IN - Lauren Spierer, 20, Bloomington, 03 June 2011 #31

[VeryVeritas]

BBM LE has released What JR said happened. They have released that he made phone calls. I feel strongly that if they had death scent, bodily fluids or Lauren's blood there at JR's we would have at least had a list of. the
people there because they would be murder suspects. Our police are not
that uncooperative. There is no reason for them to hold back the fact if her
death scent was there, the investigation would be totally different. I.E.,
"A death occurred here, the DNA is Laurens, she didn't walk around the corner, no way could she have." If you say LE is holding that info back, you are saying LE must be dishonest, and in this case, I don't think so. Just sayin.

I totally disagree. LE does not have to release anything. They work to build a case for the prosecution. There have been several very public murder / vanish cases in recent years that have been botched due to LE not preserving crime scenes, keeping evidence secret, etc... Definitely today it seems that LE around the country is very tight lipped about evidence in these kinds of cases. That makes a WS'rs task more difficult, but assuming LE IS actually doing their job, this is what you would expect. If they are not doing their job, we have no way of knowing. That's just how it is...

 

[VeryVeritas]

BBM I wonder if that's true. I'm not confident that we would know anything about anything, since LE hasn't shared a thing with the public about what evidence they have and the POI haven't exactly been forthcoming about what happened that night.

I recently caught a repeat of the show Vanished that had a short clip about Lauren. The same episode also told the story of Kristen Smart, which I've brought up a few times here. In that case there was a lot of evidence -- the person last seen with her (helping her home, drunk after a party) had scratches, he lied to the police, a cadaver dog picked up a scent in his dorm room... but since Kristen still hasn't been found, there has never been an arrest. I think the only reason the info about the cadaver dog was made public was because her parents found out and told the media...

Anyway, I don't think it's an accident that those two stories were put together on the show. There are a lot of (potential) similarities.

Abbey - please elaborate on what similarities you think are significant.

In the case of LS, It always seemed improbable to me that LS died at JR's.
But certainly was possible. I have no reason to believe MB because of the numerous conflicts by his attributed statements vs. the known facts and statements of JR. However, if we are to assume that MB did somehow transfer LS to JR prior to her being deceased, then my view is that she was unconscious if that transfer ever happened.
From analyzing this case from the very beginning I'm leaning this way
a) LS deceased in that gravel lot or a vehicle nearby. 60%
b) LS deceased enroute to 5N to CR/MB's apt, in CR/MB's apt or enroute to JR's apt with the help of MB. 35%
c) LS deceased in JR's apt 4.9%
d) LS deceased or even alive after leaving JR's(assumes she actually left JR's alive) 0.1%

In the scenarios where LS is deceased inside the apts at 5N or in the hallways or 5N sidewalk I have always thought that she was removed very quickly. The quick removal caused me to entertain the idea that someone may have tried to take her to the hospital but she passed away enroute and then cover up ensued. It's a remote possibility. Removing her quickly would be key to any successful clean up and cover up. A cadaver scent is traceable pretty much immediately. But cleaning up such a scent is far more likely if she were there only seconds to minutes before being removed.
For example. If she suddenly stopped breathing and someone attempted CPR and realized it failed... then grabs a sleeping bag and quickly puts her into it... then very carefully cleans the spot several times where this happened (maybe discarding a blanket, rug anything she might have been touching. ) this might potentially thwart a cadaver hit a month later. It really depends on what really happened, how fast they acted, and then how good LE pursued this possibility. Remember in the Kaylee Anthony case there was the cadaver smell in the trunk, but there was in fact no way to forensically prove that it was in fact a cadaver. So, even if a dog had some type of "hit" around CR/MB's or JR's it would just be a sort of smoking gun. And certainly if the hit were in one place vs. multiple locations you could use that to form theories about who was involved and what happened.
A body lying somewhere for a length of time is much harder to clean up and to tougher to remove the scent traces.

There is something I learned from LE recently and that is when someone commits murder for the first time, they usually have an emotional rush where they make dumb mistakes. Isn't there a similar reaction the first time you see someone OD, or just die in front of you, especially a young friend?
Mistakes like picking up the phone and calling 2 people suddenly at 4:15?
Or mistakes like picking up the phone and calling JR at 3:30?

Was this cover up really so squeaky clean for first timers? Or are there a lot of little pieces being put together that will eventually get them?
Or... was this not the first time someone has had to do something like this?

Think about it, even combat trained soldiers who see someone get killed for the first time are often very freaked out. How does a cover up get pulled off so cleanly and to the point it's followed up with total arrogance?
That's what really bugs me about this case.

 

[Ixchel13]

[Was this cover up really so squeaky clean for first timers? Or are there a lot of little pieces being put together that will eventually get them?
Or... was this not the first time someone has had to do something like this?

Think about it, even combat trained soldiers who see someone get killed for the first time are often very freaked out. How does a cover up get pulled off so cleanly and to the point it's followed up with total arrogance?
That's what really bugs me about this case.[/QUOTE]
BBM and quoted from Very Veritas

IMO there were two confrontations we know of--the first, at Smallwood between ZO and CR; and the second, at 10th and College between Lauren and ...?

We see the first confrontation, and we see her in the alley and emerging from the alley.
What we don't see on camera is her slamming her head on the concrete. We don't see the bar witness on camera. We don't see the giant clock saying 3:38. The entire 10th and College incident has been placed in complete suspension: One person is dead, one claims amnesia, the bar witness has been discredited by LE and left town, and the other claims to have been fast asleep.
What I'm beginning to think is that confrontation happened after Lauren left JRs, and it was 4:38 instead of 3:38. CR "can't remember anything" so that's
taken care of, just stick that confrontation into the timeline while Lauren is still alive. And yes, if they had Lauren's phone they would need to get rid of it.
And BTown has seen a video, around the time Lauren was supposedly
walking home, of a woman over by Kilroys and a car by the curb.

 

[akh]

A judge has ruled that part of the wrongful death lawsuit issued by Lauren Spierer’s parents can go forward.

The ruling was filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana. Robert and Charlene Spierer, Greenburgh, N.Y., have argued in their negligence lawsuit, filed in June, that three men who were with the Indiana University student on the night she disappeared in 2011 had owed their daughter a “duty of care.”

In the ruling filed Monday, Judge Tanya Walton Pratt upheld the motion by the defendants to dismiss one count of the Spierers’ complaint brought under the Child Wrongful Death Statute and claiming “loss of a child’s services.” The judge said the count was dismissed because Spierers’ parents alleged in their complaint that their daughter was an adult when she disappeared.

The judge will allow two other counts in the complaint to go forward, based on the Spierers’ allegations that Jason Rosenbaum and Corey Rossman gave Lauren Spierer alcohol while knowing she was already intoxicated.

Those counts of the lawsuit accuse Rosenbaum and Rossman with “negligence per se” and “dram shop,” a legal term used when damages are sought for providing alcohol to someone who is clearly intoxicated. The Indiana Dram Shop Act imposes liability on a person for any damages caused if that person knowingly provides alcohol to someone who is already intoxicated.

Earlier this month, the judge threw out the negligence lawsuit against a third individual, Michael Beth, who was also seen with Spierer the night she disappeared. In that ruling, Pratt agreed with the argument from Beth’s lawyer that Beth wasn’t liable just because he saw Spierer while she was intoxicated. Pratt also said Spierer had her own responsibility to take care of herself.

Spierer disappeared in the early-morning hours of June 3, 2011, after she was seen partying in Bloomington with her fellow students at their apartments and at Kilroy’s, a local sports bar.

Her disappearance remains under investigation.

Star reporters Jill Disis and Tim Evans contributed to this story. Call Star reporter Michael Boren at (317) 444-6138. Follow him on Twitter: @borenmc.

http://www.indystar.com/story/news/...wrongful-death-lawsuit-to-go-forward/4183485/

 

[Jacobite]

You take an underage girl out partying and you don't get her safely home. You are in a deep dog mess.
I call slam dunk on this case as these guys are in serious trouble because she is missing and they do have some role in that.
The Spierers need to sequester these guys for the depositions. Then, they won't be able to talk to each other and come up with a story.
In depositions, you must answer the question. If Corey knows anything about someone else's guilt, he must tell. Add, pleading the fifth for himself could spell financial ruin for his parents as well as him.
So, I'd think they will now try to satisfy the Spierers with some answers. Deep trouble for them whether they did the disappearance or not.
I'm putting odds on their guilt at 75 percent. But, I believe if Lauren entered 5 North alive, she must have been living when she left. So, I hope this case brings some answers because we have very few pieces of this puzzle.
And the pieces we do have aren't solid.

 

[akh]

Apparently, MB and JR have talked to investigators/Spierers. That's pretty clear from the civil suit filing (their comments are basically what the case is based on).

CR is claiming memory loss we assume.

The attorney(s) will have to be fairly sly in cracking MB and JR's stories because CR can answer "I don't recall".

"I don't recall" is a valid legal answer, even if you're lying, because nobody can get inside your head to know what you remember or not. OTOH, juries don't have to believe you. Especially if something seems 'off' or your "I don't recall"'s begin seeming convenient to your defense. But in this case, his memory loss gets help by him being alibied by MB and JR who then claim to have seen her after CR did.

It will be interesting to see if CR's story actually is 'memory loss' under deposition. And if the 3 stories dovetail or something is a awry.

But, as I said a while back, this is a bit of a wild goose chase looking for answers and if they are innocent of her disappearance it sets a bad precedent for future missing person cases. They've clearly talked (at least MB and JR) and that talking has created the basis for this civil suit. Regardless of the outcome of the suit this will now be exhibit A when a lawyer tells his client not to talk in a case like this.

 

[monkey222]

Merry Christmas All. I'm back in Indiana today. Very pretty, snow, Go IU!

 

[AbbeyR]

Yay, wonderful news about the lawsuit moving forward. Merry Christmas, everyone!

 

[AbbeyR]

Abbey - please elaborate on what similarities you think are significant.

Well, I don't know all of the details of the KS case, but

- She went missing after drinking at a party off campus
-when she was last seen she was having trouble walking, passing out
- An acquaintance volunteered to 'help' her home
- That person was the last to see her
- He lied about what happened that night
- There was evidence pointing to his involvement in her disappearance
- They still haven't found her -> No arrests

What that case taught me was that having incriminating evidence (In this case, this included a cadaver hit in the POI's dorm room) may not be enough for an arrest if the person is not yet found. People will not be arrested unless they can make a case, and it is very difficult to make a case without knowing concretely what happened to the person.

It breaks my heart to think of these families without answers.

 

[AbbeyR]

The only cadaver hit we know concerning Lauren was by a psychic who came uninvited and we know how you feel about psychics, AbbeyR:drumroll:

Haha, yes, you all know how I feel about psychics.

To be clear, my point was only that we don't know what evidence exists. IMO, we just can't conclude that there was or was not a cadaver dog hit, based on the fact that there hasn't been an arrest (see last post) or because LE has not told the public (they haven't told us one way or another what evidence exists or doesn't).

I have wondered about this, but not because of the psychic. After doing a little research online, I wouldn't trust her or her dogs at all. The one thing that gave me pause is that when the psychic claimed publicly that LE told the Spierers that their cadaver dogs hit in the same place, behind a dumpster outside of 5 N, the story was confirmed (on FB) by Don Cranfill, who is not a psychic and was apparently working with the Spierers to organize the searches. I don't know anything about him or whether he or this rumor is legit - so this is one of the many unanswered questions I have about Lauren's case.

 

[Jacobite]

Don Cranfill really did organize searches for Lauren and this is confirmed by several news sources. As for Gayle StJohn, she told me it cost $15,000 a piece to have her cadaver dogs trained. She does some work at Camp Atterbury traaining soldiers.
But, a cadaver scent is not specific to one person. And, cadaver dogs can find the scent even 200 years later. The hit by the dumpster may have been someone else. After all, a cadaver trail should have picked up where the live scent was lost by the tracking dog, not just a hit by a dumpster. So, when I asked Gayle about this she said it was possible that Lauren really disappeared from the location where the tracking dog lost her scent.
Now note where Lauren lost her fake ID. Jay says she had it along with the key card to her apartment at 4 AM. I don't know if her key card has been found. Her gold front door key was found by AJ around 3 in the morning. Her fake ID was found later near the spot where tracking dogs lost the scent. And, the ID was used to fine Sports.
Tracking dogs are trained to stop at the freshest scent. So, if Lauren disappeared from the location where the dog stopped that would make sense. Perhaps, Lauren vanished near 10th and College village and dropped her ID.

 

[Jacobite]

I have been experimenting with a security system set up like the one in Bloomington and conclude it is possible that Lauren disappeared in camera view and it was never recorded. Say she disappeared 40 or 60 feet from the camera, this would not cause enough pixel change using infrared to activate the motion detector in the DVR to record.

 

[Jacobite]

Finally, I would not have brought up Dick Allguire except for a lady using his method found Terry Dewayne Smith in California last July.
He needs to place an X on a topographic map and I will go and check it out.

 

[AbbeyR]

Don Cranfill really did organize searches for Lauren and this is confirmed by several news sources. As for Gayle StJohn, she told me it cost $15,000 a piece to have her cadaver dogs trained. She does some work at Camp Atterbury traaining soldiers.
But, a cadaver scent is not specific to one person. And, cadaver dogs can find the scent even 200 years later. The hit by the dumpster may have been someone else. After all, a cadaver trail should have picked up where the live scent was lost by the tracking dog, not just a hit by a dumpster. So, when I asked Gayle about this she said it was possible that Lauren really disappeared from the location where the tracking dog lost her scent.
Now note where Lauren lost her fake ID. Jay says she had it along with the key card to her apartment at 4 AM. I don't know if her key card has been found. Her gold front door key was found by AJ around 3 in the morning. Her fake ID was found later near the spot where tracking dogs lost the scent. And, the ID was used to fine Sports.
Tracking dogs are trained to stop at the freshest scent. So, if Lauren disappeared from the location where the dog stopped that would make sense. Perhaps, Lauren vanished near 10th and College village and dropped her ID.

- On GSJ's dogs, all I could find was that her dog completed a one day training course after Lauren's disappearance" - She has no info online, and neither she nor the person who interviewed her on that blog radio would confirm that the dogs were certified in any way. (See this post: [ame="http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showpost.php?p=8545570&postcount=562"]Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community - View Single Post - IN - Lauren Spierer, 20, Bloomington, 03 June 2011 #28[/ame]) Do you know what kind of certification or training her dogs have?

- To me, the bigger question is: Did LE really confirm their trained cadaver dogs hit near the dumpster behind 5 N? I understand the problems with a cadaver dog hit, but still, this could be important.

- What is your source for the where the fake ID was found and that it was used to fine Kilroy's?

Thanks in advance, J!

 

[Jacobite]

I'm thinking the dumpster hit was not her. Rob Spierer told me the drug OD theory was disproven long ago. The landfil was searched by the FBI using the latest high tech devices. Sears searched the dumpster when they picked up the rubbish. Nothing found.

The answer about the ID is found in the LoHud video. I watched it again and caught that this time. Jay says she had the ID at his place when last seen.

 

[AbbeyR]

I remember the part about jay mentioning the ID, but no one has ever said if/where the fake ID was found, as far as I know. (Except for the anonymous rumour in the HT that a searcher found it, but the details conflicted with other reports)

THat's why I'm curious about whether it was found - (I may have missed this...) I've always found it odd that Jay noticed and mentioned she had her fake id with her at his place, since she lost everything else and had no pockets.

 

[holly18]

I'm thinking the dumpster hit was not her. Rob Spierer told me the drug OD theory was disproven long ago. The landfil was searched by the FBI using the latest high tech devices. Sears searched the dumpster when they picked up the rubbish. Nothing found.

The answer about the ID is found in the LoHud video. I watched it again and caught that this time. Jay says she had the ID at his place when last seen.

When did Rob Spierer say this? As far as I know, her family has not publicly said that they do not believe the OD scenario is possible. If the family had definitive proof that Lauren did not OD (I'm not saying I think she did, but it is one of the more prevalent theories) I would think they would say so, that would change the perception of the case immensely, imo. It would change the situation from potentially an accident and then cover up to an abduction and/or murder.
I might have missed Rob saying this, but I'd be surprised if they had reason to believe the OD theory was disproven and kept that quiet. As it is now, I think many people assume she OD'd because it is the least evil option (not calling 911 is still horrible, but its not as heinous as the idea that she was snatched off the street/one of the POIs murdered her), and if I were in the Spierer's shoes, if I knew that wasn't a possibility I would want to make that clear so that people wouldn't be wasting their time working with a theory that had been disproven.

Sorry if this is rambling!!

 

[akh]

How could the OD theory be disproven? If it has been disproven then that would mean something most likely fairly important has been withheld. It would potentially be mitigating evidence for 5N even.

To say the OD theory has been disproven would also be saying a rufied(sp?) drink scenario would be out as well.

OR is it simply that they refuse to believe she was involved in drugs and so can't bring themselves to believe she would OD?

 

[AbbeyR]

How could the OD theory be disproven? If it has been disproven then that would mean something most likely fairly important has been withheld. It would potentially be mitigating evidence for 5N even.

To say the OD theory has been disproven would also be saying a rufied(sp?) drink scenario would be out as well.

OR is it simply that they refuse to believe she was involved in drugs and so can't bring themselves to believe she would OD?

I think the Spierers have been realistic and truthful about the possibility that drugs were involved and that Lauren may have been given drugs with or without her knowledge. Based on their statements to the media and on Twitter about Lauren's condition, calling 911 and their pleas to others to be safe and call for help for others, I've always thought they probably did consider the overdose rumor a possibility. Just my impression though.

 

[Jacobite]

The 5 N boys lawyered up so soon that they caused a serious roadblock in the investigation.
While I can't say they are guilty. I can say they need to start talking and silence is very suspicious.
A police officer who worked this case in Bloomington told me he suspects some combination of these guys committed this crime.
So now, more than 2 and a half years later, we still wait for them to talk. HOPEFULLY,
their depositions in the civil case will provide some answers and give investigators a direction to go. I'm not buying the odds against them are 99.999, instead 75.
I hope the real truth will be known soon!