Missing Marine’s body found, authorities say

Authorities said Friday that they believed they had found the shallow grave of a pregnant Marine in the backyard of a comrade she accused of rape.

After some slight digging in a fire pit in the yard of Marine Cpl. Cesar Armando Laurean, detectives found what “appeared to be burnt human remains,” Onslow County Dist. Atty. Dewey Hudson said Friday night.

“We think we have found what will [contain] the skeletal remains of Maria Lauterbach,” Hudson said. Authorities placed a tarp and two white tents over the area and planned to begin slowly scraping the earth with garden tools today.

Lance Cpl. Maria Frances Lauterbach, 20, went missing three weeks ago, days after she talked to military prosecutors about a rape case against Laurean, who remains at large. Authorities said Friday that information from another wo- man, a former Marine, left them certain that Lauterbach was dead.

That witness is Laurean’s wife, a person familiar with the investigation told the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the case was ongoing. Before leaving Jacksonville on Friday, Laurean gave his wife a note that said Lauterbach cut her own throat, the person said.

Laurean said in the note that he had nothing to do with her suicide but that he had buried her body, the person said.

Laurean’s wife, Christina, is “heartbroken,” said her mother, Debbie Sue Shifflet. “I feel sorry for the other family,” she said. “It’s horrible what they’re going through. My heart goes out to them.”

Authorities on foot and all-terrain vehicles searched Laurean’s neighborhood near Camp Lejeune, N.C., on Friday. Megan Melton, who lives nearby, said dozens of vultures had descended on the area in the last few weeks.

Although the outdoor search was suspended for the night, investigators from the State Bureau of Investigation moved indoors and began a search for evidence inside Laurean’s one-story, brown-brick ranch home.

The search continued late Friday for Laurean, 21, of Clark County, Nev., who had refused to meet with investigators and apparently left the area without telling his attorneys where he was going, the sheriff said.

Lauterbach met with military prosecutors in December to discuss pursuing rape charges against Laurean, said Kevin Marks, supervisory agent with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service at Camp Lejeune. He said military prosecutors believed they had enough evidence to argue that the case should go to trial.

In court papers filed this week, prosecutors said the anticipated birth of the baby “might provide evidentiary credence to charges she lodged with military authorities that she was sexually assaulted.”

Lauterbach reported the alleged rape in April and was due to give birth in mid-February, authorities said.

In a brief interview with reporters outside the family’s home in Vandalia, Ohio, Lauterbach’s uncle, Pete Steiner, said the alleged rapist was the father.

Authorities said they were not concerned that Laurean would flee because they had information that the pair carried on a “friendly relationship” even after she talked to military authorities. There is no indication Lauterbach asked the military to protect her after she leveled the rape allegations, investigators said.