The disappearance of Lauren Spierer, an undergraduate student at Indiana University, on June 3, 2011 remains as much of a mystery as the day we first learned of her disappearance following a night of drinking with several male friends in Bloomington. The questionable handling of the case by Bloomington Police and Indiana State Police investigators may never yield answers that will unravel the unsolved case to bring closure for her parents. Efforts by Spierer's parents to find justice through a civil lawsuit have met a similar fate. Judge Tanya Walton-Pratt has dismissed on summary judgment a negligence and Dram Shop Act violation claims against two defendants, Corey Rossman and Jason Rosenbaum, two IU students who were in Spierer's company on the night she disappeared. Judge Pratt earlier dismissed a wrongful death claim against the two and another IU student, Mike Beth.
Essentially, Spierer's claim against Rossman and Rosenbaum was dismissed because they were unable to designate sufficient evidence from which a reasonable jury could find that the underaged Spierer's intoxication on the night in question was the proximate cause of her injury or death. Spierer's attorneys belatedly tried to save their case from dismissal on summary judgment by claiming they had not had an adequate opportunity to conduct discovery that would establish a genuine issue of material fact that could be considered by the jury. Judge Pratt rejected their assertion, noting that the plaintiffs' attorneys had never requested additional time to respond to the defendants' summary judgment request and had even told the magistrate handling the case that additional discovery was not necessary to respond to the defendants' summary judgment motion. Spierer's attorneys also could not point to any information they anticipated uncovering during discovery that would create a genuine issue of fact.
Spierer's attorneys had offered an affidavit of a medical expert who would testify that her state of intoxication seriously diminished her mental and physical capacity to establish liability on the part of the defendants for allowing her to walk home on her own. Oddly, the plaintiffs never named Kilroy's Sports Bar as one of the defendants in the suit. Rossman had taken Spierer to Kilroy's that night and purchased alcohol for her there. When the two left the bar around 2:30 a.m., Spierer was observed to be highly intoxicated. She left without her shoes or cell phone. The two headed to her apartment before later going to Rossman's apartment. When Rossman's roommate, Mike Beth, got home around 3:30 a.m., he found Spierer in a highly intoxicated state and took her to Rosenbaum's apartment. Spierer later left Rosenbaum's apartment around 4:30 a.m. on her own to head to head back to her apartment when she disappeared.
It's always been my theory that Spierer likely fell and struck her head at some point during the night and suffered a severe head injury. She likely died while in the presence of whoever was with her last. That person panicked and disposed of her body rather than call police and answer questions about her death. Speculate is all we can do at this point since no body has ever been recovered and nobody has come forward with evidence to explain her disappearance.
When I was growing up in Marshall, Illinois, a farmer in our town, Fred Grabbe, strangled to death his wife, Charlotte, and burned her body down along the Wabash River and then threw her remains into the river. Her disappearance went unsolved for years until Grabbe's former girlfriend turned on him and provided testimony against him. The girlfriend had witnessed Grabbe strangle his wife, have sex with her dead body one last time and then using a grease gun to pump her body cavities full of grease before throwing her body in a 50 gallon barrel, driving her to the river, pouring diesel fuel on her body and then setting it on fire. The prosecution actually found an expert witness on trees from the University of Illinois who testified that he could explain stress damage to the tree under which Charlotte's body was burned to a fire that occurred near the date by examining the tree's rings. The case took an odd twist after Grabbe was found guilty and awaiting sentencing. Another girlfriend of Grabbe barged into the Clark Co. Jail where he was being held, shot a deputy and tried to spring Grabbe from jail before being overpowered. Shortly after he was sentenced, both his and his son's houses mysteriously burst into flames simultaneously and burned to the ground. His son, Jeff, was later found dead floating off the coast of Long Beach, California. Jeff's killer was never determined. The arson remains unsolved as well. Maybe someday a person's conscience will lead them to come forward with the truth about the disappearance of Lauren Spierer.
The Indiana Law Blog has posted the summary judgment opinion here.
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