Slain Marine’s mother says she was vulnerable

Lance Cpl. Maria
Lauterbach’s remains were found last weekend.

DAYTON (AP) — An Ohio Marine’s image as a woman who struggled with the truth made her vulnerable and may have triggered events that led to her violent death, her mother told a newspaper in a story published Sunday.

“My daughter was a beautiful girl with a beautiful figure and perceived credibility issues. That set her up to be the perfect victim,” Mary Lauterbach said of her daughter, Maria, in an interview published Sunday in the Dayton Daily News.

The body of Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach, 20, was found last weekend, one day after a fellow Marine she had accused of raping her, Cpl. Cesar Laurean, disappeared. Authorities believe Laurean, who is the subject of an international manhunt, has fled to Mexico.

Laurean is charged in Lauterbach’s death in an arrest warrant. Her burned remains were found in a fire pit in the back yard of a house Laurean shared with his wife in Jacksonville, N.C., next to Camp Lejeune.

Mary Lauterbach believes her daughter should have been more forceful in pursuing a case against Laurean. In a phone call from her daughter in May, Mary Lauterbach said her daughter told her she was attacked on April 10.

Mary Lauterbach’s first reaction was skepticism.

“You realize you’ve lost all your evidence now?” she recalled telling her daughter. “Maria, you have to know you cannot make any false statements because that is one of the worst things you could possibly do. You could ruin somebody’s career, and you won’t be doing yourself any favors either.”

In 2006, Maria Lauterbach told fellow Marines that her father had accidentally killed her 6-year-old brother by throwing a lamp at him. She was put in counseling after her mother assured authorities that the brother, who was almost 9, was alive and well.

That fueled Maria Lauterbach’s skepticism about the Marines fully pursuing rape charges against Laurean, her mother said. But her mother told her that she had to report any rape to protect other female Marines.

When Mary Lauterbach asked her daughter why she waited so long, she recalled Maria replying, “I didn’t think anyone was going to believe me. ... I know there’s going to be hell to pay.”

Naval investigators said they have no physical evidence or eyewitness testimony to corroborate Lauterbach’s claims of rape. They concluded that the first sexual encounter between her and Laurean was not criminal in nature, and the second did not involve any force or coercion — Lauterbach told investigators that when she asked him to stop, he did. Laurean denied they had any sexual contact at all.

On May 12, the Marines told Laurean not to initiate any contact or communication with Lauterbach and to stay at least 1,000 feet from her. That same day the regimental commander reassigned her to a duty office across the base from where Laurean worked. The order later was extended until Dec. 23.

However, that didn’t prevent Maria Lautenbach from encounters with Laurean at mandatory meetings, her mother said.

“Maria, this is ridiculous. You have a restraining order on this guy,” Mary Lauterbach said she told her daughter during one conversation. “I said you need to complain to somebody and tell them you’re just not going to go.”

Mary Lauterbach last talked with her daughter during a call on Dec. 14. Later that night, a friend of Maria Lauterbach called her mother and said Maria had left a note that stated, according to the Marine Corps, “I could not take this Marine Corps life anymore. So I’m going away. Sorry for the inconvenience, Maria.”

When an Onslow County (N.C.) sheriff’s investigator asked Mary Lauterbach to send an e-mail telling everything she could about her daughter, “I said she had problems with occasional compulsive lying,” she said.