TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Marine's Family Questions Officials

ADVERTISEMENT

By MIKE BAKER, The Associated Press

Published: January 13, 2008

JACKSONVILLE, N.C. - For months after a pregnant 20-year-old Marine accused a colleague of rape, her family says, she continued to work alongside her attacker and endured harassment at Camp Lejeune.

And in the weeks after she disappeared, they say, the sheriff's department was slow to act.

As authorities recovered Maria Lauterbach's remains Saturday from a fire pit where they suspect Marine Cpl. Cesar Armando Laurean burned and buried her body, her family asked why authorities didn't treat her case with greater urgency.

Naval investigators on Saturday said the pair had been separated on the job, a rape case was progressing and Laurean was under a protective order to stay away from Lauterbach. Onslow County Sheriff Ed Brown insisted his department acted as best it could on the facts available.

"As soon as it went suspicious, we contacted the media and asked for help," Brown said. "The case did not produce enough evidence, other than she was just missing."

On Saturday, her burnt remains, and those of her unborn child, were excavated from Laurean's back yard.

"As well as I could see, the body was much charred," Brown said. "The fetus was in the abdominal area of that adult. ... That is tragic, and it's disgusting."

Authorities have issued an arrest warrant on murder charges for Laurean, 21, of the Las Vegas area. They say he fled Jacksonville after leaving behind a note in which he admitted burying her body.

In his note, Laurean wrote that Lauterbach cut her own throat in a suicide, but Brown doesn't believe it and challenged Laurean to come forward and defend his claims of innocence.

Authorities have described a violent confrontation inside Laurean's home that left blood spatters on the ceiling and blood on the wall.
County prosecutor Dewey Hudson said Laurean had been in contact with three lawyers.

She Was Dropping Case
Lauterbach disappeared sometime after Dec. 14, not long after she met with military prosecutors to talk about her April allegation that Laurean raped her.

Her uncle, Pete Steiner, said that Lauterbach - stung by the harassment that eventually forced her to move off base - decided to drop the case the week before she disappeared.

Paul Chiccarelli, the special agent in charge of Naval Criminal Investigative Service at Camp Lejeune, said Saturday that Marine commanders submitted requests in October to send the case to the military's version of a grand jury. A military protective order had been automatically issued in May and renewed three times.
Lauterbach and Laurean served in the same unit of the II Marine Expeditionary Force, and court documents indicate Lauterbach's mother told authorities Laurean had threatened her daughter's career.

Neither Brown or Hudson would say Saturday whether they would have treated the case differently had they known about the protective order, which they discovered Friday night.

Chiccarelli said sheriff's office investigators were told about the order Monday.

Chiccarelli again, however, said investigators didn't consider Laurean a threat to Lauterbach, or a flight risk, because they had indications the pair were on friendly terms. He declined to detail those indications Saturday.

Officials Thought She Went To Ohio

Lauterbach's mother reported her daughter missing Dec. 19 - five days after she last spoke with her. By that time, she had been placed on "unauthorized absence" status by the Marine Corps.

An Onslow County sheriff's employee contacted naval investigators Dec. 19 after hearing from police in Ohio and listed her as a "missing person at risk" in a national law enforcement database. He met with Lauterbach's roommate the next day, but court documents indicate he was unable to reach the Marine officer who had been notified of her absence, who was away on holiday leave.

Steiner said he and Lauterbach's mother told authorities they planned to fly to North Carolina around Christmas, but were advised not to because authorities thought Lauterbach was headed for Dayton, Ohio.

Thinking that authorities "dropped the ball," Steiner said Lauterbach family members decided they could no longer wait.

They flew to North Carolina and met with detectives Monday, the same day court documents indicate authorities first discovered Lauterbach's ATM card had been used by a white male on Christmas Eve and she missed a prenatal care appointment Dec. 26.

Brown also learned about the case Monday. Search warrants were filed, the case went public and he asked for help.

By that point, it was too late. Laurean refused to meet with investigators, and skipped town Friday without telling his lawyers where he was going.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT