Marine suspect caught in Mexico

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) A Marine personnel clerk wanted for the slaying of a pregnant colleague who had accused him of rape was arrested last night in Mexico after a three-month international manhunt, authorities said.

FBI agents and Mexican authorities arrested Marine Cpl. Cesar Laurean about 7 p.m. He is charged with murder in the death of Marine Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach, whose burned remains were found in January in the back yard of his home near Camp Lejeune.

The FBI did not specify when or where in Mexico Cpl. Laurean was arrested, but said he is awaiting extradition to the U.S.

“Laurean’s swift arrest in Mexico was due to the diligence and dedication of the Mexican government and our law-enforcement partners,” Nathan Gray, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Charlotte office, said in a statement.

“This was truly an international effort, and we will do all we can to ensure Laurean is brought back to Onslow County [N.C.] as quickly as possible to answer the charges against him.”

Onslow County District Attorney Dewey Hudson said after Cpl. Laurean’s arrest was announced that “it could be a year or two” before authorities are able to bring the personnel clerk back to North Carolina if he fights the extradition process.

“The extradition process is one where you have a right to appeal,” he told the Associated Press. “I have no idea whether he would waive extradition.”

Authorities think Cpl. Laurean killed Lance Cpl. Lauterbach, a 20-year-old Ohio native who was eight months pregnant when she died, in mid-December. Detectives have said he left behind a note for his wife in which he denied killing Lance Cpl. Lauterbach but admitted to burying her remains.

In the note, Cpl. Laurean said Lance Cpl. Lauterbach committed suicide by cutting her own throat.

Authorities rejected the assertion, saying evidence indicates Lance Cpl. Lauterbach died of blunt force trauma to the head.

Tipped by the note, and not long after authorities went public in their search for Lance Cpl. Lauterbach, detectives discovered the charred remains of the missing Marine and her unborn child in a shallow grave in Cpl. Laurean’s back yard.

Phone messages seeking comment left at Lance Cpl. Lauterbach’s parents’ home in Vandalia, Ohio, with Lance Cpl. Lauterbach’s uncle Pete Steiner, and with family attorney Chris Conard were not returned late yesterday.

A woman who answered the phone at the home of Cpl. Laurean’s father-in-law, Bruce Shifflet, near Prospect, Ohio, hung up without commenting when told of the arrest.

Should Cpl. Laurean be returned to North Carolina to stand trial, he likely would not face the death penalty. Mr. Hudson agreed not to seek an execution in order to win the cooperation of Mexican authorities, who refuse to send anyone back to the U.S. unless provided assurance they won’t face a death sentence.

“We had intel that he had gone back to America to visit his family in Las Vegas and I was hoping they would arrest him in America,” Mr. Hudson said. “But they didn’t. This is a case that certainly is deserving to be tried as a capital case.”