IN - Lauren Spierer, 20, Bloomington, 03 June 2011 #11

[SmoothOperator]

Personally i don't think it's safe to automatically assume that LE has infact searched and cleared all of these places being discussed.. Am not being judgemental of LE just stating that what we may assume or call SOP may infact not be according to the LEA in charge of this case..

In following many cases(some with much much less media coverage.. In fact little media coverage at all)when LE do searches such as entire residences and dumpster..: those being very much public property and easily seen and noticed when LE comes in to do these type searches therefor even if not an article is released with these details then at the very least the public speaks about thise service being done resulting with that info making it's way into media reports..

Not having seen this it does cause me reason to question whether or not these type searches have even taken place..

But again at the very least definitely wouldn't be safe to automatically assume that its been done..jmo,tho!

 

[Alliecog]

The summer in Bloomington has two sides to it, definitely. It's really nice because the majority of students are out of town, so it's peaceful and people who are here go out more. There is also a huge drug culture that seems to flourish in some ways in the summer, my guess is all the free time people have. I haven't heard about heroin, but it doesn't surprise me. My mom's best friend has been dealing with her heroin-addicted son for several years now, and we're from an affluent area. I know of two guys from my hs that have ODd and died from heroin. With all of the festivals happening, people are probably bringing back large quantities of "harder" drugs.

 

[jjenny]

Not trying to be rude here at all, but with the FBI and Equusearch now involved isn't it a bit naive to think LE hasn't followed up on this already? I mean, BPD probably has this as standard operating procedure. I can not imagine Equusearch doesn't follow up on this type of thing either.

Considering it's been 3 weeks and police are saying they are no closer than 3 weeks ago, and there has been no sign of her, no, I don't think it's naive.

 

[tcmama]

I may have missed something, but as I understand it...the alleged altercation between CR and ?? (possibly ZO?) was supposedly because CR was with LS. The thought has been that it was a friend of JW and he/they were protecting their friend. If ZO is the drug dealer/user that people have speculated and JW was not as big in the drug scene as the others (again, speculation), would ZO and JW have been friends? Does that make sense? It just seems that ZO and JW wouldn't be that friendly if the speculation is true.

 

[eqh]

It seems really, really bizarre to me that in such a high profile case with tons of searchers no one would think to search the dumpsters. But...maybe that slipped by? Is it normal procedure to look in the dumpsters in cases like these?

The thing is, the first things mentioned were 1) searching the area close to where she disappeared and 2) searching the local lakes. An exposed body would be noticed by landfill employees, but if she could have been in a suitcase in the landfill by Friday noontime... it would require some work to search the recent garbage. And I've heard nothing about this - you'd think it would be mentioned at one of the first pressers.

Whilst it is wrong to assume incompetence, I think it is wrong to assume that nothing has been missed, either. I keep thinking about the kid at Purdue who was the focus of a 2 week long search... and he was found dead inside an electrical closet of his own building.

 

[eqh]

There's a bunch of heroin in Bloomington right now, actually.

After being out of town for seven months, I came back to Bton on the evening of June 3rd (strangely). On the 4th, I hung out with a friend who said three people she knows have gotten addicted just recently, and that there is a dealer in town.

I didn't know much about LS yet at the time - I'd seen two posters up, but didn't know the story, so I didn't think much of it.

Doesn't surprise me... there was a big heroin bust in Bloomington a few years ago -- the dealer was a PhD student.

 

[Darcyline]

There are also different types of heroin where you wouldn't immediately be able to see it as soon as a person enters a room. I was actually shocked to learn how many of my friends occasionally smoked variations of heroin through college and still maintained able bodies and able minds for the most part.

Of course, it is all speculation until someone admits to something or her body is found. Drugs may have played no part in the night and who knows in what combination if they did.

 

[SmoothOperator]

IMO I would take the info such as ZO being this hard dealing drug pusher as nothing more than a grain of salt.. Rumors run amuck in towns with huge cases like this..

Just me personally but I would not form a theory of any type based on details such as this.. We really have no clue if this guy was a drug abuser/user much less and actual drug dealer.. No do we know the interpersonal relationships between these main players..

And as I posted at great length last night those are some of things that add layers of difficulty in looking at the case and especially In forming theories of whatpossibly happened whe. We haven't a clue of the true dynamics of this group of ppl involved..
Jmo, tho!

 

[cluciano63]

Tony G. are you able to find out if dumpsters were searched and when? Do you have a contact?
I could swear I read that they were, but cannot find proof of it.

 

[Knox]

I remember there was talk if searching dumpsters early on. Still looking for a confirmation that LE searched them. But in the meantime here is a story from June 7th

The group of coaches -- including Crean -- started near Indiana Avenue and 15th Street, working their way through wooded areas, dumpsters and behind buildings and in parking lots. "I remember when Jill Behrman went missing, and it brought back a lot of memories," IU employee Momi Ford said. "We wanted to help."
http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/18815.html

I think the dumpsters in the relevant area are picked up on Tuesday, need to double check that fact.

 

[mamamia54]

I found this on June 8th -

Many volunteers who showed up Wednesday evening did not know Sprier but simply wanted to help with the search effort. Among them, IU men's basketball coach Tom Crean, who met Lauren's parents for the first time this evening.

"We're out here in a long sleeve shirt and pants because we are going through the mud and the dumpsters because that's what matters right now ... Your heart goes out to (the Spierer family)," Crean told WDRB News.
http://www.fox41.com/story/14871857/search-effort-expands-for-missing-iu-student

 

[mamamia54]

I remember there was talk if searching dumpsters early on. Still looking for a confirmation that LE searched them. But in the meantime here is a story from June 7th



I think the dumpsters in the relevant area are picked up on Tuesday, need to double check that fact.

Yes, but my point is, what about June 3-7th?

 

[jjenny]

Yes, but my point is, what about June 3-7th?

Exactly. Wouldn't the dumpster be emptied already by June 8 of whatever was put into them on June 3?

 

[Knox]

Yes, but my point is, what about June 3-7th?

In addition to dumpsters, are there also commercial roll-off boxes in the construction areas? Think Somer Thompson ...

 

[mamamia54]

Exactly. Wouldn't the dumpster be emptied already by June 8 of whatever was put into them on June 3?

Yep, I would think so.

 

[Knox]

I'm not disagreeing with your point mamamia54, just searching for info related to the time frame of the dumpster searches, lol.

 

[mamamia54]

I'm not disagreeing with your point mamamia54, just searching for info related to the time frame of the dumpster searches, lol.

No, I understand, I located almost the same info as you did, lol.

 

[Hucklepie]

I've been reading along for the past couple of weeks but haven't had anything to add - I did want to add something to the heroin discussion though.

It's possible that she was into it but that her use wasn't obvious; I had always thought (as previous posts suggested) that you couldn't hide heroin use because it took such an obvious physical toll on your body, but there have been two recent cases in my area of ongoing heroin use that were well-hidden. The more famous of the two was Valerie Hamilton, the Charlotte police chief's daughter who disappeared several months ago; after the body was found, it came out that she had ODed and was using heroin regularly. She was working with children as a swim coach, if I remember correctly, and neither her coworkers or even her father - who, as a police chief, would have been likely to recognize obvious symptoms - had any idea.

Given Lauren's heart problems, though, I'd think that a cocaine OD would be just as likely, if not more so, than heroin.

 

[Knox]

Is this the first PC? Dated June 7th-

http://www.theindychannel.com/video/28157482/index.html

 

[Jupiter812]

Regarding checking of the dumpsters:

* I have no confidence that a systematic checking of dumpsters was done. Even if it had been, there would always be a window of time when one area's dumpsters were being dumped while the others were being checked.

* I have no confidence in the checking of dumpsters by the volunteer search teams. While I'm sure Crean was sincere in his participation, I can't imagine him nor his group catching everything while being followed by press photographers. Who is going to climb in and look, for example, under that bed mattress. Yuck.

* I have some, but not much, confidence about the early searches done by the hundreds of volunteers. I signed a waiver about the search I did so I cannot talk about it but I believe it's fine to share in a general sense. No matter how hard you try, it's easy to miss or walk by stuff that's right in front of you, especially if others in the group are talking or gossiping. It wasn't until I left the group to set out on my own for a while that I realized just how distracted I was.

Thanks for listening.