Missing (Pregnant) Marine Dead, Authorities Say

KWTX ^ | 1/11/2008 | n/a

[IamHD]

I’m gonna try to make it bigger and do a side by side!

[freema]

Here’s a good catch of the truck being picked up, but I don’t know how to capture stills.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPYcEwxY97g

[Sue Perkick]

Definite similarities in the grill.

[Girlene]

If it was his truck in the video, maybe he followed her and “kidnapped” her? Then how did her car get to Laurean’s house? Or maybe he was following her and at some point confronted her, and then coerced her to drive to his house?

Maria talks to her mom for the last time at 2:30pm on Dec. 14. She got off work at noon, but tells her mom she's planning on going back for the Christmas party even though Laurean will probably be there. When did Cesear Laurean leave work? Christina says she attended that party in the afternoon and evening, and that's when Cesear supposedly killed Maria. Maria had told her mom earlier in the year that Christina had confronted her calling her a b*tch, etc.

Here's an image of various locations in this case. Notice the cell phone is found along the highway outside of the base. What if Cesear went home after work? Then he and Christina could have driven to the base party together. If Maria was forced at the apartment or at the base party to go with one of them, the other one still had their vehicle to get home. If she was being forced to go with one of them, she might have tried to use her cell phone. If it was grabbed and thrown out of the car by her abductor, that could be the reason it was found outside the base along the highway. All pure specualtion, of course.



The diagram does not indicate where the ATM that Maria went to at 4:20 is. Debm29palms do you know where that ATM is?

[freema]

This might be nothing, but Martin Savage says in this video:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6557274123992463498&q=lauterbach+video&total=196&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=1

that Maria’s mother reported her missing “just days” after meeting with military prosecutors. However, there’s nothing on their timeline to indicate any meeting.....

[IamHD]

[Sue Perkick]

[freema]

Good job : )

There was discussion upthread regarding the baby being a girl, but that earlier it had been reported to be a boy, and substantiating links. Here is another video, from the memorial service at St. Christopher’s in Vandalia, where a member of the church reads a statement to the media, and again, the baby is referred to as a boy, and his name Gabriel, is given.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5683520547656053825&q=maria+lauterbach+video&total=30&start=10&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=9

[IamHD]

[Girlene]

Great find, freema on the truck, and great job on capturing that still, Sue. The front grill has some similarities with the one at the ATM.

Freema, Maria thought the baby was going to be a boy I think based on an early sonogram. It appears the prediction by her examiner was wrong. I think the pregnancy test that was given Maria on May 11 was also wrong. If they gave her the test in the middle of the day when she reported the rape at work, this wouldn’t be nearly as accurate as the pregancy test when you first get up in the am. The autopsy found out it was a girl and 8 months along. If the baby was over 6 pounds just one month earlier, this fits.

[freema]

This truck thing is creeping me out.

[debm29palms]

That ATM on the corner of 24 (lejeune Blvd) and Piney Green. VERY close to Maria’s house and the side gate for Lejeune.

[IamHD]

If that is his truck, I think that she possibly was snatched right there, or followed to her home, forced to write the note.....or the wife wrote it and then taken back to the laurean home.

[getmeouttaPalmBeachCounty_FL]

To easily “get” Maria versus not so easily (i.e. grab, abduct, etc) get Maria to a place where Laurean and she would be alone...just some jumbled thoughts...

*and I’m totally speculating*

Maria was a pregnant young Marine. She was or felt ostracized and there are not too many accounts of her having a support network of friends at Lejeune. She was raised Catholic.

Perhaps if Laurean planned to use the holiday break period as his best opportunity to have her disappear — Marines would be coming and going and less noticeable that she was missing. I believe that he could have asked Maria to come to his house when the wife went to the party. (Wife still could have been in on this plan). The two could have talked, but mostly Laurean, who suggests that they go away together; he’ll leave his wife. Young and vulnerable, she wants to believe him and they get into their respective vehicles to drive to the ATM for some cash for her bus ticket. We need to do this before my wife returns from the party. He instructs her to leave a note to throw everyone off. Either he writes it or dictates what to write. She drops off the note.

Next they go to the ATM. She withdraws cash. They go buy her ticket and she leaves her car there and gets in his truck. They go back to his place to “pack up” when he kills her. He next goes and takes money out of her account so he can use it to cover his tracks. I think he begins tossing things like the cell and her ID (?) later to make it appear like *she* was throwing her Marine Corps life away, just tossing the things she didn’t need anymore.

I think he was staging her disappearance to make it look like she was running away. Maybe this has been said here a million times already, but I’m just thinking aloud.

[Girlene]

Has anybody else on other sites/reporting picked up on the truck at the ATM? It may or may not be the same one, but it's worth authorities looking into.

If that is his truck, I think that she possibly was snatched right there, or followed to her home, forced to write the note...

Could be. The cell phone found thrown out near the base also adds to the possibility of an abduction around this area. At first I wondered if someone was planting evidence, but it could just as easily have been part of a struggle in a car. It's amazing it was ever found. A stranded motorist found it and used it. One of the phone calls was to Maria's sister who told the motorist to turn it into the police.

[IamHD]

Good thoughts, but the bus ticket wasn’t (or allegedly wasn’t) purchased until the next day, the 15th. And the wife said that she went to the party on the 15th. Where was Maria all night?

[Girlene]

I think the problem with the 14th/15th date of the Christmas party was solved in the Dayton Daily article. The party that Christina refers to was on the 14th. Same party that Maria was invited to. From the article.

Mary Lauterbach's last conversation with her daughter occurred Dec. 14, when Maria called her about 2:30 p.m. at her office at the University of Dayton. Maria felt she needed to make an appearance at a command Christmas party, even though she knew Laurean would be there.

"Call me when you get home from the party," her mother said.

Christina said she went to the party and that Cesear stayed home. Christina says that's when Maria died. Maria never called her mother back. So did Maria ever make it to that party, or the base parking lot, or what?

[samkat]

If he dictated the note to her, that would explain the odd tense in the note: “I couldn’t take this Marine Corps life anymore...” rather than, “I can’t take this Marine Corps life anymore...”

[freema]

I’ve not seen anything anywhere.

If he followed her there, and she didn’t know it, was watching from afar, it would make sense. If she had just talked to authorities, and he figured he was screwed, he might have sweet talked her, forgive me, let’s run away and raise the baby together to lure her. She might easily have said, f it, let’s go, You love me? in the 8th month of a highly stressful pregnancy in which she was all but abandoned, alone in all sense of the word.

[maggief]

Good catch!