Utah County woman shares domestic abuse survival story

AMERICAN FORK — Emilee Jordan says when she met the man she knew as "Josh" through Snapchat, he initially seemed "very charming," especially when others were present.

Their relationship began after she graduated from high school in 2025, and she soon learned that "Josh" had a completely different side over the weeks and months that followed.

"Behind the scenes, he was just a monster," Jordan said during an interview with KSL. "He said, 'If you ever tell anyone about this, I'm going to, like, kill you — don't even worry about telling other people.'"

Jordan sat down to share her experience in hopes it would raise awareness about domestic abuse and violence and give others courage to leave abusive relationships.

"It is real, and it happens more than you think," Jordan said. "I just want to help people."

'Josh'

The man she met and came to know as Josh was really named Isaac Steffens Rowley.

In August, Rowley, now 23, pleaded guilty to multiple felony charges, including two counts of aggravated assault as well as aggravated kidnapping, tampering with a witness and sexual exploitation of a minor. He also pleaded no contest to forcible sodomy in the deal that left him with a sentence in which he will do at least 10 years in prison.

Jordan said shortly after agreeing to meet Rowley, the abuse began in the early stages of their dating.

"The first hangout was not the best because he did sexually assault me on the first hangout, and I didn't leave," Jordan said. "When he lived at his parents' house, he put me in a headlock and choked me and dragged me all the way to his house."

Jordan's allegations ultimately showed up in charging documents filed by the Utah County Attorney's Office, but only after a long ordeal that finally ended in a chain of events that unfolded in February and March of this year.

"He knew the right words to say to make me stay," Jordan said. "You can't listen to people like that because they will manipulate you."

Cedar Hills incident

Detective Ashleigh Gutierrez with American Fork police said what was going on in the relationship between Jordan and Rowley didn't garner the attention of law enforcement until Rowley first reported Jordan to the Utah County Sheriff's Office in February.

"He actually reported her, trying to say she was extorting him," Gutierrez explained to KSL. "It's not uncommon for a suspect in a case to try to take the heat off of themselves and blame their victim."

When investigators contacted Jordan, police documents stated that Jordan informed them about a history of sexual abuse.

Jordan went into detail about the latest incident, which happened on or around Feb. 12 inside Rowley's car as he drove Jordan to a friend's house in Cedar Hills.

"She did not want to engage in certain acts with him, and he ended up sexually assaulting her and strangling her in the vehicle," Gutierrez said.

Charging documents go into greater detail about the encounter, describing how Jordan was "unable to speak and had difficulty breathing, to the point she almost passed out."

According to the documents, Jordan fought back by scratching his forehead and pulling his hair.

"She was able to open the car door and fell outside the car onto the wet and muddy ground," the documents stated. "She was about to run to a nearby home when Defendant told her that if she tried to run "it would be worse for [her] and ordered her back into the car."

Once back into the car, the documents stated that Rowley physically and sexually assaulted Jordan before dropping her off at her friend's house, leaving her body "covered in bruises."

Her ear was also bleeding, according to prosecutors.

Jordan subsequently got an admission from Rowley that she recorded on her phone.

"You almost killed me," Jordan could be heard stating.

"Actually, no I didn't," Rowley replied. "If I wanted to kill you, you'd be dead. I didn't almost kill you. I hurt you, but I didn't just almost kill you."

"Why did you say you were going to kill me?" Jordan asked.

"Because I wanted to scare you," Rowley replied.

Jordan stated to Rowley that he was choking her with "full force," to which he simply replied, "Yeah."

Cycle of abuse

Gutierrez called Jordan's case a "really prime example of the cycle of abuse."

"Domestic violence is a cycle," Gutierrez explained. "There's an explosion that results in a physical assault, a sexual assault, a verbal assault — whatever it may be — and then there's the reconciliation that happens where the perpetrator apologizes or gaslights the survivor into thinking nothing happened or it wasn't that big of a deal, and then they move into that honeymoon phase — which is what keeps the survivors in the relationships, right? They live for that calm, almost love-bombing that happens after that extreme blowup, and then it's calm for a little bit, and the tensions build, and then it starts over with another assault, and it's just this cycle."

The cycle wasn't over for Jordan in March, when Rowley invited her to his home in Eagle Mountain.

"He's like, you can either delete all the evidence you have on your phone, or you're not leaving this house," Jordan recalled of the encounter, which happened on or around March 20. "I get up, and I start to walk away, and that's when he tackles me, puts me in a headlock and slams me on his bed, and he's like 'if you don't unlock your phone, I'm going to beat your head in with a bat.'"

Gutierrez said Rowley accidentally recorded the interaction on his phone, and detectives eventually recovered the audio.

In the recording shared with KSL, the metal bat could be heard clanking about as Rowley threatened Jordan.

"Like, I'll smash your head," Rowley could be heard saying in the recording. "I'll smash your head with that (expletive) bat before I let you destroy my life."

Jordan said Rowley later dragged her out to his car and took her to a lookout, where the threats and abuse continued.

"He was trying to kill me with a knife," Jordan said. "He was whipping me on the back."

Jordan said she was eventually able to talk Rowley out of harming her further that night by suggesting they get some sleep and then delete evidence off her phone the next day.

"With people like that, you have to say the right things to get them to stop what they're doing because their main thing is if you're scared, they love you being scared," Jordan said.

The next day, Jordan said she was still with Rowley and was still fearing for her life, so she secretly texted her mom.

"I was like, 'you need to send the cops to Josh's house right now,'" she recalled texting. "'I'm in a really bad situation. I can't get out of it. I'm terrified.'"

Law enforcement arrived and arrested Rowley, but that wasn't the last Jordan heard from him.

Jail phone calls

Gutierrez said Rowley attempted to call Jordan twice from the Utah County Jail under the names of other inmates.

In one of those calls obtained by KSL, Rowley could be heard making a supposed plea to rekindle some sort of relationship with Jordan.

He said he wasn't "mad."

"I just want to say that, you know, I love you," Rowley said in the recorded call.

Gutierrez said all wasn't as it appeared, however, as Rowley had also been recorded in a separate call to an unidentified woman, describing a strategy in contacting Jordan and persuading her that he cared about her.

"I was thinking, what if I added, like I did, the reason why, you know, that she stayed, whatever is because I love her?" Rowley could be heard asking the woman. "I wonder if maybe that could change things."

Gutierrez called it an ongoing plan "to continue to manipulate her even from behind bars."

"He made it clear in his jail phone calls how much he despised her, but then as soon as he came up with this plan, 'I'm just going to make her think that I still love her and that there's still a chance for us so she'll drop this,'" Gutierrez explained.

Jordan in the recorded call fired back at Rowley.

"I gave you too many chances, and you ruined it," she could be heard saying to Rowley in the call. "You ruined this."

She later told Rowley in the call, "You can't hurt me anymore."

"He can't do anything now — he can't hurt me, he can't hurt anybody else," Jordan told KSL. "I just knew it was going to get worse, and he probably would have killed me, so I'm really glad I got out."

Jordan said she hoped her story would help motivate others to leave abusive relationships and to break patterns of abuse.

"After I got out, I felt so much better," Jordan said. "I'm not scared anymore, and I'm so much more confident in myself and who I am."

Domestic violence resources

Help for people in abusive relationships can be found by contacting:

• Utah Domestic Violence Coalition: Utah's confidential statewide, 24-hour domestic violence hotline at 1-800-897-LINK (5465)
• YWCA Utah Survivor Services: 801-537-8600
• Utah's statewide child abuse and neglect hotline: 1-855-323-DCFS (3237)
• National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233

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