JACKSONVILLE, N.C. (AP) -- A pregnant Marine missing for nearly a month is dead, and investigators were seeking a fellow Marine she had accused of raping her, authorities 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 a residential area of coastal Onslow County, Sheriff Ed Brown said.
Military and civilian investigators were seeking the key suspect in the death, Cpl. Cesar Armando Lauren, who had declined to meet with investigators and apparently left the area, Brown said.
"They don't know where he is," Brown said of Lauren's lawyers.
Lauterbach met with military prosecutors in December to discuss pursuing rape charges against Lauren, said Kevin Marks, the supervisory special agent for Naval Criminal Investigative Service at Camp Lejeune. He said prosecutors believed they had enough evidence to argue that the case should go to a court martial, the military equivalent of a 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 by a senior military person." More on the story.
A very sad ending. Now the person and/or person will be charged with two murders: The marine and her unborn child.
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