Friday, April 11, 2008

Criminal Profiling Topic of the Day: Did the Marines Contribute to Maria Lauterbach's Demise?

The Marines have gotten a pretty bad rap in the Lauterbach case. Some, including Maria Lauterbach's family, have accused the Marines of ignoring Lauterbach's rape claim and putting her life in danger. Some think she ended up dead because the Marines failed to protect her. I beg to differ. The only person who put her life in danger was Maria Lauterbach.

Lauterbach claims she was raped but didn't report it for months. When she did finally go in, she states she was raped not once, but twice by the same man. This is a very improbable story and even her own mother states Lauterbach has quite a history of lying. Now, if you were a Marine investigator, are you really going to be able to make any kind of rape case out of this? No physical proof? A claim she was raped twice by the same man but didn't bother to report it the first time? She is called a liar by her own mother? Sorry, but there is no case here for the Marines to bother with.

I am sure they made the same conclusion I did. Lauterbach messed around with a married man, didn't use birth control, got pregnant, and didn't want to get thrown out of the military. So she claimed rape so she would be blameless.

Now, to her actual death. My question is, "How did she get to Laurean's house? If she went there willingly, she either was trying to blackmail him or she is the most foolish human being known to man. Would you go to the house of a man who raped you twice?

Of course, if Laurean kidnapped her, this is a different matter altogether. We will have to wait to hear the facts on this.

Bottom line, though, the Marines are not responsible for the poor choices of their enlisted. Lauterbach may not have deserved to end up dead, but she seems to have worked overtime to put herself in a position to be done in.


Lauterbach was an adult; the Marines were not her protector. Only if there was a crime, and a crime that could be investigated, would the Marines have been required to step in. If Lauterbach truly felt the law was broken during her first sexual encounter with Laurean, it was her duty to immediately report it but she didn't. End of story.

Criminal Profiler Pat Brown

1 comment:

The_Editrix said...

Well, something like that IS BOUND to happen if women are allowed to join the military.