IN - Lauren Spierer, 20, Bloomington, 03 June 2011 - #8

[jjenny]

There are so many cameras down there. If the boyfriend went out looking for her, how would he be able to avoid being caught on camera somewhere? Also, she lost her cell phone after 1:46 am. Why wouldn't the boyfriend be able to contact her prior to this, if he tried?

 

[October]

(4) Similarly, I think it's unlikely that JW could have made it all the way across town to intercept LS somewhere without turning up on a single camera or being spotted by a single person. If he did it, I think it would have been spur of the moment/rage-driven and it's incredibly unlikely he would have miraculously avoided all detection before the fact (i.e., before he knew there was a reason to). Again, I believe JW is ruled out unless LE is withholding crucial info.

The problem I see here is that if JW went out, it may be difficult to identify him on security cameras without knowing what knowing what time and what he was wearing. Security cams aren't that clear as we learned with truck. LS would have been much easier to identify with her hair and small stature.

I should add, if JW was involved, I think it was with JR's knowledge, probably at his house. Or maybe, as you say, JW has been ruled out. I'm just not convinced of that yet.

 

[ingra1327]

There is a problem with the timeline here. The game was at 9p but the narrative makes it feel like the game was later. Where did LS watch the game. Unclear if it was Smallwood or 5 North.

I don't think we know if she watched the game. It could have just been what they told their friends they were doing so they could leave to hang out at JRs, JR could have recorded it on DVR. All we know is HT said Lauren left with DR to watch the game at JRs.

 

[Lilcheese]

Lauren's parents are from Westchester County, NY - which borders NYC - so it is very possible that is the cell of one of her parents.

I'm from Westchester County, about 10-15 minutes from Lauren's hometown. The 917 could also belong to JW as it is often used for Manhattan/Queens/LI. A lot of Westchester cells carry the 914 area code, as 917 was used as an overlay for a lack of 212s and 718s around in the boroughs.

 

[SeaEclipse]

I don't think we know if she watched the game. It could have just been what they told their friends they were doing so they could leave to hang out at JRs, JR could have recorded it on DVR. All we know is HT said Lauren left with DR to watch the game at JRs.

But that really doesn't make that much sense if we believe everything else we're told... LS avoids watching the game w/ JW when it's actually on/she's just hanging around, but then goes to watch it on DVR w/ semi-random people in another dorm after midnight? That's strange, to say the least and HT would have thought it was strange too, so it would be a weird "excuse" to tell her. I feel like DR or CR/JR/MB could clear this up easily... It's just another thing that makes me think HT's original account of the night has major problems.

 

[Lilcheese]

The problem I see here is that if JW went out, it may be difficult to identify him on security cameras without knowing what knowing what time and what he was wearing. Security cams aren't that clear as we learned with truck. LS would have been much easier to identify with her hair and small stature.

I should add, if JW was involved, I think it was with JR's knowledge, probably at his house. Or maybe, as you say, JW has been ruled out. I'm just not convinced of that yet.

JW is a pretty "average" guy in terms of looks, height, weight and dress as well, so there really isn't anything that would pop him out on any given cam unless he was looking directly into it, as LS was when she was caught on it.

For anyone wondering JW has a case file for general college public intoxication and his Height and weight on there puts him at 5'6 and 135lbs. Thin guy, short guy, but nothing too off the norm. Not enough to pick him out of a large group of guys.

 

[LongTallTexan]

Mon

Its still pretty quite during summer.
Many of the students had already left town by the time Lauren went missing IIRC. Once they leave, Bloomington rolls up the sidewalks at night because locals avoid the area anyway when possible. Who keeps track of when the students are in town? Best just to stay away.

Kilroys is always a hotspot on the weekends, but on a Thursday night?

What time did Kilroy's close that night?

 

[jjenny]

JW is a pretty "average" guy in terms of looks, height, weight and dress as well, so there really isn't anything that would pop him out on any given cam unless he was looking directly into it, as LS was when she was caught on it.

For anyone wondering JW has a case file for general college public intoxication and his Height and weight on there puts him at 5'6 and 135lbs. Thin guy, short guy, but nothing too off the norm. Not enough to pick him out of a large group of guys.

The time we are talking about, though, unlikely large groups of guys would be hanging around.

 

[phantomthought]

Since we're speculating here, here's mine:

I think LS was definitely interested in CR. Perhaps she had a fight with her boyfriend, or maybe the relationship had been on the rocks. I don't know, but I don't think everything was as perfect as the friends are making it out to be. After LS and CR left Kilroy's, they head back to her apartment, probably to get a pair of shoes for her before they head back to her place. In the elevators at Smallwood, they run into a group of the boyfriend's friends. Perhaps they have just left the bar as well, but I have no doubt they were also intoxicated.

The friends are none too happy about seeing the physical intimacy between LS and CR. A fight ensues just outside the elevator, and CR is punched in the face. If I'm LS, at this point I would be furious with JW's friends. I would also want to get the heck out of there, and would take the first opportunity I got to grab CR and run. This would explain why they didn't make it to her apartment and left. At this point LS and CR leave Smallwood. LS is probably very concerned about CR, as he's obviously hurting and acting strange. They stumble down the alley to his apartment. LS is probably preoccupied with helping CR and intoxicated herself, and she loses her keys. I do think they made it back to CR's, and I do think that he went to bed.

What I am sure of at this point, is that LS liked this guy. I feel like people want to make excuses for this, but I think the evidence is clear. She was okay with the "inappropriate attention" and she left with him. She would not have done that if she was uncomfortable and I see no evidence she was forced. I think JW's friends are the ones she wanted to get away from. I also think that there is no way in he** that JW's friends did not make him aware of the situation that night. They felt strongly enough about defending JW that one of them punched a guy. That's pretty serious. I don't see how JW would not have been informed.

I'm not sure what happened after LS left CR's, but I can see the boyfriend coming to look for her and confronting her. He would have been angry and hurt when he found out, and that's not something that you fall asleep knowing. You confront the situation, especially if you're an impulsive, partying college kid. She also would have been angry about the friends' actions. If something did happen with the boyfriend, I think it was accidental. He didn't set out to hurt her, but given the emotions, alcohol and possible drugs, something could have happened. It could be as simple as her heart giving out and the boyfriend, in his clouded state of mind, panicking.This is probably the theory I lean strongest toward.

If the boyfriend was involved, I can see him blaming CR for all of it, thus the confrontation a few days later. An. "OMG, how dare you mess with my girlfriend, if you hadn't done that none of this would have happened" type of thing.

Again, this is all speculation on my part, but none of it is outside the realm of possibility.

Much has been made about why JW friends were in the building.According to HT he practically lived there so I imagine he made friends with a lot of people in the building.So I am wondering why she brought CR back to her apt. That would most likely get back to JW eventually..A discreet person would have told CR to wait outside if she went in for shoes.So was she rubbing his face in it or using it as a way to break up or was she so intoxicated she had lost the ability to reason.

 

[dodie20]

I also just joined the forum (I came across it following Lauren's case) and just have a few random thoughts that I wanted to note:

(1) I assume that the basketball game that JW was watching was the first game of the NBA finals. The game was in Miami and started at 9, so it should have been over by 12 at the latest. Didn't HT say very early on that LS went with DR to watch a basketball game with JR/CR et al? That doesn't make any sense given that she didn't leave until 12:30.

(2) I don't know what to make of the 4:15 phone call from JR's phone (supposedly LS) to DR; however, I do think it's possible that LS made the call... indeed, I think that would be less weird than JR making the call. If LS made the call, it could be because DR was carrying her phone for her when they initially went over to JR/CR's and she drunkenly thought that she never got it back. I don't think the call v. text is that weird if she assumed DR would be sleeping and was trying to wake him up. It was, after all, 4:15 in the morning and she knew DR went back to his place 2 or 3 hours earlier. If JR made the call: why? The only possible explanation I can think of is trying to establish and alibi, but it seems a weird/unlikely way to do it... and what if DR had picked up? I just do not believe that JR called DR -- over in a different apartment building and likely asleep for hours -- to help cover up an accidental OD/sexual assault/anything else.

(3) I don't think that anyone from Smallwood who police can confirm entered when they said they did, are never shown leaving on camera, never swiped their door keys and are then seen exiting the next morning when they said they did are really suspects. That to me rules out DR and HT more or less entirely unless police are withholding critical info.

(4) Similarly, I think it's unlikely that JW could have made it all the way across town to intercept LS somewhere without turning up on a single camera or being spotted by a single person. If he did it, I think it would have been spur of the moment/rage-driven and it's incredibly unlikely he would have miraculously avoided all detection before the fact (i.e., before he knew there was a reason to). Again, I believe JW is ruled out unless LE is withholding crucial info.

(5) That leaves the guys who live in the JR/CR/MB/etc building or a third-party (likely a stranger). Since JR/CR/MB/etc would already have been in the area when whatever happened happened (if it did), their presence there wouldn't be strange if confirmed by camera or otherwise. I find it a lot more believable that they would be able to evade detection/cameras after whatever happened, since they would know that they needed to do so. (My only extra question here would be: Is there any possibility of an overlap between the guys who got into the altercation with CR at Sports and the residents of the buildings that CR/MB/JR live in? The same logic would apply to them.)

JR is obviously the most suspect of these guys since he has self-reported seeing her last... but MB also doesn't have much of an alibi. Suppose JR is only guilty of letting LS drunkenly stumble off and is now too embarrassed to say that he made up the "seeing her to the corner" story (which, as previous posters have illustrated, doesn't make that much sense anyway) to cover his *advertiser censored*... Is it possible she would have gone back to CR/MB's to try to retrieve her phone (or keys, if she noticed those were missing too) there? If so, we have MB's word that he put CR to bed... but couldn't that theoretically leave MB without an alibi? And, unlike the others, we know he wasn't drunk. Of course, MB could have been in bed on her return and this same logic could apply to their other mystery roommates instead... we have no idea where they were at that point.

Anyway, the above isn't to say that MB is guilty... I have no reason to think he is. It's just to say that LS could go between apartments in JR's complex without being spotted on camera, so it seems like the answer could plausibly be in any of those apartments.

I really wish that LE had released the info of who passed a lie detector at the very least... while not perfect, it would give us a better idea of who's story to use as the base story against which to compare the others. I also wish they would tell us more about who was home in the various apartments at various points. My best guess is that CR, at least, passed a poly, since the police seem to have backed off him a bit.

I've tried my darndest to keep up and I've read and read and read, but I'm still missing some facts. Did LE verify that someone had passed a LDT? If so, did they administer it or did a lawyer? I can think of 3 people that I personally think need to take one, to move this case forward...because as of right now, IMO, it could go 1 of 3 ways. 1: stranger. 2: fight-confrontation escalated. 3: friend involvement. Whoever passed the LDT, I would presume, comes from 1 of the later 2 groups and I would think a passed poly would go a long way in pointing elsewhere. MOO.

 

[October]

Much has been made about why JW friends were in the building.According to HT he practically lived there so I imagine he made friends with a lot of people in the building.So I am wondering why she brought CR back to her apt. That would most likely get back to JW eventually..A discreet person would have told CR to wait outside if she went in for shoes.So was she rubbing his face in it or using it as a way to break up or was she so intoxicated she had lost the ability to reason.

I don't know. She had already been seen with him at Kilroy's. I would bet there were people there who could report back to JW as well. Maybe she just didn't care. Maybe they had a fight and she wanted him to find out.

 

[kemo]

I've been away for a week and haven't really kept up. I've caught up now and it seems the investigation has hit an "impasse".

Realistically, college students often party hard, stay out late, do drugs and sleep around but they rarely kill each other and those rare killing virtually never involve a conspiracy. I would expect that BPD would have been thinking "sexual predator" early in the game. I suspect there was some reason that they did not believe JR. Were there conflicting statements, did he appear evasive or not credible? Did someone else contradict his version of events? There must be something. Otherwise more effort would be placed on a identifying that "predator" and the account of anyone who last saw her before 4:15 would be pretty much irrelevant now.

 

[Lilcheese]

Much has been made about why JW friends were in the building.According to HT he practically lived there so I imagine he made friends with a lot of people in the building.So I am wondering why she brought CR back to her apt. That would most likely get back to JW eventually..A discreet person would have told CR to wait outside if she went in for shoes.So was she rubbing his face in it or using it as a way to break up or was she so intoxicated she had lost the ability to reason.

The friends were frat brother's of JW. They may have lived there, they may have had friends there. It seems that a ton of college students resided at Smallwood. There is also the possibility that LS and CR were merely JUST friends and had met up at a bar/were going back to hang out. This does happen, believe it or not, how JW or JWs friends perceived the situation may not be what it really was. Some women just have a tendency to have male friends and some couples are okay with that. I had originally though "okay, JW and LS had that kind of relationship." but his friends stepping in like that suggest otherwise and leads me to believe there was something WRONG in that relationship. Not to say JW did anything, necessarily, but there was something that wasn't all sunshine and roses as HT described it.

 

[cluciano63]

I've been away for a week and haven't really kept up. I've caught up now and it seems the investigation has hit an "impasse".

Realistically, college students often party hard, stay out late, do drugs and sleep around but they rarely kill each other and those rare killing virtually never involve a conspiracy. I would expect that BPD would have been thinking "sexual predator" early in the game. I suspect there was some reason that they did not believe JR. Were there conflicting statements, did he appear evasive or not credible? Did someone else contradict his version of events? There must be something. Otherwise more effort would be placed on a identifying that "predator" and the account of anyone who last saw her before 4:15 would be pretty much irrelevant now.

I am guessing LE cannot verify any of the stories of Lauren's whereabouts after 2:51AM with any certainty. Maybe they took JW to the spot where he said he stood watching her walk away and realized that he could not have seen her, where he said he did. Maybe the other person who had said he also saw her leave retracted. So hard to know.

 

[Alliecog]

Mon

What time did Kilroy's close that night?

3 am is closing time at most of the bars in Bloomington, definitely kilroy's

 

[bessie]

Moving over to a new thread now.

Please continue here...

IN - Lauren Spierer, 20, Bloomington, 03 June, 2011 #9 Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community