Is Missing Pregnant Marine Another Military Oversight, Part Of Growing Epidemic Of Violence Against Women?
I am starting to feel like Nancy Grace, who in many ways I am very much like. We’re both bitches. Anyway, from the dad who threw his four kids, ranging from ages 3 to a few months, to hiker in NC and now this missing pregnant marine, I am really starting to wonder what the hell is wrong with people, our law enforcement and this country.
CNN is reporting Lance Corporal Maria Lauterbach, who was 8 months pregnant when she disappeared three weeks ago, was only reported missing publicly yesterday. This abduction and harming of pregnant women is becoming a damn epidemic. No wonder celebs don’t want to reveal their pregnancy. Who can blame them.
Here’s some details from the CNN report on Maria’s case:
Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach could give birth at any time, Onslow County Sheriff Ed Brown told the Jacksonville, North Carolina, Daily News on Monday.
The sheriff’s department said Lauterbach’s mother said that her daughter, of Montgomery, Ohio, had witnessed an incident at Camp Lejeune and was to testify about it.
Sheriff’s department officials said evidence causes them to be concerned about Lauterbach’s disappearance, WITN reported.
The Marine’s car was found Monday at Jacksonville’s bus station, Brown told the Daily News, and her cell phone had been found at Camp Lejeune’s front gate on December 20.
Her mother reported her missing on December 19, and told the sheriff’s department “that she was very suspicious that something bad may have happened to her daughter,” the department said in a news release.
What’s also suspicious is the amount of time it took local law enforcement to begin their investigation. According to them, is wasn’t until there was “suspicious activity” in her checking account that they final launched a missing person’s report. Imagine the poor family who’ve been worrying about their PREGNANT daughter for three weeks, only to have our own government and state authorities sit on it on the case until they felt like it.
Onslow County Sheriff Ed Brown said the authorities at Camp Lejune didn’t raise any red flags and therefore everyone “assumed” the woman went home to visit her family for the holidays. This doesn’t add up. The military have very strict requirements about leave and keeping track of where personnel are at all times. Not to mention the family listed her as missing within a few days of not being able to get in touch with her, and her own roommate stated concerns for her whereabouts. Also, there’s the whole ominous “testifying as a witness for something she saw on base” thing that’s really troubling.
Let’s pray Maria left town on her own and is hiding out somewhere safe. One would think she’d contact her family, which they say she did almost daily.
Way to go Marines, way to go Onslow police, you incompetent jackasses.
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Truly sad. I have the utmost respect for Marines, but somebody somewhere totally mishandled this one. I truly hope that this young woman will turn up okay.
Comment by k — January 10, 2008 @ 10:05 am
as someone that has suffered sex assault and the military’s handling, this really does not surprise me. there are clear cut government rules however they are secondary only to attempts to sweep things under the rug and blaming the victim. It happend to me and it happens too often. I am praying for this young lady and all who have endured her plight.
Comment by l — January 10, 2008 @ 11:13 pm
They are already bashing this pregnant marine. They say that she is bipolar and lies. The armed forces make all new recruits go through extensive testing and a psych eval before they enter basic.
I hope that there is an angel watching over this young marine and her unborn child.
Comment by b — January 11, 2008 @ 10:57 am
“Police: Missing Marine bought, never used bus ticket” - http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/01/11/missing.marine/index.html
“Police: Mom told us pregnant Marine is a ‘compulsive liar’” - http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/01/10/missing.marine/?iref=mpstoryview
I guess we’ll find out soon if this is another case of a runaway mommy [not unlike the case of the runaway bride whose fiance Nancy Grace excoriated and was ready to waterboard had it not been for the good work of the New Mexico police.]
Comment by Josey2006 — January 11, 2008 @ 11:53 am
sounds as if the usmc is either trying to shut her up, or cover up something that will more than likely have a grim outcome. i hope this young girl and her baby turn up unharmed very soon.
Comment by D-Bomb — January 11, 2008 @ 4:12 pm
Sadly, they are now reporting she has been murdered and they are currently searching for her grave. We will hear more I am sure in the next couple of days.
Comment by D — January 11, 2008 @ 4:42 pm
Don’t get me wrong, I am incredibly sorry for whatever may have happened to this young woman, and for what her family (and the families of all missing women) is having to deal with right now. I cannot even begin to imagine the pain they must be feeling.
But, I have to say, having worked in journalism for nearly 15 years, you’d be inclined to think that the only women who go missing in this country are young, pretty and white.
There are many women missing, kidnapped and murdered in this country, not all of them are given hours and hours of media coverage. Just check out http://blackandmissing.blogspot.com/ All of these missing women are someone else’s mother, daughter, sister, or friend.
As women, we should be appalled by the violence that is committed against ALL women, no matter their color, ethnicity, or social standing.
This article was written in 2005, and unfortunately, it’s just as relevant three years later — http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4176/is_20050821/ai_n15807965
Sorry for going off like this, but this is a subject that has bothered me for years.
Comment by crazymom — January 11, 2008 @ 5:36 pm
I totally concur. Another issue which pisses me off is you only hear about white kids gone missing. Rarely are children of any other ethnicity given any media attention. It’s wrong and it’s sick. Our media and culture should be ashamed. I gravitate to those articles because a. I am female and b. I have kids. It doesn’t matter to me WHO they are, just that they are missing.
We really need to come up with a better system of keeping this kind of crime from happening so often. I personally wish they had microchips for kids like they do animals. Sounds cruel, but better that, than having your child go missing.
Comment by D — January 11, 2008 @ 6:04 pm
I’m not a fan of microchipping people. I mean, to me, that’s just another way to be followed, and we have too much of that in our lives now.
Just my .02.
Comment by k — January 11, 2008 @ 6:14 pm
Well, they just found her grave with her charred remains in it. Wait for the explanations to explode all over the place.
PS - totally agree with crazymom.
Comment by Amrita — January 12, 2008 @ 1:33 am
I disagree that only “white, young and pretty” females are given the highlighted media attention… Samantha Runyon, the HISPANIC child that was kidnapped, raped and murdered in Riverside Cty, California a couple of years ago comes to mind right away. She got extensive media attention when she was grabbed off the street in front of her own apartment building where she was playing in the front yard. I lived in that area during that time, and I firmly remember the widespread, almost non-stop media attention it gained both regionally and nationally both during her missing status and even after her body was found thru the hunting down of and conviction of her killer.
I am a wife of a military member also, and in the discussion my husband and I had about this missing and presumed dead pregnant Marine, we both agreed that there will be several probably Marines losing their careers over the poor handling of this case. While the military does have its faults, they do not hesitate to correct such mistakes when they are discovered by terminating the careers of those that mishandle such events. Unfortunately, while mishandling does occur OCCASIONALLY, most times things do proceed properly. Consider the vast number of military members and the few cases you do hear about ending out being handled incorrectly. Sadly it appears that this situation has ended tragically, I feel confident that those Marine members who handled the investigation will be scutinized to the “n”th degree, and most probably the careers of anyone who even came close to this investigation will feel the sting of the mishandling of it.
Unfortunately, if it was true that she was indeed a “compulsive liar”, sometimes liars do tell the truth. This just happened to end badly because she wasn’t taken seriously because of any reputation she may have had.
Comment by Elaine — January 12, 2008 @ 2:09 pm
Actually the police report made by her mother stated that she was bipolar and a compulsive liar. So there was a lot of things that went wrong in this case on both sides. Later on in another statement made by her uncle was that she did have a tendency to stretch the truth just a bit under stress but she was in no way a compulsive liar.
Comment by T — January 13, 2008 @ 8:11 pm
Considering the Military never handled this as a criminal case, the information coming out that she was bipolar and a liar. This young lady was forced to work with her attacker daily. Wolf was allowed to run the lamb out from underneath her cloak of protection, when she moved off base was the moment she became the sacrificial lamb.
Comment by T — January 13, 2008 @ 8:23 pm