Inside a Real-Life Crime Scene | The Murder of Lance Corporal Maria Lauterbach

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Lance Corporal Maria Frances Lauterbach[1] (November 17, 1987 – December 14, 2007) of Vandalia, Ohio, was a United States Marine who disappeared from Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, North Carolina on December 14, 2007. At the time of her disappearance, Lauterbach was eight months pregnant. Authorities found the remains of Maria Lauterbach and her unborn child in the backyard of Corporal Cesar Armando Laurean, who was extradited from Mexico in 2009 and convicted of murder in 2010.

According to her mother, Mary Lauterbach, LCpl. Lauterbach was preparing to testify that she was raped by a fellow Marine. Mary Lauterbach told police that her daughter "claimed she had been raped by a senior Marine at her command, and that the investigation had gone sour." Her father, Victor Lauterbach, had explained that Maria, an adoptive child, had long been troubled. "It all comes from fetal alcohol or fetal drug-use syndromes. Although our adoption agency claimed the child's background was satisfactory, we never met the mother. Maria's history was one of constant trouble—calls from the principals at her schools, arguments at sports activities, and a disrespectful attitude. We felt that enlisting in the Marines would be a turnaround for her, but it was a continuation of a problematic life." Her mother reported her missing on December 19, 2007, five days after their last conversation. Her cellphone was found on December 20, near the main gate at Camp Lejeune.

Authorities found the burned remains of Maria Lauterbach and her unborn child in a fire pit in the backyard of Corporal Cesar Armando Laurean. They also found a large quantity of her blood in Laurean's house in Jacksonville, North Carolina. Laurean was reported as having tried to clean up the scene.

During a press conference on January 11, 2008, Onslow County Sheriff Ed Brown reported the death of Lauterbach. Brown stated that authorities "had gotten physical evidence of the woman's death that also linked Laurean to the death." Laurean claims in a note found by his wife that Maria Lauterbach committed suicide by cutting her own throat during an argument at the Laurean home. However, authorities found evidence that pointed to murder in the initial investigation, which was further supported by the autopsy results released in March 2008, which classified the neck wound as post-mortem and insufficient to cause death. The official cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head.

As concern grew through December 2007, Maria's mother, Mary Lauterbach, made frequent appeals for adequate investigation by the Marines. Her advocacy grew until she and Congressional Representatives, such as Rep. Tony Hall, became associated with the cause of safety from sexual predators in the military. Her father Victor was mostly absent from family appearances during the disappearance of and search for Maria. For the most part, the absence was explained as avoiding the observation that the parents' insistence was a conflict of interest with Victor Lauterbach's position in the Ohio National Guard as a Senior Master Sergeant in the U.S. Air Force Reserves. In 2009, Mary Lauterbach filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Laurean and his wife Christina, accusing them of conspiring to conceal the murder.

On August 24, 2010, Laurean was convicted of murder, as well as theft and fraud charges relating to using Lauterbach's ATM card after the murder, and sentenced to life in prison. The jurors dismissed the defense's theory that Christina was in fact the real murderer, favoring the prosecution's argument that Laurean's desperation to save his career led to the incident. He initially conspired with Lauterbach to run to Mexico, supposedly with the intent of destroying her credibility with the desertion and continuing his career in the Corps, but reverted to killing her with a crowbar when that failed.