Disappearance of Lauren Spierer

Lauren Elizabeth Spierer (born January 17, 1991) is an American woman who disappeared on June 3, 2011, following an evening at Kilroy's Sports Bar in Bloomington, Indiana.

At the time, Spierer was a 20-year-old student at Indiana University.

Though her disappearance generated national press coverage, Spierer is presumed dead and her case remains unsolved.

Lauren Elizabeth Spierer was born January 17, 1991, to Charlene and Robert Spierer; her father was an accountant.

She grew up in Scarsdale, New York, an affluent town in lower Westchester County.

Spierer graduated from Edgemont High School in 2009 and enrolled at Indiana University (IU), where she was studying textiles merchandising.

Spierer was active in the Jewish community at IU and had spent the previous spring break planting trees in Israel on behalf of the Jewish National Fund.

Spierer met her boyfriend, Jesse Wolff, and her friend, Jay Rosenbaum, years earlier at Camp Towanda, a summer camp in the mountain town of Honesdale, Pennsylvania.

It was there she also met various other future IU students who later became Spierer's circle of friends when she enrolled at IU in 2009.

On the night she disappeared, Spierer was drinking with several friends.

Wolff stated that he did not go out with Spierer or her friends that evening, texting back and forth with Spierer before he went to bed.

According to witnesses, Spierer was very intoxicated.

Bloomington police used video surveillance footage and witness statements to create a timeline of Spierer's whereabouts before her disappearance.

The timestamps in bold indicate surveillance footage.

The other times mentioned are on the basis of witness statements.

Friday, June 3, 2011

In August 2011, police conducted 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 hauled after a stop at a transfer station.

The Bloomington Police Department, the Indiana University Police Department, and the FBI took part in the search.

As of May 24, 2013, investigators had received 3,060 tips on Spierer's disappearance, 100 of them received during the first half of 2013.

In April 2015, the Bloomington Police announced that they were investigating a possible link between Spierer's disappearance and the murder of another IU student, Hannah Wilson.

Wilson went missing on April 24, 2015, after visiting Kilroy's, the same bar that Spierer visited 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 next morning in Brown County.

A local man named Daniel Messel was arrested for the murder after his cell phone was discovered near the body.

In July 2015, it was concluded that the two cases are unrelated and any similarities between the two cases were coincidental.

On January 28, 2016, the FBI and other police agencies investigated a property in the 2900 block of Old Morgantown Road in Martinsville, approximately 20 mi north of Bloomington.

According to a statement released by the FBI, investigators were "following up on leads and tips in Morgan County regarding the disappearance of Lauren Spierer".

The property was connected to a man, Justin Wagers, who resided there with his mother and stepfather.

Wagers was suspected of exposing himself to numerous local women.

Investigators searched the property with cadaver dogs, which indicated potential evidence.

Anthropologists conducted a dig and sifted dirt from the barn where the cadaver dogs hit, but found nothing.

Investigators also towed from the property a white truck belonging to Wagers.

A number of theories have emerged in reference to what happened to Spierer that evening.

Spierer's parents have stated that they believe their daughter is dead.

Based on her level of intoxication, they also felt that she may have been drugged while at the bar.

"We felt somebody could have slipped something into her drink at Kilroy's," said Robert Spierer.

The family has voiced suspicions about the men she was with that evening, as well as Wolff, since they refused to take police-issued polygraphs and retained lawyers soon after Spierer's disappearance.

While the parents have not made any specific accusations, they do believe the two know more than they have told police so far.

The men responded that they have taken privately administered polygraphs, as well as one from the FBI.