JACKSONVILLE, N.C. — A pregnant Marine missing for nearly a month is dead, and investigators were seeking a fellow Marine she had accused of sexually assaulting her, a sheriff said Friday.
Authorities had not recovered the body of 20-year-old Lance Cpl. Maria Frances Lauterbach, but they believed she was buried in a shallow grave in coastal Onslow County, Sheriff Ed Brown said.
The suspect, 21-year-old Cpl. Cesar Armando Lauren, has declined to meet with investigators and is not in custody, he said.
“They don’t know where he is,” Brown said of the suspect. “He’s gone.”
Lauterbach had claimed a superior had sexually assaulted her, and she was worried that the investigation was going nowhere, according to court documents. She vanished last month before she was to testify in a military probe,
The court papers said the anticipated birth of the baby “might provide evidentiary credence to charges she lodged with military authorities that she was sexually assaulted by a senior military person.”
Brown said detectives had tried to speak with Lauren, but he refused to do so, on the advise of his attorneys. Authorities said they didn’t consider Lauren a flight risk until Friday, because they had information the pair carried on a “friendly relationship” after she reported the assault to military authorities.
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