland were found in the trash. Prosecutors argued that Rowland had his eyes firmly fixed on Samantha Josephson as she left the Bird Dog bar alone in search of her Uber. The jury watched the surveillance video, the black Impala first seen heading toward the Five Points area at about 1:43 am on March 29. The prosecution pointed out the distinctive custom rims on the car that could be seen circling the area, making multiple U-turns before it jumped the curb & pulled into a handicapped parking spot where Samantha then climbed in.
Forensic pathologist Thomas Beaver performed Samantha’s autopsy on March 31, 2019 & took the stand during the trial to discuss the injuries seen which led to her death. Much of the 120 stab wounds had been inflicted to the right side of Samantha’s body & some were defensive in nature. Many of the wounds inflicted by the multi-tool had produced two parallel cuts, but the majority of the wounds were single stab wounds which meant that the multi-tool had been opened & closed during the attack.
Dr Beaver explained that a typical body holds about a gallon of blood & he found only 20mL or 2 tablespoons of blood in Samantha’s body because she had bled out as a result of the extensive wounds. Neck wounds were found to her jugular & carotid arteries & Dr Beaver found her hyoid bone, found in the upper neck, had been severed. These along with stab wounds to her head were lethal & would have caused death within minutes.
On Tuesday, July 27, 2021, the jury came back with a verdict after a one hour & seven minute deliberation & found Nathaniel Rowland guilty for the murder & kidnapping of Samantha Josephson. He was immediately sentenced to life in prison.
Samantha’s family collapsed & sobbed with relief that their daughter’s killer would face justice. Seymore, Marci & Sidney Josephson were given the opportunity to face Samantha’s killer & speak. Marci said, Her dreams were my dreams & her death was my death. I close my eyes & I feel what she endured at his hands. I used to have dreams for her; now all I have are nightmares. 120 times. The final moments. Her bare feet fighting & kicking for her life. I visualize blood flowing from her body – her beautiful body. 120 times for what? For $35 the college student has in her bank account?
When Seymour Josephson stood, he spoke about how, in the two years since his daughter had been viciously murdered, he had contemplated suicide because the pain had been almost too much to bear. He struggles to look at photos of his late daughter because when he does, his head is filled with images of Samantha struggling to survive in her last, violent moments of life, pressing her bloody foot against the car window.
Ahead of his sentencing, Nathaniel Rowland said, I know I’m innocent, but I guess what I know & what I think doesn’t really matter. I just wish the state would have done more in finding out who the actual person was instead of being satisfied with detaining me & proving my guilt.
Judge Clifton Newman called Rowland “heartless” & indicated that his had been the “most severe” murder he has ever witnessed in court. Based on the evidence presented, it was clear that Rowland was Samantha’s murderer, There’s a thousand trails each that lead to you. All of the evidence, each speck of evidence – not simply beyond a reasonable doubt, but as the highest standard the law requires, all points to your guilt.
When Rowland’s mother was given a chance to speak, she spoke of what a caring & respectful person her son was & voiced his innocence. Judge Newman immediately stopped her from continuing & reminded her that her son had been convicted by a jury for murder.
The Josephson’s two daughters had always assured their parents that when they utilized a rideshare service, they routinely verified with the driver that they were there to pick them up specifically. Marci assumes that when Samantha approached the Impala, she likely asked, Are you here for Samantha? The driver, who we know to be Rowland, would have lied & said yes. After the fact, they realized that the safest method is to ask the driver the name of their customer & if they couldn’t give the correct name, the rider would know not to get into the car.
Marci & Seymour Josephson turned their grief into action & created the #WHATSMYNAME Foundation to both honor their daughter & protect others from avoiding danger while utilizing ride sharing apps. Their mission is to educate the world on rideshare safety as well as supporting charitable organizations & providing college scholarships to selected high school seniors. The goal of the foundation is that before any customer enters the vehicle when utilizing a ride share service, they first ask the question, What’s my name?
The U.S. House passed a bill called “Sami’s Law” which requires ride-sharing firms such as Uber & Lyft to match drivers & passengers. South Carolina legislature also passed a similar bill that requires rideshare drivers to display their license plate number on the front of their car. Uber & Lyft have also implemented safety measures in response to Samantha’s murder which includes the installation of a feature that allows users to call 911 from the app.
Marci & Seymour said that during their time in South Carolina for the trial, they ran on pure adrenaline & by the time they got home, they were exhausted & living in a fog. The family of three who was once a family of four still keep thinking that one day, Samantha will just walk through the door, unable to fathom that she’s gone forever.
References:
- WHATSMYNAME Foundation – Samantha Josephson
- News 19: Woman says Nathaniel Rowland was cleaning blood from his car hours after USC student’s killing
- TAPinto Hamilton/Robbinsville: Josephson family still ‘in a fog’ two years after brutal murder of daughter, sister Samantha
- CBS News: SJosephson Family Still ‘In a Fog’ Two Years After Brutal Murder of Daughter, Sister Samantha | Hamilton/Robbinsville, NJ News TAPintoouth Carolina man convicted of killing New Jersey native Samantha Josephson who mistook car for Uber in 2019
- YouTube: Law & Crime: Killer cases: Sorority girl savagely murdered after getting in the wrong car
- CBS News: Life in prison for man in killing of South Carolina student who mistook his car for an Uber
- News 19: Both sides rest in trial of man charged with killing USC student Samantha Josephson
- WIS 10: Rowland trial day 3: Gruesome evidence presented from night Samantha Josephson died
