The Columbia, Mo. Police Department (CPD) has announced it will investigate the alleged sexual assault of a former University of Missouri (UM) swimmer and whether or not the school was responsible for reporting it.

According to an investigative piece by ESPN's "Outside the Lines," Sahsa Menu Courey said she was raped in Feb. 2010, but the highly recruited swimmer committed suicide in June, 2011. OTL's piece claims UM did not fulfill its lawful duty to report the sexual assault, which the school says was not their fault.

"Our detectives will take a look at the information and determine what leads need to be followed, and what needs to happen next," CPD spokesman Sgt. Joe Bernhard told OTL. "Cases like this are problematic when there's a four-year delay and no [living] victim."

OTL's piece was published Friday, UM issued a statement Sunday and the CPD announced its investigation Monday. UM claims information relevant to Menu Courey's rape claim only came to their attention Friday, whereas OTL says the school failed to act when such information presented itself.

"After review of this new information which was previously unavailable to MU, it was determined that the alleged assault occurred off campus, and therefore lies within the jurisdiction of CPD," UM said in a statement Sunday. "The university will assist CPD in any way possible as they conduct their investigation."

The school also said Menu Courey never talked about the incident to anyone authorized to report her claim to proper authorities. Filed shown to UM after a records request included online chat transcripts between Menu Courey and a rape crisis counselor. If Menu Courey only told health personnel about her rape, they may only tell school officials with the victim's permission. UM's obligation is only in the case where the victim files a complaint or tells an administrator not bound by patient confidentiality laws.

OTL reported the school "reasonably" could have known about Menu Courey's claim that she was raped, possibly even by multiple members of the football team. OTL reported an athletic department administrator was made aware of Menu Courey's claim through sources including a records request from her parents in 2012 and a newspaper article the same year.

Under the federal Title IX law, school administrators must report an act of sexual violence to the proper authorities if is reasonable that they should now about it. The law still applies with a deceased victim.

Since OTL's report, UM has released multiple email correspondences with the ESPN editors who investigated the piece, including one from Dec. 2013. UM system president Timothy Wolfe also wrote an open letter to school chancellors announced he has began an independent investigation from an outside counsel to look into Menu Courey's case.

OTL cited witnesses, journal entries and other sources that definitively say Menu Courey categorized her sexual encounter that night as a rape. She was intoxicated, but she still expressed she believed multiple people raped her that night. Among the plethora of documents, Menu Courey even mentioned a video recording of the incident, which other witnesses said existed.

CLICK HERE to read OTL's full piece, which includes a timeline of events in the case.