<p>Emerald, it is a far cry from blaming the victim to blaming some kid who just happened to share an apartment with a guy who went out with Lauren. Thank to me smacks of bullying by wealthy parents. They are not even alleging that one boy gave ONE drink to Lauren, he was just a bystander.</p>
<p>Mich, I doubt any of the boys will forget this. I think there were actually two apartments.</p>
<p>Does this mean my kids could be sued if they drink with their friends and let them go home by themselves intoxicated?</p>
<p>I am not balming the victim but she bears some responsibility for her own endangerment. She was leading a highly risky life style as far as I can tell. In a way, this kind of accident was waiting to happen. Is there a credible evidence to believe anyone was involved in the accident or is the mom just wishing to comfort her pain that no one can help ease by dragging others into it? If the boys were innocent, what nightmare would this be?</p>
<p>It sounds like she was at the point of endangerment when her “friends” abandoned her.
It also sounds like they aided & abetted her condition.
Should they be absolved of responsibility for failing to get help?
If she died unattended, wouldn’t her body have been found by now?
Obviously somebody is aware of what was done to hide what happened.</p>
<p>No, she was constantly at the point of endangerment by frequently blacking out from substance abuse. Her way of living leaves little room for error. You can survive driving 500 miles an hour if the road is perfect and no one is around. Any minute irregularity would flip your car and that’s not negligence on the part of anyone else.</p>
<p>What would be a reasonable expectation of a friend? You help your friend but should you take charge of your friend’s safety if they routinely igore it themselves? That is assuming you are sober enough yourself.</p>
<p>I live in Bloomington and did at the time of Lauren’s disappearance. My own D was the same age as Lauren and an IU student, living off-campus with a friend, at that time. I can tell you that her disappearance is never far from the minds of locals. Two years later, signs of her disappearance are still around town. Two years later, people here still care and wonder. Every time a female body turns up within 100 or so miles of Bloomington my first thought is that I hope it’s Lauren. It’s not that I wish her to be dead. I suspect she probably is though, and her parents deserve some type of relief. </p>
<p>I’ve read and watched many of the news reports both locally and nationally. I’ve heard all of the rumors of her drug use and party lifestyle. I’ve heard the rumors about which of the young men were drug dealers. If there has been a rumor I’ve heard or read it. All of that said, when I read some of the allegations in this lawsuit I was stunned. The timeline that is presented in this lawsuit adds new information that has not been previously released–at least to my knowledge. Much of that information is related to the young man that was simply a roommate. </p>
<p>The story that has been circulated for two years by his attorney is that he was in his apartment writing a paper. He helped his roommate into bed, and Lauren decided to leave to go to the third young man’s apartment. Given the allegations in this lawsuit, I no longer feel he was an innocent bystander. Note though that he is only included in a single count of this lawsuit related to negligence. She was a minor at the time. He was not. That is the key here. </p>
<p>Two of these young men are being sued because they provided alcohol to an intoxicated minor. They were not minors at the time. </p>
<p>As for those that think the Spierer’s are suing for money I think you’re wrong. If they were more interested in money than answers, they would be suing the bar also. I’m not an attorney, or even close, but my best guess is that the statute of limitations for suing the bar has run out. The Spierer’s filed the suit now to beat that deadline ( 2 years). From all I’ve read and heard, these three boys may have spoken to the police but were not forthcoming. </p>
<p>BTW-the bar received two citations for illegally serving Lauren. </p>
<p>Lauren’s case also helped get a Lifeline law passed in Indiana.</p>
<p>I 100% concur with rrah. I had just graduated from IU when she disappeared, and returned for graduate school just a month later. Myself and a number of friends participated in searches, and it truly is a heartwrenching experience. It touched every single person in the community, and it still affects the campus to this day. IU is a very, very close knit family, and Lauren’s disappearance shook it to its core. </p>
<p>Lauren was honored at graduation, and every time a female body is found, everyone wonders if it’s her. Just because she led a risky lifestyle doesn’t mean that she deserved what happened to her, nor does it mean that her friends may not be responsible for what happened. To say that she deserved what she got is simply cruel and assessing the situation at face value. The IU community knows that there is much, much more to this situation than just that.</p>
<p>Is the thought locally that she was hurt or died accidentally and the boys covered it up or that they killed her and they are covering it up or that they foolishly let her wander off and some fiend snatched her?</p>
<p>When I read this I think of Chandra Levy and Gary Condit. I remember that her grieving parents were baying for his blood. Of course, it turned out that he had nothing at all to do with her death. </p>
<p>Given that, according to what I recall reading, no trace of Lauren was found in the cars of any of the boys, it seems most likely to me that what happened was that she was snatched by someone else while walking home.</p>
<p>Tome1944, I haven’t read all the rumors, but even if someone falls into a body of water and is missing for a long time, generally after two years, their body has surfaced.
I don’t think it was suspected that she fell into a river, but I think everyone agrees she was not in a condition to be left alone.
But still she disappeared, so what happened?
How did she vanish without a trace?</p>
<p>A classmate of Ds disappeared and was found dead much later( he fell into a body of water) He disappeared under circumstances that indicated he was drinking- yet, he was not considered to be at fault the way that Lauren, and other young women are judged at fault for the harm that may befall them.
Why are people more sympathetic to young men?
Is it that young men are expected to use alcohol in college and " good" girls, arent?
</p>
<p>It may depend more on how habitually he was drinking and engaging in risky behaviors. If he was doing within what is considered norm and got in an accident, we are sympathetic since it can happen to everyone. If Lauren was a boy behaving so extremely, we may be even harsher if anything.</p>
<p>I remember when this case first emerged two years ago…tragic situation. We must teach our children that the need to consume alcohol in massive quantities is a recipe for disaster and very irresponsible. For both boys and girls. How can you expect anyone who is as immature/drunk as you to care for you and your well being? Where is the personal responsibility? These are friends? Just because you are in someone’s company sniffing cocaine, drinking copious amounts of alcohol, doesn’t make them a friend.</p>
<p>[Suspicious</a> teen death in Madison | WTNH.com Connecticut](<a href=“http://www.wtnh.com/dpp/news/new_haven_cty/suspicious-death-in-madison#.UdF8TMu9KSM]Suspicious”>http://www.wtnh.com/dpp/news/new_haven_cty/suspicious-death-in-madison#.UdF8TMu9KSM)</p>
<p>I knew this young man, he used to play with my son years ago/worked with his mom. He was a few days shy of his 19th bday…Another horrible case. If memory serves me, the parents dumped him at the clinic. Here again, no one is going to take care of you like YOU! Be it male or female…</p>
<p>I agree with you emeraldkity4 - women are judged more harshly than men. Even in this conversation - some people are saying Lauren lived a dangerous lifestyle by being a partier and, while she didn’t deserve to die, she is responsible for putting herself in that position. At the same time, I feel like I’m reading here that the boys - if they are innocent - got dragged into this whole thing and isn’t that a shame. Even if they are completely innocent of what happened to Lauren, didn’t they put themselves in this position by being partiers? If Lauren contributed to her fate that night, so did they. She ended up dead and they have some legal hassles, yet we’re sympathizing with the boys and tsk, tsk-ing at Lauren.</p>
<p>I disagree. If Lauren was a boy, she wouldn’t haven’t gotten any sympathy at all. A guy drinking senseless, blacking out at random, one day disappears into the night? All he would probably get is a shrug. We still view females as victims needing protection and more reluctant to hold them accountable.</p>
<p>Really? When you read about college boys disappearing or ending up dead, you just shrug? I don’t. I feel heartbroken for them and their families.</p>
<p>In another thread, there is great sympathy for someone with a DUI. And in this thread, not as much for this intoxicated child. </p>
<p>We all do things we are ashamed of. But to be 23 and not have a chance to mature out of our college behavior? That makes me sad.</p>
<p>PN, that was a matter of speech but go ahead and gripe away if you wish.</p>
<p>slipjig, I think it was a little more than college behavior.</p>
<p>tom–I think locally most people believe that at some point that night it became an emergency medical situation, and the young men were afraid to seek medical attention for her. Lauren had a genetic heart condition which required medication. What happened to her body is unknown. </p>
<p>There were rumors surfacing at the time, and I don’t know how accurate they were, that others were staying at the apartment of one of the young men. There were also rumors of the same young man’s cell phone pinging in an area about 20-30 minutes away from his apartment–in an area near a densely wooded state park. Those are only rumors though and not facts that have ever been released. The police have never released ANY information as to what was or was not found during searches of the apartments, cars, etc. One dog did “hit” on a scent in/near a dumpster. There was an extensive search of a landfill.</p>
<p>Cameras on businesses and the street showed no signs of her. The street she supposedly was last seen on is one of two parallel main streets that run from the north end of town to the far south end out of the city limits. At the point she as supposed to be walking both streets are one way. She was supposedly walking south in the same direction the street runs. Even given the time of the morning she was out, I find it difficult to believe she was randomly picked up in that location with no witnesses. Perhaps it’s just too horrifying for me to think that could happen in that particular place in my town. I suppose crime is random though. </p>
<p>What I’ve found most interesting is the difference in accounts of events given by lawyers and law enforcement. The attorney of one of the young men stated very clearly that his client was at home writing a paper that night. The law suit alleges a very different picture. From where do those allegations come? I can’t imagine that they are “made up.” It maybe naive, but I have to think that there must be some sort of evidence to support those allegations. </p>
<p>There are plenty of heavily wooded public and private places near Bloomington to hide a body. At the time I scoured my own property and some nearby vacant properties (about 50 acres) as it is heavily wooded and adjacent to a large creek. It would have been unlikely that the young men even knew of my area as many locals don’t even know it exists, but one never knows. About 13 years ago another young woman went missing from Bloomington. Her body was found three years later on private property in a nearby county by a hunter. </p>
<p>We might not ever know the truth about what happened to Lauren. I do hope daily that she is brought back to her family so that at least the question of her location can be answered for them.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>No, there is great sympathy for the PARENT of a kid who spent 10 days in jail because of a DUI.</p>
<p>A very different thing.</p>
<p>Personally, I am tremendously sympathetic to Lauren’s parents, but I am NOT willing to get out the torches and pitchforks and blame these three young men for whatever happened to her, not based on the information released to date. Yes, she was drunk. So was the guy who went to the bar with her. Was she responsible for HIS drinking? Give me a break. It seems that all of these kids were indulging in behaviors that put them in harm’s way. Including Lauren, who had been arrested with a couple of them earlier.</p>
<p>It is terribly sad. No one “deserves” to die for this kind of stupid behavior. Yet unfortunately people do, whether it be because of overdoses, accidents, or predators who take advantage of an incapacitated person.</p>
<p>If one of these guys knows what actually happened to her, it is tremendously cruel not to find a way to let it be known. Assuming that her death was accidental and they witnessed it–that is, she wasn’t killed by some other party–I cannot believe that some kind of deal could not have been worked out. That is actually one of the main reasons I continue to think that someone else was involved.</p>
<p>I reject the idea that Lauren is being “blamed” because she was female. Quite the reverse: the big bad boys are being blamed–even thought there is apparently no evidence–because they are viewed by some as responsible for the pretty little blonde, who could not be expected to be responsible for herself, apparently.</p>