Murdered Pregnant Marine Also a Victim of Misjudgments

Lance Corporal Maria Frances Lauterbach, along with her unborn baby, was most certainly a victim of murder. The burned bodies of the 20-year-old pregnant Marine and her fetus were found in a shallow grave in the backyard of Marine Corporal Cesar Armando Laurean, whom Lauterbach had accused of raping her. According to Lauterbach's uncle, Pete Steiner, the woman's pregnancy was the result of the rape.

Perhaps just as unfortunately, Lauterbach was also most certainly a victim of misjudgments. Numerous articles posted on Internet news sites impugn Lauterbach's character, and raise disturbing questions about her mental state and even her sanity. Dozens of articles proclaim that Lauterbach was mentally ill, a compulsive liar and/or bipolar. A number of articles have published excerpts of court documents that claim Mary Lauterbach, the stepmother who adopted Maria Lauterbach when she was a toddler, described Maria Lauterbach as "bipolar" and "having a history of lying."

This raises a number of questions: Was Mary Lauterbach specifically asked if Maria Lauterbach was bipolar or had a history of lying? Did Mary Lauterbach offer that characterization of Maria Lauterbach voluntarily without having been prompted or pressured? What was the purpose of including that information in court documents, not to mention publishing it in the media? Did authorities have reason to believe Maria Lauterbach lied about having been raped? Or, were authorities more interested in aggressively defending Laurean than obtaining justice for Lauterbach?

Before her body was found, Lauterbach's mother and a law enforcement official made separate televised appeals to Maria Lauterbach, pleading with her to return home.

On ABC's "Good Morning America," Mary Lauterbach implored, "Maria, whatever might have happened, any decisions you might have made, we just want to see you. Please come home. We love you. Please come home."

Onslow County Sheriff Ed Brown sent Maria a similar message: "If (she) is listening and gets this, I want her to know that sometimes people do things, (and) if they could turn the clock back they wouldn't do them the way they've done them. Regardless of the circumstances, this has got to stop."

Both Mary Lauterbach's and Brown's messages seem to imply that Maria Lauterbach staged her own disappearance and was staying away willingly of her own volition-despite the fact that evidence and events seemed to indicate otherwise: Lauterbach, who usually called home up to a dozen times a week, suddenly stopped contacting family members on December 14. Her cell phone was found discarded near a gate on the Camp Lejeune base. A man used her ATM card on Christmas Eve and attempted to obscure the machine's camera. Her car was found abandoned at a bus station in Jackson, N.C.

To me, all of this seems to very clearly point to possible foul play. However, the Marine Corps apparently didn't think so since it not only didn't report her to authorities as a missing person but instead placed her on "unauthorized leave" status.

Lauterbach accused Laurean of raping her in April. Lauterbach and Laurean, who worked in the same unit, were assigned to work in different buildings on May 12. A military protection order was issued against Laurean on May 24. The ordered would later be automatically renewed three times.

In light of the alleged rape and the order of protection, why didn't the Marine Corps take a more aggressive approach to addressing the situation? Paul Chiccarelli, the special agent in charge of Naval Criminal Investigative Service at Camp Lejeune, reportedly told The Associated Press that investigators didn't consider Laurean a threat to Lauterbach or a flight risk because there was reason to believe the two were on friendly terms.

Steiner, Lauterbach's uncle, denies that she and Laurean were friendly after she was allegedly raped. To the contrary, Steiner asserts that Lauterbach was being harassed and, as a result, felt compelled to move to off base housing. Steiner also says that while Lauterbach sometimes stretched the truth when she was under stress, she was not a compulsive liar.

It's been said that perception is reality. Clearly, some individuals' perceptions about Maria Lauterbach had an impact on the way her disappearance was handled. It seems obvious that logic should dictate that, considering the circumstances, Lauterbach should have been given the benefit of the doubt. Yet it is difficult to criticize officials handling her case when even some of the individuals who were closest to Lauterbach seemed to have doubts about whether she had a hand in her own disappearance.

Sadly, all of the speculation about the young expectant mother's whereabouts came to a tragic end with the gruesome discoveries in a crude makeshift grave in the backyard of the individual who should have been considered the prime suspect in her disappearance all along.

Laurean the individual who was not considered a flight risk, is now a fugitive. Before he decided to venture to outrun the long arm of the law, he took the time to pen a note claiming that Lauterbach had come to his home and committed suicide by slitting her own throat. While Lauren denied any part in Lauterbach's death, he admitted burying her body. This absurd assertion has, not surprisingly, been dismissed by authorities as inconsistent with the evidence they have discovered.

Hopefully, we will as a society learn a lesson from this tragedy and, in the future, take measures to protect people whom evidence and circumstances give us reasonable cause to believe may be in danger rather than discounting the evidence in favor of seeking reasons from their past behavior or afflictions why we shouldn't.