Pregnant Marine is missing

[thedrifter]

Lab results, Laurean arrest hold keys to case
LINDELL KAY
February 5, 2008 - 12:04AM
DAILY NEWS STAFF
Authorities say the investigation of Cesar Laurean hinges on two points - his capture and results from forensic testing. And both could be months away.

The N.C. State Bureau of Investigation processed 35,000 pieces of evidence in 2007 and expects to see more than 40,000 items turned in this year, according to the N.C. Department of Justice.

"We handle evidence from all 100 counties in North Carolina," said Noelle Talley, a spokeswoman for the SBI. "For each agency that turns evidence into us, for that agency, that piece of evidence is the most important."

Laurean, a Camp Lejeune Marine corporal, was indicted on a first-degree murder charge in the death of Marine Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach, who was in the last trimester of her pregnancy when she died.

The Onslow County Sheriff's Department turned over a possible murder weapon and notes key to the case.

"We are waiting for results from the crime lab in Raleigh on the possible murder weapon that was turned in to us," said Capt. Rick Sutherland.

That weapon was a crowbar, sources close to the investigation told The Daily News. Sutherland would not confirm or deny what the weapon was Monday.

Laurean has been on the run since Jan. 11, when he left more than one note with his wife saying the body of Lauterbach was buried in the backyard of the Half Moon community home the couple shared.

Federal authorities believe he is in his native Mexico, and a warrant for his arrest has been issued by the Mexican government. The FBI is offering a $25,000 reward for information leading to his arrest. Posters and matchbooks with information about Laurean have been printed in Spanish and distributed in areas of Mexico.

In the note Laurean left behind, he said Lauterbach showed up at his house acting irrational and they had a confrontation. He claimed Lauterbach slit her own throat and he buried her body. However, the state medical examiner said Lauterbach's autopsy showed she was killed by a blow to the head. A source close to the investigation said Lauterbach's throat was cut postmortem, possibly in an attempt to disguise her true manner of death.

If the crime lab can determine that the item turned into the SBI by the Sheriff's Department was the blunt object used to kill Lauterbach, the prosecution's case against Laurean would be strengthened, authorities said.

Sutherland said the item was turned into his department by a witness who did not know the significance of it until the news media began to cover Lauterbach's disappearance. The witness told law enforcement that Laurean had previously borrowed the item at some point in the past and brought it back in late December. The Sheriff's Department shipped the item to the SBI crime lab shortly after receiving it, Sutherland said.

The Sheriff's Department also has submitted the notes left by Laurean and a note witnesses say Lauterbach left her roommate Dec. 14 to the crime lab for handwriting verification to determine whether the notes are authentic.

The evidence was received by Evidence Control at the crime lab, and its description and any other available information were entered into the Laboratory Information Management System. The management system tracks evidence and generates lab reports, according to the SBI.

Evidence from eastern North Carolina is processed in the Raleigh crime lab, and a crime lab in Asheville handles most of the evidence turned in from the western part of the state. A new facility being opened in Greensboro is expected to take some of the load off of the lab in Raleigh and speed up the process, Talley said.



Contact police reporter Lindell Kay at lkay@freedomenc.com or 910-554-8534. To comment on this story or to read others' comments go to jdnews.com.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Bounty on Laurean too small?
LINDELL KAY
February 6, 2008 - 12:59AM
DAILY NEWS STAFF
Is $25,000 enough?

Since Jan. 13 - two days after he fled Onslow County - Cesar Laurean has had a $25,000 bounty on his head.

Laurean, a Camp Lejeune Marine corporal charged with murder, has been on the lam since the mid-January day authorities found the charred and buried remains of Marine Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach in the backyard of Laurean's Half Moon home. Lauterbach had been missing since Dec. 14 - the day law enforcement officials believe she died.

Laurean, who remains at large, is believed to be in Mexico.

But the $25,000 reward is not nearly enough for any professional bounty hunter to consider getting involved, said local bondsman John Kuhn, who works for Powell Bail Bonding in Jacksonville. Powell has offices in North and South Carolina and handles everything from misdemeanor $500 bonds to high-profile murder cases with bonds as high as $3 million.

Kuhn writes high-dollar bonds for accused people in Onslow County and has been all over the United States to bring back the ones who try to avoid their scheduled court dates.

The current reward amount for Laurean would not be enough to cover expenses and the ensuing legal entanglements if he is hiding in Mexico, Kuhn said.

"When they raise it to $100,000, I know a couple of guys who might consider it," he said.

But $25,000 may be enough to get "Dog" to bite.

Representatives of popular bounty hunting TV personality Duane "Dog" Chapman and his bounty hunting service contacted Onslow County officials Monday to gather information about Laurean, according to law enforcement officials.

Chapman, however, found himself in hot water with Mexican authorities after he entered the country - where bounty hunting is a crime - and captured a convicted serial rapist. Chapman was released from extradition proceedings this week after Mexico decided to stop pursuing charges against him.

Chapman never cashed in on any reward stemming from the $1 million bond in that case, because a judge in the United States ruled Chapman did not have an official agreement with law enforcement before going after the fugitive.

While the reward for Laurean's capture is nowhere near that amount, the total available is steadily climbing - through both official and unofficial sources.

Crime Stoppers of Onslow County-Camp Lejeune has offered to pay up to $2,500 for information that would lead to Laurean's apprehension.

"When the FBI said $25,000, we thought what we could offer was insignificant," said Joe Yannessa, a retired Marine colonel and chairman of the Onslow County-Camp Lejeune Crime Stoppers.

But as time goes by and Laurean remains on the run, every nickel added to his reward matters, Yannessa said.

On Jan. 8, Onslow County Sheriff Ed Brown offered to pay $500 out of his pocket to anyone who had information about Lauterbach's disappearance. On Tuesday, he said he would gladly throw that money into the till and pay $500 to anyone who provides information about Laurean's whereabouts.

Brown said he has also received several phone calls from people who wanted to donate money to a reward fund for Laurean's capture. So far, pledges that have come into the Sheriff's Department total $5,000. Rewardpost.com is offering $6,630 to anyone who turns Laurean over to authorities. That amount is greater than a reward offered on that Web site for information about where Jimmy Hoffa is buried and the whereabouts of Stacy Peterson, an Illinois woman who disappeared in October and whose husband is being viewed as a possible suspect.

Rewardpost.com began in 2005 as a centralized location where rewards for information on missing persons and want ads could be posted in minutes and searched in seconds, said Ian Mirisola, a La Canada Flintridge, Calif., resident who thought of the concept and helped get the Web site started.

"The goal was to be like the Amber Alert of the Internet," he said.

Mirisola said the Web site is unique because people can log on and pledge to add money to an existing reward. If the reward is not claimed, the money is turned over to a charity of each contributor's choice.

Adding the new contribution offers to the $25,000 put up by the FBI, the total unofficial reward for information that leads to Laurean's arrest is $39,630 - not quite the $100,000 professional bounty hunters would likely want.



Contact police reporter Lindell Kay at lkay@freedomenc.com or 910-554-8534. To comment on this story or to read others' comments go to jdnews.com.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

WESTBORO BAPTIST CHURCH TO PICKET MARINE RECRUITING STATION
by: Westboro Baptist Church, godhatesfags.com


From Westboro Baptist Church press release:

The Marine Corps is "Filled with Filthy Fags."

Wise UP, brutish Berkeley.

This week they bury Lance Cpl. Maria F. Lauterbach who was raped and murdered by a fellow Marine. Her uncle says, "She was raped. The Marines didn't protect her. Now she's dead." The Marines are filled with murderers, rapists, liars -AND FAGS. The City of Berkeley wants more fags! They voted this week to boot the Marine recruiting office out of downtown Berkeley unless the Marines throw
the doors wide open to fill the Marines with yet more filthy fags! Invoking the wrath of God.

WBC will picket the Marine recruiting office & Code Pink.

WBC to picket the downtown Marine recruiting office in Berkeley -at noon, Mon., Feb. 11 -in religious protest and warning; to wit: "Be not deceived; God is not mocked." Gal. 6:7. God Hates Fags! & Fag-Enablers. Ergo, God hates the Fag-Filled Marine Corps, the Fag-Run City of Berkeley, the Fag Republic of California, and the United States of Fag-America. [2/5/2008]

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Sheriff asserts belief in divining evidence
LINDELL KAY
February 7, 2008 - 1:04AM
DAILY NEWS STAFF
While grateful for all the technological advancements in law enforcement, Onslow County Sheriff Ed Brown said that sometimes a good, old-fashioned solution works best.

When investigators arrived at 103 Meadow Trail in the Half Moon community on Jan. 11 looking for the body of a slain pregnant Marine who had been missing for three weeks, all they had to go on were notes left behind by her accused killer. The notes said the body was buried in the woods behind the house.

Brown said he had no reason to believe the details of the notes since they contained several inaccuracies. So he borrowed a wire coat hanger from one of Laurean's neighbors and fashioned it into a divining rod.

He walked the backyard with the wire hanger and located a "suspicious cavity" right next to a fire pit in the center of the backyard. Authorities would discover human remains buried there.

The notes, said to have been left by Cesar Laurean, a Camp Lejeune Marine corporal still on the run from authorities, said Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach had come to his house and killed herself by cutting her throat.

Investigators probed the cavity enough to remove a skull fragment from the body they found in the ground.

As night descended, the Sheriff's Department secured the crime scene and waited until the light of day to complete the exhumation.

The state medical examiner would later identify the body as that of Lauterbach. Her autopsy revealed she died of blunt force trauma to the head, another contradiction to Laurean's notes.

Brown said he wanted to use the divining rod before digging up the backyard, because he has used the simple device to find bodies before.

"I was impressed with it when it was shown to me," Brown said, adding that he has used divining rods for so long he cannot remember who first showed him how to use one. He said he has been using divining rods as a law enforcement tool for more than 25 years.

At least two times where tombstones had been removed from old graveyards or private cemeteries had been plowed over, Brown located the graves without having to tear up the area with exploratory digging.

"I was able to go into both graveyards and pick out exactly where the graves were," Brown said.

The composition of dirt that has filled in a hole in the ground is different than the packed dirt around the hole, and gravity pulls the divining rod closer to the human body because of it, Brown said.

"On normal days, people walk around and do not notice the different pulls of gravity on the body," Brown said. "But when we step over a culvert or enclosed ditch, gravity's pull is different. It happens without us noticing."

In 1999, a man used a divining rod to discover 270 unmarked graves outside Lincoln, Neb., according to a report in The Topeka Capital-Journal that was published at the time.

The veracity of divining rods has been hotly debated in scientific and academic circles for many centuries, dating back than the Middle Ages when people who were caught using divining rods were often put to death, according to the book "Magic and Divination in the Middle Ages" published by Ashgate Publishing Co.

Several studies have been conducted over the years, most recently by German scientist Hans-Dieter Betz for the Journal of Scientific Exploration. He observed research by engineering companies trying to find potable water in Sri Lanka, Congo and several other nations. Betz found that divining rods produced success rates higher than 90 percent when compared with scientific methods - like sound-bouncing, where equipment sends sound into the ground and measures how long it takes to come back - for finding underground cavities or pockets of water.

Engineers were able to find a water supply for about 17,000 inhabitants of the town of Al Wasitah in Yemen by using divining rod techniques after previous hydrogeological studies said no water was available, according to Betz's article.

Divining rods may not have the full acceptance of the scientific community, but the instruments cannot be dismissed either, Betz said in his research.

Brown said he does not understand all the reasons behind why divining rods work, but said he has seen them work enough times to trust their results.



Contact police reporter Lindell Kay at lkay@freedomenc.com or 910-554-8534. To comment on this story or to read others' comments go to jdnews.com.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Death threats are sent
LINDELL KAY
February 9, 2008 - 12:50AM
DAILY NEWS STAFF
The creator of an Internet memorial site for a pregnant Marine who authorities say was killed by a colleague in mid-December received online death threats from at least two Marines this week.

"Shut up or get cut up," a post made in the name of Ron Parikh appeared on the MySpace memorial for Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach on Feb. 5.

Marine Corps officials confirmed that Lance Cpl. Parikh, a personnel clerk currently assigned to a training command in California, was under investigation for several MySpace.com postings.

"Parikh is being investigated by the Criminal Investigation Division for information posted on the Internet about Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach," said Capt. Neal Fisher, public affairs director for Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center at Twenty-nine Palms, Calif.

Another Marine, Lance Cpl. Jonathan Cole, is also under investigation for comments he made on the internet, Marine officials said.

Cole is assigned to a unit in the 2nd Marine Division which is based at Camp Lejeune, said Lt. Col. Curtis Hill, public affairs officer for II Marine Expeditionary Force.

"(Cole's) command is aware of the MySpace issue and is taking appropriate action," Hill said.

Communicating "certain language expressing a present determination or intent to wrongfully injure" someone is a violation of military law, according to the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

If such communications were "of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces" then Parikh, Cole and any other Marines involved could potentially face even more trouble, according to Article 134 of the UCMJ.

"If Marines were caught doing something inappropriate in uniform or their photograph was associated with something inappropriate online, that is a violation of the UMCJ," said Sgt. Paul Robbins, a public relations officer at Camp Pendleton, Calif.

A photograph of Parikh in dress blues serves as an icon picture on his MySpace account.

Jacksonville resident Miley Collier said she started the memorial page about a week ago as a way to remember Lauterbach and allow other people the opportunity to tell people what Lauterbach meant to them.

"I have received thousands of messages from people saying how Maria's story has touched their lives," Collier said. "I never expected to be threatened for setting up a memorial site."

Collier said she was petrified and worried given her geographic closeness to some of the Marines being investigated for their comments.

"You should be slapped in the face for talking about things that should be left alone. I'm not gonna sit here and watch you talk s--t," a post made from Parikh's MySpace account said. "I will do you like Laurean did if you don't take this page off."

Authorities say Lauterbach was killed by Cpl. Cesar Laurean Dec. 14. She was in the third trimester of a pregnancy at the time of her death and had accused Laurean of rape.

Laurean has been on the run since he fled Onslow County in mid-January. Authorities say Laurean left notes behind with his wife saying Lauterbach killed herself by slicing her own throat and he just buried her body behind the Half Moon home shared by the couple.

Posts attributed to Parikh's MySpace account claim Parikh knows Laurean and supports Laurean's purported version of events including that Lauterbach killed herself.

Lauterbach's autopsy revealed that she died of a blow to the head and cuts made to her neck were done post-mortem.

The section of the memorial site with the posts under investigation has been removed from the Web. Collier said she did not take the posts down but was informed by law-enforcement officials that portion of her site might be temporarily taken down during the investigation.

The memorial for Lauterbach can be viewed at MySpace.com/Maria_Lauterbach_Memorial.



Contact police reporter Lindell Kay at lkay@freedomenc.com or 910-554-8534. To comment on this story or to read others' comments go to jdnews.com.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Authorities meet again with spouse of fugitive
LINDELL KAY
February 12, 2008 - 12:57AM
DAILY NEWS STAFF
Law enforcement officials say they received credible tips over the weekend as to the whereabouts of international fugitive Cesar Laurean.

That was one of only two pieces of new information released by the Onslow County Sheriff's Department during a press briefing Monday morning.

Capt. Rick Sutherland updated local media on the search for Laurean, noting that they had received the tips but declining to elaborate further.

"We're continuing to follow all leads that we receive, inside and outside the United States," Sutherland said.

Laurean, a Marine corporal stationed at Camp Lejeune, has been on the run since he fled Onslow County in mid-January. He left behind notes with his wife stating that the body of Marine Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach, who was pregnant at the time, was buried behind the house the Laureans shared in the Half Moon community.

Sutherland also said Monday that homicide detectives with the Sheriff's Department further questioned Laurean's wife Friday afternoon.

"Investigators spoke to Christina Laurean, and she answered the questions we had," he said Monday.

He declined to expand on topics covered in the interview.

Christina Laurean turned over to the Sheriff's Department the notes her husband, who had earlier been accused of raping Lauterbach, had left before fleeing. She met with investigators that same day, the day Lauterbach's body was found charred and buried in the Laureans' backyard.

Since the sexual assault accusations in May, Cesar Laurean had been keeping his wife up to date on the developments in the case against him and, later, on the details of the missing person case, according to the probable cause affidavit attached to a search warrant for phone records.

According to the affidavit, Cesar Laurean reportedly told his wife Lauterbach came to their home, acted irrationally and began an argument. At the height of the argument, Lauterbach produced a knife and committed suicide by cutting her own throat, according to Christina Laurean's statement to investigators.

Lauterbach's autopsy results indicate Lauterbach was killed by a blow to the head and cuts were made to her throat post-mortem.

Christina Laurean also told investigators that she knew Lauterbach was dead and buried in her backyard at least the day before she went to law enforcement, according to court files.

Cesar Laurean's truck was later found at a hotel in Morrisville, near the Raleigh Durham International Airport and an unmanned Greyhound bus stop.

The FBI believes Laurean has fled into Mexico, and federal officials are working with authorities south of the border to track him down.



Contact Lindell Kay at lkay@freedomenc.com or 910-353-1171, ext. 8462.

Ellie