Missing Marine

How can you have a Marine, who is supposed to be reporting for work/duty, be missing for any length of time, and NOT have someone out there looking for her, so that her family member has to report her as missing? How can you have that same Marine be scheduled to testify at a hearing for her accusation against a superior officer, is also pregnant not be protected as the date for that hearing approaches?

And knowing what the allegations WERE, with the added fact that she is SUDDENLY MISSING, just before her due date and date of testimony, HOW CAN YOU NOT KEEP A VERY SHARP EYE ON THE PERSON WHO WAS NAMED AS THE ALLEGED ASSAILANT??? How is it that they now have HIM missing??? Oh... they found her, by the way.


The case of the missing Marine has been VERY confusing to me. I have heard the terms "adoptive mother", "step mother", and 'mother' as the one who reported her to be missing. I have to admit that in the very beginning, I did not listen very well, so had not paid much attention.

But then they began to say that perhaps she had 'run off' and implied that she is a 'compulsive liar' with 'bipolar' (according to a step mother who may or may not like her), and that statement changed the tone of news reports.

Pregnant Marine is missing
BY LINDELL KAY
January 8, 2008 - 2:31PM

Lauterbach, 20, of Midway Park, is with the 2nd Marine Logistics Group.
She last spoke to family Dec. 14 and was reported missing Dec. 19 by her mother who traveled here from Dayton, Ohio.
snip
The missing woman's cell phone was found Dec. 20 near the main gate at Camp Lejeune.
Lauterbach shared a boarding house with several people in Midway Park, which was searched by the Sheriff's Department, Brown said.

"There are several findings and pieces of evidence that have been discovered that cause law enforcement to be concerned with the circumstances surrounding Maria's disappearance," Brown said in a news release.

Brown did not reveal any information on the evidence for fear of jeopardizing the investigation.

"Things I know bother me; things I don't know bother me more," Brown said.

A day later, Fox News has a report that says she spoke to her mother last on Dec 13, and added that 'It is not clear why the disappearance wasn't made public earlier." The next report from JDNews says that her car was found at a bus station on Jan 7,

  "Investigators found her blue 2006 Hyundai Sonata at the Jacksonville Bus Station on Monday night.
It was not there over the weekend, authorities said."

That same news story includes the news that she was scheduled "to testify against a superior officer in a case involving an alleged assault against her", which had been alluded to in reporting what her mother had said when reporting her as missing, and then goes on to say:

Information has surfaced there was "suspicious activity" on her bank account Christmas Eve.

The Onslow County Sheriff's Department is holding onto "sensitive information"
pertaining to Lauterbach, 20, who has been missing since Dec. 14.

"Bank records indicate the victim made a withdrawal on 12-14-07. There was suspicious activity on her account on 12-24-07, but none since," according to information from the Sheriff's Department obtained by The Daily News.

That 'sensitive information'... hmmmm what was it? That apparently was released later. And that 'suspicious activty on her account on Christmas Eve? ... Well.... according to Fox News...

The warrants said a white male tried to use the missing woman's ATM card on Christmas Eve and attempted to cover the ATM's security camera with a rag. Brown declined to say where the card was used.

....it was a white male who attempted to cover the camera!... but you know...that wasn't important?

BUT, the next article on JDNEWS has information in it that I NEVER heard reported on the Cable News, as often as it had been covered. From her uncle:

Lauterbach's uncle, Peter Steiner, a psychiatrist who lives in Louisville, Ky., and had been in Jacksonville
in the past week looking into his niece's disappearance, said
his niece called her uncle's home at least twice a week, because they were very close.

"She was a very beautiful, athletic young lady. She volunteered to join the Marine Corps.
She was very committed to the Marines, and she is being portrayed in a way that does not look well.
She was petrified; she has been continually intimidated and harassed by people (Marines).
She was not protected; she was not well looked after."

I tend to agree with him about some of the reports I have heard for the past couple of days, as far as her portrayal. And I wondered myself about why she was not reported as missing BY THE MARINES when she did not report for duty, or was not seen from Dec 13/14th until HER MOTHER reported her as missing on Dec 20th! 

On Jan 10th, Fox News (and others) reports this, and now her step mother is mentioned (bolded part was done by Fox News):

A pregnant Marine who vanished last month before she was to testify in a military probe claimed "a senior officer ... had raped her and that the investigation had gone sour," according to new court documents.

The woman made the allegation to her stepmother, who also told investigators looking for the 20-year-old lance corporal that her stepdaughter was bipolar and had a history of compulsive lying, the documents filed this week state.

and....(this time, the bolded parts were done by WI Catholic).... we now know the source of the 'reports' that 'the investigation had gone sour"....

According to search warrant affidavits filed this week, the stepmother has told investigators that her stepdaughter
"claimed she had been raped by a senior officer at her command, and that the investigation had gone sour."

"They" supposedly based their suspicions that she had run off on the finding of her cell phone, her car by a bus station, and 'she' had purchased a bus ticket which was never used? That does not sound like someone 'running off' to me. Sure, she may have thought out far enough to 'ditch' her cell phone (in order not to be traced), but if she was a cell phone user, would she not then also have had a replacement before she ditched that one? Would she not have then called family sometime in this past month to let them know she had a new phone number? And would she not have USED that ticket?

To me, those 'facts' sounded more like someone trying to cover a butt, and throw investigators off the track.

Maybe I just don't think like a run away.

And what happened to the 'suspicious activity on her account" by a MALE who tried to cover the camera???? Could he not also have TOSSED HER CELL PHONE, BOUGHT THAT TICKET, and TAKEN HER CAR TO THE BUS DEPOT????

To me, they have perhaps libeled this woman. And they have further distorted the story with allegations that she and her accused rapist were 'friendly' after she reported the incident. He was a superior officer. She was scheduled to appear to testify about her allegations. Why were they still in the same area and not being watched, so that as SOON as she went missing, SOMEONE was out looking for her?

So now we get the latest news. They have found 'burned remains' of a body buried six inches under the surface in the back yard of...guess who? The Superior Officer she had reported as having assaulted her, AND he is now 'missing'!!!

Tonight, they announce on the Fox News that the investigation has gone INSIDE the house, and blood found, as well as attempts to clean it and hide it.

AGAIN I SAY... WHY WAS HE NOT UNDER SURVEILLANCE????
HOW WAS HE ALLOWED TO LEAVE THE AREA???

And I won't even get INTO what I am thinking about the fact that he was married, living at his home, apparently burned a body, and buried that body in his own back yard, apparently also somewhere along the line sent a note and said she had 'killed herself'... and his wife still lives there, and 'is cooperating' with authorities.....

You really do not want to hear what I am thinking...

And worse, if the child is also dead, he cannot be charged with the baby's death. If the child is NOT dead... where is that baby??


To Maria Lauterbach's family, I extend my DEEPEST sympathy, and prayers for her, and for all of you.  I pray that you all find peace and comfort.

May she rest in peace.

God bless!