June 3, 2021, records 10 years since the disappearance of University of Indiana student Lauren Spierer. She was last noticed walking in downtown Bloomington during the early morning hours of June 3, 2011.
Though her disappearance created national press coverage, Spierer is considered dead, and her case is still unsolved.
Bloomington Police Department investigators have worked thousands of tips and traced down innumerable leads, but no one has ever been identified a suspect in Spierer’s disappearance.
“Since the time of Lauren Spierer’s disappearance on June 3, 2011, the Bloomington Police Department has continued its ongoing effort to provide answers to Lauren’s family and the Bloomington community. Despite being approximately 10 years into this investigation, information continues to come in regarding Lauren’s case and investigators diligently pursue the information with the same level of commitment as in the beginning. No amount of time passing will deter us from our responsibility and we remain dedicated to Lauren’s cause.”
Spierer was a 20-year-old IU student when she disappeared. This year, in 2021, she would have celebrated her 30th birthday on January 17.
History of Lauren Spierer
Lauren Spierer was born on January 17, 1991, to her parent Charlene and Robert Spierer; her father was an accountant. She was brought up in Scarsdale, New York, a well-to-do town in lower Westchester County.
Spierer did her graduation from Edgemont High School in 2009 and registered at Indiana University, where she was studying textiles merchandising. Spierer was working in the Jewish community at IU and had consumed the earlier spring break planting trees in Israel on account of the Jewish National Fund.
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Spierer coincided with her boyfriend, Jesse Wolff, and her friend, Jay Rosenbaum, years earlier at Camp Towanda, a summer camp in the mountain town of Honesdale, Pennsylvania.
She also met many other future IU students who later grew as Spierer’s group of friends when she enrolled at IU in 2009. She lived in the former Smallwood Plaza apartment building, now named The Avenue on College, downtown Bloomington.
Her parents Rob and Charlene Spierer, are still believing that one bit of information will bring their nightmare to a conclusion. They proceed to keep their daughter in the public eye through different social media posts and media appearances, wishing someone, somewhere, will guide them to their daughter and those accountable for her disappearance. Charlene said there is nothing progressive in her daughter’s disappearance case, which is more than frustrating.
Charlene stated she keeps believing their prayers will be responded.
“Remember, nothing ever truly disappears. Lauren didn’t vanish while hanging out with her friends on the weekend in college. People don’t just disappear. Either did she. Someone(s) know what happened. And the truth will come out. We have never stopped believing that.” ‘
Charlene and Rob got themselves in front of news cameras, talking to the world about their disappeared daughter.
Hundreds of volunteers accompanied her parents and authorities in an extensive search that included abandoned quarries, dense forests, and a local landfill in the last ditch effort. But they discovered nothing.
What Happened on June 2, 2011
On June 2, 2011, Spierer was drinking with some friends. Wolff said that he did not go out with Spierer or her friends that evening, but the two were texting back and forth before he went to sleep. According to eyewitnesses, Spierer was very intoxicated in addition to using drugs.
Spierer had been arrested for public intoxication nine months earlier her disappearance, and after she disappeared, police discovered a small quantity of cocaine in her room.
Bloomington police used video surveillance footage and witness statements to build a timeline of Spierer’s whereabouts before her disappearance.
Timeline of Spierer’s Whereabouts:
After watching the 2011 NBA playoffs and drinking wine with friends, she left her apartment and went to a party around 12:30 a.m. on June 3, 2011, with a friend named David Rohn. The pair moved to Jay Rosenbaum’s apartment, and she met up with Cory Rossman who was Rosenbaum’s neighbor, and Rossman’s roommate Michael Beth.
She spent the next four hours moving among various parties with different orders of four friends — Jay Rosenbaum, David Rohn, Mike Beth, and Corey Rossman.
At 1:46 a.m., she was observed entering Kilroy’s Sports Bar.
At 2:27 a.m., Spierer is captured on camera exiting the bar with Rossman. She had forgotten her cell phone and shoes at the bar. She had taken off her shoes when she stepped out onto the sand-covered patio. Rossman walked with Spierer to her apartment complex.
At 2:30 a.m., Spierer is caught entering Smallwood Plaza apartments. A passerby, Zach Oakes, saw Spierer was drunk and questioned her if she was okay. When they got to the fifth floor of the building, where Lauren’s apartment is, they moved into four male students in the hallway. Rossman seemingly says something witty to one of the men, and the man hits him. He says he can’t remember anything after he was beaten in the head.
Spierer left her apartment at 2:48 a.m. and entered an alley that runs between College Avenue and Morton Street. Security cameras on nearby apartments caught Spierer exit the passage at 2:51 a.m. and stepping toward an empty lot.
Her keys and handbag were seen along this route through the alley. Surveillance cameras in a path on the way show Spierer stumbling and that at some point, Rossman tosses her over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. Spierer and Rossman arrived at Rossman’s apartment quickly afterward. Michael Beth was at the apartment. Rossman was drunk and was stumbling around. He puked on the carpet on the way upstairs. Beth told police he attended Rossman to bed and tried to persuade Spierer to sleepover for her own safety. He claims Spierer said she wished to return to her apartment.
At 3:30 a.m., Beth said he called his neighbor, Rosenbaum, asking him to take care of Spierer. Beth said Spierer still liked to drink and invited Beth to drink with her at her apartment.
She then left and went to Rosenbaum’s apartment at 5 North Townhomes. Rosenbaum reported police Spierer had a deep wound under her eye that she supposedly sustained in a fall earlier that evening. She told Rosenbaum she could not remember how she got the bruise. Two alls were placed from Rosenbaum’s phone just before Spierer left his apartment. One call was to Rohn and the other to another friend. Neither party picked up, and no messages were left.
Rosenbaum told police Spierer left his apartment at 4:30 a.m. This is the last reported sighting of Spierer.
She was last seen barefoot, wearing black leggings and a white shirt at the intersection of 11th Street and College Avenue, walking south on College Avenue. She planned to walk the 2 1/2 blocks home but disappeared.
Many hours later, Wolff sent Spierer a text. He got a reply from an employee at the bar. Wolff then reported Spierer missing.
In August 2011, police led a nine-day search of the Sycamore Ridge Landfill in Pimento, south of Terre Haute for clues in the disappearance. The landfill is where trash from Bloomington is drawn after a stop at a transfer station. The Bloomington Police Department, the Indiana University Police Department, and the FBI took part in the search.
Progress on Spierer’s Case
In April 2015, the Bloomington Police stated that they were investigating a possible link between Spierer’s disappearance and the murder of another IU student, Hannah Wilson.
After visiting Kilroy’s, she went missing on April 24, 2015, the same bar Spierer attended the night she disappeared. Wilson was last seen getting into a taxi in front of the bar and driving away. Her body was found the following day in rural Brown County. Daniel Messel of Bloomington was imprisoned for the murder after his cell phone was found near the body. However, private investigators hired by the family say the crimes were related, but it was coincidental.
One of the most likely leads came in in January 2016, when investigators from the Bloomington Police Department and federal agents searched the Martinsville property owned by the family of Justin Wagers in association with the Spierer investigation. Investigators searched the property with cadaver dogs, which showed possible evidence. Anthropologists conducted a dig and sifted dirt from the barn where the cadaver dogs hit but got nothing. No arrests were made, and police never explained their findings.
Speculated Theories on Spierer’s Disappearance
Through the years, armchair detectives and media rumors have speculated on a wide variety of theories and suspects, ranging from abduction by a motorcycle gang to a drug overdose coverup and the people she was partying with discarded her body in the Ohio River. Many think that is what happened because Lauren underwent a severe heart condition, and with drugs and alcohol added, it could become a deadly consequence.
In 2017, Brown County prosecutor Ted Adams said he assumed Daniel Messel, who he’d condemned of murder in the 2015 slaying of IU student Hannah Wilson, may also be liable for Spierer’s disappearance. However, Bloomington police have not stated whether Messel is a suspect in the case.
“I really just would like to hear, ‘This is where you can find your daughter,‘” Charlene Spierer, Lauren’s mother, told ABC News. “It’s the not knowing what happened to her, where she might be… It’s unbearable.“
In 2020, the so many missing people reported in the United States decreased compared to the previous year, with 543,018 cases. This is the lowest amount of missing person files in the U.S. since 1990. The number of missing persons under the age of 21 was much higher than those 21 and over, with 209,375 females under 21 declared missing, and 59,369 females over the age of 21 announced missing.
