Possible Sighting Of Marine Murder Suspect
Police Say He Was On Greyhound In Louisiana; $25,000 Reward Offered For Information
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FBI bulletin on Cesar Armando Laurean, the U.S. Marine wanted in connection with disappearance of Maria Frances Lauterbach. (FBI.gov)
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Marine Cpl. Cpl. Cesar Laurean (right), the key suspect in the death of Lance Cpl. Maria Frances Lauterbach and her unborn child, was spotted last night several states away, the police confirmed. (CBS/AP)
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Missing Marine Manhunt
A countrywide manhunt is on for a Marine suspected of murdering a pregnant colleague after her body was found buried in his backyard in North Carolina. Jeff Glor reports.
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Pregnant Marine's Case Probed
There is speculation that the Marines may have hindered the investigation into rape allegations made by the pregnant marine who was killed. David Martin
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Body Possibly Of Marine Found
A sheriff predicts a "bizarre ending" after remains believed to belong to a pregnant Marine were found. The main suspect, a Marine she accused of raping her, has disappeared. Randall Pinkston reports.
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Marine Murder
Key dates in the case of a murdered, pregnant Marine and the search for the fellow Marine wanted by the FBI.
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Sexual Assault
Facts and statistics on sexual assault and rape, with victim resources.
Federal authorities are also working to post billboards nationwide with the picture of Marine Cpl. Cesar Armando Laurean, wanted in the slaying of Marine Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach, who had accused him of rape.
Onslow County Sheriff Ed Brown said Monday that federal marshals have spoken with Laurean's family, but still haven't found him. Lauterbach's ATM card was found at a bus station in Durham, about 150 miles northwest of Jacksonville, and witnesses had reported seeing his black four-door pickup truck in the Raleigh and Durham area, Brown said.
"We have answered a whole lot of questions about Mr. Laurean, except where he is," said Onslow County Sheriff Ed Brown. "There will always be lingering questions until we get the final, true, clear picture of what happened."
Lauterbach's friends say they immediately suspected Laurean but the question is, why didn't police? Lauterbach was last heard from on December 14th and was officially reported missing December 19th. But CBS News correspondent Jeff Glor reports that it took 18 days for the sheriff's department to narrow its focus to Laurean - despite the ongoing military rape investigation.
Brown said detectives were still not positive that witness reports placing Laurean on Saturday night at a bus depot in Shreveport, La., were accurate. Brown said those reports were unclear as to whether the man believed to be Laurean boarded a bus that was headed to Texas, or left the station.
One of the biggest concerns facing authorities is that Laurean, who speaks fluent Spanish, may try and slip across the Mexican border, reports CBS' The Early Show.
"The search for Laurean is earthwide," Brown said.
Brown declined Monday to discuss in detail what authorities had learned from Laurean's family, but did confirm he and his wife have an 18-month-old daughter. He again said that Laurean's wife is cooperating with authorities, and confidently predicted that Laurean will be caught.
Laurean's in-laws, Bruce and Debby Shifflet, told The Early Show that their daughter Christine spoke with Laurean. They say she asked him to turn himself in for the sake of the family.
"He said, he didn't want to go to the pen for this," Bruce Shifflet told The Early Show. "He was remorseful, but he left anyway."
The potential sightings in Louisiana came a day after authorities said they recovered what they believe to be the burned remains of Lauterbach and her unborn child from a fire pit in Laurean's backyard, where they suspect he burned and buried her body.
Lauterbach disappeared sometime after Dec. 14, not long after she met with military prosecutors to talk about her April allegation that Laurean raped her. Naval investigators said Saturday the rape case was progressing, the fellow personnel clerks had been assigned to different buildings, and that Laurean had been under a protective order to stay away from Lauterbach.
Brown said Monday that police believe she was killed on or about Dec. 15, and state authorities have issued an arrest warrant for Laurean, 21, of the Las Vegas area, on murder charges. The FBI is also seeking him on a warrant charging him with to unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.FBI Info On Laurean
Detectives believe he fled Jacksonville before dawn Friday, and said he left behind a note in which he admitted burying her body but claimed she cut her own throat in a suicide. Authorities received Laurean's note about the purported suicide from Laurean's wife, whose family has described her as "heartbroken."
Brown has challenged Laurean's assertion that Lauterbach killed herself, citing what he described as evidence of a violent confrontation inside Laurean's home - blood spatters on the ceiling and a massive amount of blood on the wall.
"I thought he was a man of character and it's obviously he is just a coward taking off on his family and leaving," Bruce Shifflet told The Early Show. "This is just a tragedy for both families."
Lauterbach's mother reported her daughter missing Dec. 19. She had been placed on "unauthorized absence" status by the Marine Corps and was listed that day in a national law enforcement database as a "missing person at risk."
The military has long been accused of mishandling sexual assault reports, and there are now some protective measures in place, reports CBS News national security correspondent David Martin.
Earlier in the Iraq war, revelations that there had been more than 100 sexual assault cases in Kuwait, Iraq and the rest of the Persian gulf coupled with complaints from female service members that the male-dominated chain of command did not take their allegations seriously, brought charges from Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, that victims of a sexual assault in the military face far more obstacles in getting the help that she or he needs, reports Martin.
Naval investigators said authorities didn't consider Laurean a threat to Lauterbach, or later a flight risk, because they had indications the pair were on friendly terms. Laurean later refused to meet with investigators and left town without telling his lawyers where he was going.
Sheriff Brown told Glor that he doesn't expect the suspect to give up and go quietly.
When asked what Lorean could be capable of, Brown answered, "Based on what I saw in that grave, anything."
"You're never gone for good when law enforcement is after you," Brown said Monday. "It may be two days or two weeks, ten days or ten years, but you're never gone for good."
© MVIII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.



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See all 147 CommentsI knew the guy was an Alien.
He is going to flee the country.
*** ????
No wonder Firefox is increasingly displacing IE.
The guy is thinking outside the box:
he is making a run for the border.
Like Walsh says on his "America''s Most Wanted" show:
"Let''s catch this creep"
Our media seems to think this type of thing is more important than Iraq, the CIA tapes or the firing of the US attorneys. Do your job, CBS, if I want to watch Nancy Grace, I''ll tune to CNN.
he is making a run for the border."
- Posted by rushlimpdrug at 11:41 AM : Jan 13, 2008
No question about it.
He isn"t heading to Mexico for Salsa lessons.
"JACKSONVILLE, N.C. - AP - The key suspect in the brutal slaying of a 20-year-old pregnant Marine was spotted in Louisiana and could be headed into Texas, authorities said Sunday as federal officials said they had issued a fugitive warrant for his arrest."
It is believed that Laurean may be headed to the border in an attempt to get into Mexico, thus working against the flood of illegals coming OUT of Mexico. However, the alternate theory is that Laurean maybe heading for the Texas Bush White House to beg the Emperor to land him a job at Blackwater, and have the mercenaries send him to Iraq where he can let himself really "GO"!!!!
SIG HEIL, BUSH!!!
There was a TRO, wasn''t there?
Apart from being tragic the whole story smells fishy.
I see you''re starting to sweat bullets at the prospect of having to eat that coffee cup. LOL. Seems like you''re going for the Alberto Gonzalez defense. Do you really think that repeating over and over that it never happened is going to make it so? Are you also going to deny the DNA evidence if it proves positive, both for the identity of the corpse and of the paternity of the fetus?
BTW, considering how little credence you give the news reporting, the fact that they were clueless about military ranks shouldn''t surprise you. Unfortunately, news sources are so focused on getting a story out first, they fudge on background stuff that a fifth grader could find on the Internet in two minutes.
I might have missed something but where does it say he is a foreigner? I thought you had to be an American to join the Marine Corp. I''m confused.
Whose name was the bus ticket in? He has to be using someone else''s name to purchase a bus ticket because they could locate his name thru Greyhound computers in seconds. They could also locate the murdered Marine''s name in seconds too if the bus ticket was in her name. He had to be the one who took funds out of her account on two different occassions after she was dead.
The wife cannot be blind deaf and stupid not to notice blood all over the walls and ceiling and something buried in the backyard.
Where was she for a solid month while the Marine was reported missing? Where was she on Dec 14th for example. She was living in the home. He left the note to her in the home, not a mailbox.
What took the wife so long to go to police with the note? Please don''t tell me she was scared because that would be she was busy covering just her own self and that is not acceptable.
www.myspace.com/worldpeacerally2008
KittyKatzmom--
A foreigner did not kill Kathleen Savio. A white American policeman is suspected of doing that.
A foreigner did not kill Stacy Peterson, a White American policeman is highly suspected of doing that.
A foreigner did not kill Ms Emerson. A white American man did.
A foreigner did not kill Lisa Stebic. Her White policeman, an American, is suspected of that as she has never been seen or heard from again.
Shut your face about foreigners. We might be more safe in a third world country becasue of American have found they can get away with murder!
Cesar Armando Laurean is an Italian-American.
He"s about as much a "foreigner" as Rudy Giuliani.
He won"t be a foreigner until he crosses into Mexico, where he"ll be an alien Gringo.
I can"t find any biographical data for this "gentleman" on the Internet.
But "Armando" is about as Italian as a name can get.
Didn"t General Dwight Eisenhower have an affair with his female chauffeur during WW2 ?
Wait a second... She was a Brit, and he wasn"t a Marine.
That would explain why Eisenhower wasn"t packed off to Leavenworth.
I remember when I recommended that film to a good friend of mine at work.
Later he chewed me out after he and his straightlaced wife were exposed to those steamy explicit s*ex scenes between Richard Gere and Debra Winger.
I still laugh about that.
I"ve never seen it so I"ll take your word for it."
- Posted by tuckerndfw at 08:25 PM : Jan 13, 2008
Yes.
The perfect movie to show in the barracks.
Unit cohesion guaranteed after that.
Am I starting to drift off topic here ?
What statute would that have violated?"
- Posted by tuckerndfw at 08:19 PM : Jan 13, 2008
Many if not all of those you listed. e.g. "62. Article 134, Adultery; (if either of them are married)"
Eisenhower was married at the time.
"Your reliance on fiction seems to severely interfere with your ability to separate fact from fiction."
- Posted by tuckerndfw at 08:19 PM : Jan 13, 2008
Ain"t that the truth...
Lots of rumors and suspicions, but no proof."
- Posted by tuckerndfw at 08:41 PM : Jan 13, 2008
I believe she made a statement confirming the affair on her deathbed.
That has a certain gravitas.
Besides, they made a TV movie about it. Would they have done that if it wasn"t true ?
I rest my case/
So far, their "procedures" are lacking in very dangerous irresponsible ways which create the perpetrator to have the edge.
Where was the wife of Cesar for the whole month that the police were searching for her? The pregnant Marine s was murdered in this wife''s home and buried in her back yard. There was blood all over the walls and the ceiling and then the home was painted.
WHERE WAS SHE ALL THAT TIME? She lived there. He left the wife a note inside the home, not in a mailbox. Why did it take her so long to bring the note to the police? Being scared is not an acceptable excuse.
I need some answers to this.
It seems to me that this accusation was never taken seriously enough, at the least, the accused should have been confined to quarters.
It also distrubed me when I read, earlier in the week, how they were calling for Maria to call and let people know where she was, and that it was safe for her to come home. It really doesn''t sit right that they didn''t look at the accused home as soon as she went missing.
I am sorry and ashamed the military failed this soldier.
Posted by tuckerndfw
Do you have any idea of how the military chain of command works? Or just what you see on tv?
Moron
Good question!
However, just on my own thinking, had my husband been accused of raping another marine, and she had disappeared, my first instinct would be to get the hell away from him. It''s very possible she wasn''t living with him.
The girl had accused him of rape, a serious crime! Now she''s dead!
You said you''d make a video of yourself eating your cup!
Tuck, the article said a senior, not a senior officer, I went back and looked. That can mean many things in the military.
Why would she say she was going to run away? Because she had a crazy stepmother accusing her of lying? Because she was getting no help from the marines in prosecuting this bastward? Had the marines wanted to prosecute this guy, they could have already had a dna sample from that baby when the mother was alive. When she went missing, why didn''t they immediately bring this guy in? Hell, they''re holding prisoners in Gitmo for less information than they had on this guy!!!
And I don''t suspect that the sheriff''s department would release any information that they didn''t suspect was provable information, nor issue an arrest warrant. The guy left a note, for pete''s sakes. She''s dead!
Her death was brutal, there were bloodstains on the ceiling. Hers and the baby''s bodies were burned up...an attempt to destroy dna???
Now Tuck, tell me that rape isn''t a serious crime! This woman is DEAD because of it!!!
- Posted by tuckerndfw at 11:29 PM : Jan 13, 2008
There"s no forensic proof.
Of course there"s evidence. The evidence is being tested and evaluated now.
"The body was charred, and the fetus was in the victim''s abdomen, Brown said, describing the scene... The remains were taken to the Onslow County medical examiner''s office. They will next be sent to the chief medical examiner in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, for DNA testing and comparison with dental records."
Evidence. Not yet positive identification.
Re: "Naval investigators said authorities didn''t consider Laurean a threat to Lauterbach, or later a flight risk, because they had indications the pair were on friendly terms."
This woman was on "friendly terms" with a man that she accused of raping her?
Nothing done to prevent the accused rapist from killing this alleged victim as well?
This accused rapist/murderer was deemed NOT a flight risk?
Now this guy is at-large?
Nice going Marines!
That''s our military for you- our "best and brightest"- on the job!
We can only hope and pray that he is headed to D.C.
Absolutely untrue; a Corporal is a Noncomissioned Officer, with all of the general authority and basic responsibilities of any NCO. It is a position of authority, especially to a new Marine or Soldier.
I was and I am deeply concerned that our nation has turned over our intelligence to individuals with poor leadership skills.
I kept records and documents to prove that the Naval Criminal Investigation Service and leaders at Camp Lejuene, NC were covering up the sexual assault. I contacted local authorities in Jacksonville, NC to help with my case to provide Justice and Mercy for others like myself.
It is time to take action and hold our Commander in Chief responsible for the actions of his troops. In the article Yamashita, Medina, and Beyond: Command Responsibility in Contemporary Military Operations by Major Michael L. Smidt, (2000) Military Law Review, Vol. 164
In 2000 I was part of a Special Operations researching "humit" intelligence in the field. I was sexually and physically assaulted repeatedly by military personnel. In Jan 22, 2004 the unit commander at Camp Leujene determined that the crimes did not warrant pursuing charges.
When are our leaders going to change the system.
Posted by whatithink at 06:32 PM : Jan 13, 2008
No, you do not have to be a citizen to join the military. You also are supposed to be a citizen (or have legal status) to work in the US, but that doesn''t stop the illegals.
If he''s innocent, why burn and bury the bodies? why run? why not leave the suicide scene, if it was suicide, intact and call the authorities. The evidence would prove that he didn''t touch her then.
Too many questions, and I''m not out for his blood. If he''s innocent, let him walk. If he''s not, then convict him.
Moron
Posted by offtheback at 09:59 PM : Jan 13, 2008
Well, I do. It was part of basic training so any enlisted person can recognize the rank of another and salute where appropriate.
My question is was it a senior officer or a senior official?
Even though they are similar they can and do have differing meanings in the service. A senior official can be a civilian working for or with the military. A senior officer must be IN the military, or retired.
Posted by tuckerndfw at 12:03 PM : Jan 14, 2008
Maybe in your case, it was handled appropriately, but it may not always be that way?
Posted by tuckerndfw at 11:56 AM
You are STUPID.
Someone kill a pregnant woman, dismembers her, burns the body, buries her and the fetus and you are stuck on a some stupid "detail".
What a fool you are.
You can rinse your brain out in the toilet and flush down the krap so that you can fill it with candy.
Pinata head.
You sound like one of those compassionate conservs.
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