Crime Weekly - S1 Ep34: Disappearance at Indiana University: Lauren Spierer (Part 1)

Episode Date: July 30, 2021

Check out Vodacast for this episode! -- https://vodacastfeed.azurewebsites.net/api/55330139/Crime%20Weekly/34:%20Disappearance%20At%20Indiana%20University:%20Lauren%20Spierer%20(Part%201) “It is shocking that someone so loved could vanish without a trace, but entirely possible. It did happen and ten years later I still struggle. The space that once held hopes and dreams for Lauren will never heal. It is replaced by an ache fueled by the not knowing”. Those were the words Charlene Spierer wrote on the ten year anniversary of the disappearance of her daughter Lauren. When Lauren’s parents dropped their daughter off at Indiana University in the Fall 2009 for the start of her freshman semester, they had felt she would be safe to learn and grow and then she would come back home, ready for the next chapter in her life. But Lauren never came back home, and to this day, ten years later, no one has any idea where Lauren Spierer is, but her parents and many others believe that there is someone, or more than one someone, who does know more than they’re saying, and who could help bring the Spierer family some closure. Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod

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To learn more about how AudioHook can help you achieve your desired results, visit AudioHook.com forward slash results. That's AudioHook.com forward slash results. It is shocking that someone so loved could vanish without a trace, but entirely possible. It did happen, and 10 years later, I still struggle. The space that once held hopes and dreams for Lauren will never heal. It is replaced by an ache, fueled by the not knowing. Those were the words Charlene Spear wrote on the ten-year anniversary of the disappearance of her daughter, Lauren. When Lauren's parents dropped their daughter off at Indiana University in the fall of 2009 for the start of her freshman semester, they had felt she would be safe to learn and grow,

and then she would come back home, ready for the next chapter in her life. But Lauren never came back home, and to this day, 10 years later, no one has any idea where Lauren Spearer is. But her parents and many others believe that there is someone, or maybe more than one someone, who does know more than they're saying, and who could help bring the Spierer family some closure. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Levasseur. Okay, so today we're talking about a mysterious missing persons case. And I know that unsolved missing person cases, they're usually my favorite to cover. And I always try to get Derek to talk

about them. Because to me, it's like a serious mystery. And I want to like look at every little detail and try to put everything together like a puzzle to see if there's something that's been missing or that's been missed. And I mean, honestly, in a lot of these cases, like the people that go missing, there's somebody's kid, somebody's loved one. And I personally can't imagine anything worse as a parent to have your child vanish and then not know what happened to them for years and years. And you have to live with that every single year. It's just awful. So if we can help by getting the word out, keeping their stories live, keeping their names live, it's important that we do that. And I've gotten a lot of requests on YouTube to cover Lauren

Spears' case since I started YouTube. I've been getting requests. But I never really looked deeply into it until we decided to cover it on Crime Weekly. And I remember the morning after I started YouTube. I've been getting requests, but I never really looked deeply into it until we decided to cover it on Crime Weekly. And I remember the morning after I started doing my research, Derek called me and I was like, I can't talk right now. I'm so engulfed in this case. I'm obsessed with it. So needless to say, what happened to Lauren Spear has been on my mind for several days now. And I'm actually really glad to be sitting down with Derek and getting his perspective because usually we do talk about the cases that we're covering over the week. But I think Derek's been super busy and he hasn't had any time for me and he's really neglected me. I mean, if we're being honest. But, you know, it's Big Brother season. So Stephanie goes to the back

burner. It's true. Honestly, I've been crushed with cases for my actual firm, but I did have a chance to review it because to be fully transparent, I didn't know anything about this case until you mentioned it to me. So I obviously read your script and then I did a couple little searches here and there. So I have a general idea of what it's about. I have some thoughts on it. I definitely know the specifics of her disappearance, but I think it's an interesting thing you bring up as far as these unsolved cases, because it's a double-edged sword, especially in true crime, because we know, especially having a TV show, I know what gets views and what people want to hear. A lot of times they want resolution. And so we get that. But at the same time, if we're only doing cases that are solved, although they have that, you know, I wouldn't call it a happy ending, but an ending. What are we really doing? Because these are cases that we've already,

you know, that really don't need any more work. Yes, there are lessons that can be learned, but it's so much more rewarding to do cases like this that are unsolved because maybe one of Lauren's family members or friends or somebody sees this or hears this or someone who has information decides based on just one thing we said to come forward. So it's a long shot, but why not take that chance? If we have this platform, why not use it to possibly help? And so that's why you got to do these. So we are going to mix it up. And although these cases are a little bit more depressing when you know, it's kind of, you know, there's a lot of questions that have gone unanswered. It's a necessary evil.

I think it's ethically responsible for us to do it. So we're going to dive in and give it our best effort. And hopefully it leads to something positive. Yeah, I agree. And like I said, just a really great mystery. And it's been 10 years now. The anniversary, the 10-year anniversary of her disappearance just passed. And it's just so weird to see even like in the, you know, the 2000s decade, especially

this case, because I mean, there was surveillance cameras everywhere. This is a college town. And Lauren and her friends, they basically stayed in one little area of this town the whole time, because it's the town, the area of the town where the kids live, like off campus and where all the bars and restaurants are. And I mean, there is surveillance everywhere. So for someone to go missing in those kinds of circumstances, it's very mysterious. And so you hope that there is somebody out there that saw something or knows something. Yeah. And as a former investigator, I definitely have some insight. We've been hearing a lot from you guys and we talked about maybe doing a special episode where we talk about ways that you can better protect yourself. Well, I think part of what we have to do and we've been

doing it is at the end of these episodes or as we're doing it, interweave some suggestions. You know, I think that's something that we do bring to the table. This is something that I've dealt with for over 17 years now in an investigation. So I have learned a lot. I have seen a lot of patterns as far as what happens with victims and some of the similarities between the situations where situations like this are able to happen. Derek, are you sure you've been doing it for 17 years? Because you look way too young for that.

Yeah, how many times do we get that in the comments? Everyone wants my resume. It makes me real mad now when I see him. I want to like jump to your defense and I want to be like, leave Derek alone. Yeah. And I mean, I don't think we've ever addressed it. So I will address it in this episode, although it probably won't help at all. Just so you guys know the math, you can look at it yourself. I was a police officer at the age of 20. So I was the youngest in the history of my department. And I was there until 2017. I retired in 2017 after 13 years of service.

And now the reason my clock is still running is part of the reason I left was because I opened my own private investigation and security consulting firm. So I'm a licensed and insured investigator. I've been doing it nonstop ever since. In fact, I've probably worked more cases. And the reason that I left the department was mainly because I started investigating cases throughout the country. And there's a big jurisdictional issue with that. When you're a sworn officer in a particular city and you're starting to play in other people's backyards, that's ethically and almost

professionally not the right thing to do because technically I'm not an officer there. So I made a decision to leave. So that's why we say I don't have quite 20 years. So you've given me credit a couple of times for 20 years. I'm getting close, but I'm not there yet. So 17 years, and I've seen a lot over the years, and I've seen a lot of individuals who have felt victim to these, you know, in these types of situations. And there is a pattern that you sometimes see. And I do think there's things that we can all do to better protect ourselves. And we got to start interweaving that, which we've kind of done a little bit in these episodes that our listeners are better aware of their surroundings and better protected when they

go out because Lauren was no different than you or I. And so it can happen to anyone. And that's really what you have to take away from this. She's not an anomaly. This could literally happen to anyone. And we want to try to protect you guys. So we're going to make sure we do that as we continue this Crime Weekly journey and continue to grow as a channel so that it's informative, it's educational, and at the same time, we can grow tighter as a community. Well, without further ado, let's talk about

Lauren Spear, who she was, how she ended up at Indiana University, and what happened the night she went missing. Lauren Spear was born on January 17, 1991, the same exact year as my little sister, which is creepy when you see these little tidbits that make you think of somebody you know, and you think about that. It's just, it's kind of creepy. But she lived in Scarsdale, New York with her mother, Charlene, her father, Robert, who was an accountant, and her older sister, Rebecca. Charlene said that Lauren was every parent's dream. She was athletic. She played soccer and lacrosse in high school.

She was creative. And she took fashion classes in high school, hoping to one day become a big-name fashion designer. And even though she was a tiny girl, and I mean she was tiny, she stood at just 4'11". She weighed only 95 pounds. Apparently, Lauren had a big heart, and she was a tiny girl. And I mean, she was tiny. She stood at just 4'11". She weighed only 95 pounds. Apparently, Lauren had a big heart and she was incredibly giving. Lauren was an active participant and leader at the Scarsdale Synagogue, Tremont Temple, and she worked with Habitat for Humanity in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. So she was big into community service and, you know, getting out and doing things for communities. And she decided to attend Indiana University as, you know,

the place that she would continue her education and passion for clothing design. And after she graduated from high school in 2009, she enrolled at IU so she could study textiles merchandising. While at college, Lauren was also very active in the IU Jewish community and spent her spring break planting trees in Israel on account of the Jewish National Fund. So Lauren was a sophomore at IU on June 2nd, 2011. And I'm familiar with Indiana University, aka IU. That's what I'll probably call it from now on. So we don't have to keep saying Indiana University, but that's simply because I'm a college basketball fan.

So of course, I know the team, the Hoosiers.osiers they always will usually have a great team not every year i think today like as of today they've won five ncaa championships so pretty awesome they're good big school the hoosiers bobby knight anyone who knows indiana knows the famous bobby knight and he's known for he's the guy that you always see with the red sweater and he threw the chair across the gymnasium floor because he didn't like a call and he's he's known for his blow-ups but yes iu big college big college basketball school yes i mean as a syracuse fan you know i'm always like because they they suck now and well whatever they do but well what are you gonna do you gotta be gotta be a loyal it comes in waves yeah but as i found out another thing that iu is known for is being a big-time party school. And obviously, a lot of colleges are considered party schools, but this school was rated as an A-plus in the category of how good the party scene is. And this is rated by people who have gone there or who are familiar with it. And one commenter claimed, quote, we are a drinking school with a basketball

problem. So pretty, pretty spot on. Another student said, quote, it's like the parties never stop. It's not like the police don't come around and tell people to shut up and go home. But there are people who go to bars on weeknights and start partying in the middle of the afternoon on Thursday, end quote. And in 2002, the school was given the title of number one party school in the nation, an honor that the college's officials were not super pumped about. I'm sure they want to be known for other things. And as far as I know, they have good academics. Everything's good there. But yes, the basketball and the partying is what they're pretty much known for. But I mean, we've both been to college. You know, like you said, what Lauren,

what you're going to hear Lauren did this weekend, it's not really out of the norm for what I did back in my day, or I'm sure what Derek did. I mean, there are times where I look back at my college experiences and career, and I'm like, I'm, I'm surprised I'm still alive, because I put myself in so many stupid situations. When you're young, and you're in a place where you feel comfortable, and this is from what I can tell, it's a very small, tight knit, tight knit kind of community. There's like the locals and then there's the, you know, they call them the townies. And then there's the kids that come in from school and they all kind of stay separate. So this area where Lauren and her friends lived and where they partied, it's all like within a couple of blocks. So you start to feel safe in this area that you just

are familiar with and you go there every weekend and you know the bartenders and you know the bouncers and you feel safe and you feel safe to maybe have one too many because you know it's just like a three-minute walk to your apartment. It's right there. I mean, I've lived in a college town and I have no doubt you got into trouble in school. Never, never. But I do think what you're saying is extremely important for this specific case, because I think one of the advantages and one of the draws for IU is the topography. Like you just said, everything is kind of in close proximity. So it allows you to go out, have a few extra drinks and not have to worry about driving home. You can just walk because basically you can almost see where you live from the establishments that you're at. And that would be a draw for a lot of people because

it's not all spread out in some areas where you go to university, but the local bars or whatever are 15, 20 minutes away and it creates some bigger issues. So it's interesting with this case, because although this, this, this setup was conducive for keeping you safe, right? It's a populated area, it's small, short distances. You would think something like this would be less likely to happen and you're right. But the point of this story is no matter what the situation may be, no matter what the topography is, it can happen anywhere. And that's why you can never be too cautious. So that was something that really drew me to this case, because I think there's a lot we can take from it. Yeah. And for Lauren, at this point, June 2nd,

it's the end of the semester, you know, classes are over. So it's only natural that she would want to let her hair down, blow off some steam after a long semester of getting up early, going to classes, staying up late to write papers. And that was her plan on the evening of June 2nd, 2011. Let's have a quick word from one of our sponsors before we continue. I'm going to do something a little different this week, though, because there's a handful of people involved in this case that we're going to talk about and come back to many times. And it's easy to get confused. It's like, who is who? Especially because more than one of their names starts with a J. I know for me, I personally got twisted early on in my research trying to keep

them straight and I kept mixing them up. So I had to make like a chart and everything. So I'm going to introduce all of these people to you now, who they are, their relationship to Lauren before we jump into the timeline. That way, hopefully, it's easier for you guys to keep track of who's who. And if you're watching this on YouTube, we will have visuals up as we talk about these people too. The first person I'm going to introduce you to is Jesse Wolf. Now, Jesse was Lauren's boyfriend. She'd been with him for about three years at the time she disappeared. Jesse was 22 years old, and Lauren and Jesse had met at Camp Tawanda. This is a summer camp in the mountain town of Honesdale, Pennsylvania. They call it

the Poconos. It sounds like a very fancy summer camp. But Jesse was described by those who were close to his and Lauren's relationship as a loving boyfriend. He loved Lauren so much he would never do anything to hurt her. And according to the Hoosier Times, Lauren was still on campus in June of 2011 after the semester had wrapped up because she was waiting for Jesse to finish a summer class and then they were planning to travel back to the East Coast together because Jesse grew up in Port Washington. This is an area of Long Island, so not far from Scarsdale. Next, we have 21-year-old Jason Rosenbaum. Sometimes I'll call him Jay because that is how most people refer to him.

This was another student at IU who had also known Lauren for years. In fact, they met at the same summer camp as Lauren and Jesse. In fact, Lauren met a lot of teenagers at Camp Tawanda who she would go on to be friends with and who would also go on to become IU students along with her. Jason Rosenbaum was from West Bloomfield, Michigan, and he lived at five North Town Homes. This is a 22-minute walk from the IU campus, but it's like a two-minute walk from all the bars and stuff. And this is a place where other students lived. It's like campus housing. They lived there if they could afford the high rent. From what I can tell, reading especially personal stories from people who go to IU or who live in Bloomington, which is where IU is located, there was housing built specifically for richer, wealthier students. And five North townhomes was one of those buildings. And the place where Lauren lived herself was another one of those buildings. So I guess IU would get like an influx of, you know, kind of more well off East coasters from

like New York and New Jersey. And they built these areas specifically for them to live in. Yeah. And that's not, that's not just specific to IU. I mean, it was at the school I went to I went to. You see it a lot where a lot of kids live in the dorms. But if you're lucky enough to have a family member that can provide you your own apartment where you're off campus, it's not too far. There are a lot of advantages to being off campus as well because campus police has a little less authority over you, although they still have control because these are buildings are designated IU buildings. But again, see no evil, hear no evil. So if you're a little bit further on the outskirts, more can occur. And I do think there's an element where when you have the apartments and your parents are paying a lot of money for them, campus security is a little less likely to impede

on your privacy because they know, frankly, mommy and daddy got nice lawyers. Yeah. You have a rich mom and dad who have expensive lawyers. Exactly. Exactly. I'm just putting it out there. It's what it is. I lived in the dorms. Even as a playing college baseball, I lived in the dorms and they rated our, they came to our room every day, every day. But you know, when we wanted to really get into it, we would go to the off, one of the off campus houses to, you know, have a good night because we knew they were less likely to show up. The good parties were always off campus always yeah yeah yeah the dorm room was a no the minute you even thought about a party it was like

you're like wait i just you always have that one person on your floor too who like went to bed at seven yeah well you have the ra too that's like literally just making their living narking on people yeah that's true yeah all the stories i have about my ra i hated her so much who likes their ra ever unless it unless they're drinking with you which they usually don't no they're usually like the the one that like is the dry person and i'm not a big drinker now but back in the day maybe that's why i'm not a big drinker now because of your ra you're scared of your ra still no because i in college i was i was doing more drinking than i was uh schoolwork not anymore well this five north townhomes area you know there's other students that live there and two

doors down from jason rosenbaum were two other iu students 22 year old cory rossman and 21 year old michael beth now cory rossman and michael beth had had both met Lauren for the first time just a few days before June 2nd. Apparently, they were all at the Indy 500 together. They started talking. They kind of knew the same people. They lived close to Jay Rosenbaum. Lauren knew Jay. So, you know, they kind of got acquainted. So these are all young college kids. It's the end of the semester. They're going to have some drinks, you know, nothing out of the ordinary. What happened, though, is an ordinary night or something that should have been just another weekend. It turned into something really terrifying. And Lauren Spear completely vanished.

And it does blow my mind that with all these surveillance cameras everywhere, she's seen allegedly on surveillance several, several times that night. That's what allowed law enforcement to track her movements. But after, you know, this final walk that she allegedly takes, not one surveillance camera picked her up. And it's always been very suspicious. And like I said, the police used this surveillance camera sort of breadcrumb to track Lauren's movements around town, but they've really only released a couple pictures from the surveillance footage. Like, they have not released any footage. They haven't released other pictures or other still images, which I always thought was weird because especially after 10 years, you'd think like,

okay, maybe release more footage of her on the camera. Like, show us some of the stuff that you're telling us happened, but they haven't. And the one picture that they released that's really standing out to everybody is this one grainy still frame from the surveillance videos in her or the surveillance cameras in her apartment complex right as she's leaving for the night. Yeah, I don't know. You know, we talked about this. It's kind of the same thing as Delphi, right? We talked about that as well, where you would assume there's more footage. There's always the reason that I give for every case,

which is, you know, they're trying to, you know, keep the control, you know, keep control of what evidence they do have. I would think if there was any photos, kind of like Delphi again, where it would suggest that someone in one of these frames on video were potentially a suspect, like if they had something that showed an unidentified individual with her, I truly believe that information would have been out almost immediately to say, hey, do you know this person? If you do, please come forward. I know we're going to get into it. I don't want to get ahead.

So you just think it's not relevant? There's no reason to show it because there's nothing on there that they haven't told us? I think it's just maybe other images of her coming and going. And again, I don't want to get ahead of ourselves, but we know there's some video that shows her not in the greatest light because she had been drinking. So how is that relevant to, we know that she, again, it's tough to talk about this without jumping ahead of where you're going. And I know the story that you're going to tell,

but to, but to answer your question more succinctly, I think, I don't know if there's anything else there that's going to be super helpful because I don't think she was with anyone that they weren't able to identify already. I mean, with some of them may be grainy because of night vision,

nine, 2011, we do have cameras, but the question is how good are they? How good is the footage? Well, with Delphi, I understand because we don't know if there's more video footage, but we know here that there is more video footage. And if it's not relevant to show us the video footage and what Derek is suggesting is Lauren is visibly intoxicated in a lot of the surveillance footage, according to police. But why even tell us that if you're not going to show the the footage what i think happened my theory is one of these young men that we just talked about is going to be in this

surveillance footage quite a bit and i almost wonder if he or his lawyers was like you better not release that surveillance footage to the public because my client would tell him to go pound sand yeah right well i mean but like you said rich kids with rich parents can blur you can blur them out i mean but i get i agree it's possible they might i also think it's a respect thing too it's like these parents are out there looking for their daughter and you're going to see some things and you go into detail about because the police although they don't show it they're very descriptive about what you can see on the video. And that to me, just from a human element, suggests that, hey, listen, guys, we're trying to be transparent with you, but you don't need a visual because not only are you going to see it, but the parents of

Lauren are going to see it and we don't want them to. So we'll be transparent and tell you what's on it, but we're not going to put the last footage of Lauren out there and that's what people think about when they think of her. So I think there is a human element to it. And I think from an investigatory standpoint, there's not much in there that could shine light on this case and maybe stimulate someone's mind. I think it's pretty obvious what you're seeing, which is kids being kids. Well, let's go over the timeline that we have. Lauren's last movements before she disappeared. It starts on the evening of June 2nd, but June 2nd is with us for a very short time because some of Lauren and her friends were planning to pregame before going out to the

bars that night. And according to law enforcement, Lauren had been watching an NBA finals game between the Dallas Mavericks and the Miami Heat and drinking wine with some friends at her apartment. And during this game, she received two texts from her friend, Jason Rosenbaum, asking her to come over to a party at his townhouse, which was just about two blocks away from her apartment. So now we're moving to June 3rd. At around 1230 a.m. on June 3rd, Lauren can be seen on surveillance leaving her apartment. This is the one picture that everyone's seen of Lauren from that night, and it's hard to kind of put it together with the girl that we hear described later because here she looks happy and normal, like her hair's done. You know, she looks nice. She's wearing a flowy white blouse, black leggings. She's got this radiant smile. She looks

absolutely fine at this point, even though she's had a little whine. Now, reportedly, Lauren left her apartment with another young man who lived there in her apartment building, and his name was David Roan. And he was a friend and a neighbor of hers and another IU student. According to documents from a future civil lawsuit, Lauren and David were heading to Jason Rosenbaum's party. And when they got there, they were served several alcoholic drinks. Also present at this party were Jay Rosenbaum's neighbors and friends, Corey Rossman and Michael Beth. While they're at the party, Lauren and Corey Rossman begin spending some time together. They're talking, they're drinking,

and a source later revealed that Corey had claimed he wanted to hook up with Lauren that night. Now, remember, Lauren has a boyfriend, Jesse, who isn't with her this evening, and we're going to talk about that in a second. Now, Jay Rosenbaum, whose house the party was at and who was Lauren's friend for several years, he would tell detectives later that either Lauren or David Roan had told him that night that they'd crushed up and snorted Klonopin, and they'd also done cocaine. I have a little trouble with this recollection because it's like, how do you not remember whether it was Lauren or David? I mean, there's like a big difference between them. It just seems sort of subtle. Like, oh yeah,

they told me this, but I can't remember who said it. I almost don't think it's true. And I mean, Klonopin is like an anti-anxiety medicine. I've actually taken it before for panic attacks. It will take you out. Like, it's like a horse tranquilizer. There's not much you can do after taking a Klonopin. So I'm not sure how he would have thought that they had snorted it of all things. But I mean, what do you think? I definitely have experienced individuals who have snorted Klonopin and mix it with cocaine or whatever. And it is like the opposite thing.

Well, I think it's, uh, I, you know, it definitely relaxes you Klonopin. I can, I've seen people where literally they feel like they go from being like very up and Klonopin just like kicks your ass. So it's like knocks you down. It's like a relaxer almost. And so I guess maybe the mixture kind of, you know, if people are trying to balance an upper where the, you know, a downer, I guess you would say, although those aren't the correct terms to try to balance it out where it gives you like that perfect high. I don't know. I'm not a super, you know, I was in narcotics for a long time, but where I was in drugs, Klonopin was not the drug of choice. So not a ton of experience, but college campuses, they're mixing things a little bit more.

Again, we're talking about a more affluent community, a little bit more money to spend. They usually mess with a little higher quality drug when they do decide to get high. Well, trust me, I'm not ever going to take Klonopin recreationally. That sounds like the last thing that is fun. No, no, no, no, no. But I mean, if you guys out there have some experience with mixing these things or taking Klonopin recreationally, no shame. We're not judging you, but we want to hear what kind of reaction that would cause. But I mean, just in general, taking cocaine, that might pose a problem for Lauren because remember,

she's under 100 pounds. She's this tiny little, you know, sprightly girl. And she'd already been drinking heavily that night. Wine at her apartment, drinks at Jay's. And she also had a heart condition called long QT syndrome. This is a heart rhythm condition that can potentially cause fast, chaotic heartbeats, which might trigger you to faint. So typically, if you have this condition, you're probably going to want to avoid taking a stimulants like cocaine because it's not good for your heart.

No. And I want to talk more about that. Let's take a quick break. And then I want to dive into that a little bit. All right. So we're back for break. Not going to spend too much time on it. But when I was reading about this and long QT syndrome is a serious thing. I mean, you're on medication for it. It's not like, oh, it's a heart murmur or something, you know, which is serious as well. But this is something serious and something that Lauren's been dealing with for a while at this point.

So I don't know this girl, but I find it hard to believe she wouldn't know that taking any type of narcotic, especially like a cocaine, like you said, that would obviously pump up the heart, possibly cause you to faint. I don't think that's something she would normally do. We are going to get into her level of intoxication as we talk about this, and maybe that kind of altered her judgment a little. But I think it's interesting what you said as far as individuals not knowing who said that they decided to mix Klonopin and cocaine, because that is, that is important because there's always that variable and we're not suggesting this, but there's always that variable where you think like, well, if it wasn't Lauren,

did she even know that she was taking this? Did she snort it or was it slipped in her drink? And that's a big difference. So we have no proof of that, but I do think it's extremely important to know if Lauren was saying, cause if Lauren said touren said to someone yeah no we snorted this and this well then clearly she was aware of it so it's a pretty big piece of information that we don't have the answer to but that's where we are but this whole area of this story really bothered me because it clearly had a major impact on lauren as the night progressed um and we don't know what happened to Lauren. Could this mixture, this concoction that she took earlier in the night have contributed to her going missing? Did something happen to her? We don't know. And that's why I'm so glad you made sure you put this

in here because it is extremely important. And he says he doesn't remember if she said it or David, the guy who walked over with her said it. And it's like, I feel like you would, you know, if the next day she's reported missing, then as her friend of years, you're going to be like, oh, shit. Lauren's missing. I remember yesterday or last night, just like seven hours ago that she said she was going to, you know, she was snorting Klonopin and doing cocaine. Like, that would be something that I feel would stick out. So for him to be like, I can't remember if it was David or Lauren who said it, I don't know. Like maybe he was drunk too.

I don't know. I'm not saying he's lying. I'm sure he was. Yeah, I'm not saying he's lying, but even drunk, I would remember whether it was like a tiny little blonde girl who told me she was snorting Klonopin or some dude that she walked over with.

I'm just saying. Yep. No, it's important. And, you know, maybe the police know more than we know. Maybe they know who said it. I don't know. But again, considering the background of our victim in this case, it doesn't, I'm assuming she wasn't doing this on a daily basis. Maybe this was something that she dabbled in once in a while and she had a good, you know, she had a good handle on it.

She knew what her tolerances were. I don't know. And we don't, we always make mistakes. There's a very real possibility that she knew exactly what she was doing. And this was just a decision she decided to make, but it is important for us to point it out because if it's the other way around and someone said it to her, to them about her, then you have to ask the question, you know, did Lauren actually know what she was ingesting? Yeah. And I agree. And, you know, I think that I got the impression that Lauren's boyfriend, Jesse, was usually like her protector, like they would go out together and he would just like make sure that, you know, she was safe and she didn't drink too much and things like that. But this evening, Jesse had decided to stay in to watch game two of the NBA finals at his own

off-campus apartment. He said he was texting back and forth with Lauren that night and she told him she was going to bed, so the last text he sent her, it said, if you wake up, call me and we'll talk. According to a friend of the couple's, this text exchange happened right before Lauren left her apartment that night and Jesse himself claims that he went to sleep around 2 30 in the morning, not knowing or thinking that anything was wrong. So the next day, he woke up and he tried to contact Lauren, but his texts and calls went unanswered until that afternoon when someone did answer Lauren's phone, but it wasn't Lauren. It was an employee from a local club called Kilroy's Sports Bar, and Jesse was informed that Lauren had left her phone at the bar the night before. So then Jesse went to find Lauren's roommate, a young woman named Hadir Tamir.

He actually went into her class and basically was like, listen, I can't find Lauren. Can you give me your key to the apartment? And so she gave Jesse the key to the apartment she shared with Lauren at the Smallwood Plaza. Jesse wanted to check the apartment to see if Lauren had come home the night before. Maybe she was just still asleep, didn't hear her phone. But when he found out she wasn't there, he and some of Lauren's friends decided they needed to call her family and the police. And Lauren was reported missing at around 4.30 in the afternoon. Now back in Scarsdale, Lauren's father got the call that his daughter was missing. And when he called her boyfriend, Jesse, who he knew,

Jesse was already at the police station answering questions. So Lauren's parents started calling hospitals and clinics to see if Lauren had been admitted. And then the next day they traveled to Bloomington, Indiana, where they would remain until the following August looking for their daughter. I got a question for you because I was reading your script and I think I picked up on the chronological order of things but is it is it correct of me to put together that again not judging lauren here at all um she presented she misled her boyfriend to think she was going to sleep so he was like hey if you wake up text me but in reality she was going out for the night am i reading that wrong i don't want to ever i'm not

and again even if that were the case i just want to understand the players in here as far as because i was reading it and i'm like oh that sounds like what he's saying without saying is, as far as he knew, she was going to sleep. He did not know that she was going out on this whole thing that night. So that's possible. I think there's two possibilities. If what this friend of Jesse and Lauren's is saying is right, and Lauren did text Jesse saying she was going to stay in and go to bed, then I definitely think that she misled him. I think that the police probably know because they'll have his phone and they'll be able to verify like if he did get that text. But I don't feel that this would have been printed if that wasn't the case. You know, probably Jesse or somebody would have come forward

and said, oh, I never said that. That's not true. Or, you know, let's say she thought she was going to stay in and maybe she was just going to watch the game and drink some wine. And then Jay Rosenbaum's texting and blowing up her phone and like, come over to my party. And she's like, fine, you know, I'll come over. Maybe she wasn't planning to go out that night, but, you know, Jesse was staying in. Her boyfriend was staying in. She was bored. It's the end of the semester. You know, she wants to let loose and she's getting all these texts to come to this party. And she's like, well, screw it. I'm just going to, you know, drink my wine and go to the party, you know, kind of last minute thing that's possible too. Yeah. If you wake up, call me and we'll talk. So,

you know, for me, I'm just looking at it outside looking in. It does seem, seem like, uh, Lauren, maybe, maybe didn't want her, him to know she was going out. And I only say that because just, you know, being in a relationship, they were, they were in a serious relationship. What was it? Three years, three year relationship, very close on the same camp, you know, on the same campus, they're going to see mutual friends. You would think if his last text to her, which, you know, is what he says, which is, Hey, if you wake up, call me and we'll talk. If that genuinely was the last text message he sent to her and he never got a response, her waking up, checking her phone and not texting him back and then going out, you would think in most cases your girlfriend or boyfriend would say, hey, I'm up, but I'm actually going to head out

with so-and-so for a little bit. Love you. Enjoy the game. So the fact that she didn't, I'm just, again, that's just my takeaway on it that Lauren was going out that night to have fun. I'm not saying she had bad intentions, but she wanted to ride solo that night. She wanted to do her own thing. Yeah, that's possible. And I mean, they're young, you know, they're like 20, 21 years old. No judging. Yeah, it's like, you know, there's going to be obviously jealousy.

Like you haven't gotten to that point in your relationship where you're like, I don't care if you go out with your friends. Like, what am I worried about? We've been married for 20 years. What are you going to do? You know, they're not there in this, in this relationship yet. So she probably didn't want him to know, but also knew it would get back to him. And it was one of those like, ask for forgiveness instead of permission things. Yeah. Well, I bring it up. Some of you guys might

be going, you know, Derek, what's the point? What do you care? What's the point? I'm asking Stephanie this, and I want to make sure I have clarification because if you listen to our last episode with Sergeant Dave Sexton, I'm looking for motives here. I'm looking for reasons that people would have to want to hurt Lauren or make her disappear. Again, not spec, I'm not even getting there yet. We're going to have part three of this. It's going to be a three-parter, by the way. I don't think we told them that yet, but we have three parts to this. And the last part, we're going to go into theories, but everyone, as i'm concerned is a person of interest at this point everyone that we're talking about and so even though jesse stayed inside that night and allegedly uh did not see lauren when i think about the situation that

evening if it's if it's possible that lauren was out uh without jesse knowing and we're going to get into where lauren was and who she was with and all these things. If, if Jesse got wind of this, is it possible that Jesse decided to go out later that evening? And did he run into Lauren? We don't know, but I'm assuming that if he didn't know she was out and he found out from friends that she was out with another man, um, he's not going to be in the best of the best mood. So that's why I'm asking this. That's why I think it's relevant to really dive in on this conversation, because sometimes you can pick something up between what someone's not saying and what he is saying is, last time I spoke to her, I told her to text me if she woke, told her to call me if she woke up. She didn't, but clearly she wasn't asleep. That's how I'm kind of reading it. And I just wonder,

you know, he's on the table as a person of interest because, you know that would be a motive wouldn't it right yeah it's funny you say that because later in the evening lauren does run into somebody who knows her boyfriend jesse exactly and i never even thought about it before you said that but yeah well we'll talk about it when we get there but yeah we're gonna definitely get there but i just i don't want people thinking that i'm shaming lauren or anything like that everything that i ask is there's an investigatory aspect to it where it's like, I don't really give a, I don't really give a shit if she was telling him or not. I'm looking at not what she would do, but how someone else would react to her actions. And would that be enough to maybe hurt Lauren?

That's, that's the question I'm asking internally. That's what we should all be asking. Well, Derek, I know you would never shame a victim and anybody who's listening to us knows you well enough. Anyone who matters knows you well enough to know that. So I don't care. But you know there'll be someone. Yeah, I don't care. You know there'll be someone. How dare you, Derek? You know there'll be someone. But that's where I'm coming from, guys. And that's where we have to come from because we don't know what happened. And so everything's a possibility. So the police actually began looking for Lauren

by questioning who she'd been with the night she went missing. So the police actually began looking for Lauren by questioning who she'd been with the night she went missing. So David Roan, he was the friend she'd walked over to J. Rosenbaum's with. And this is also kind of like, it doesn't make sense because nobody ever says why David went over there, how long he stayed, when he came home. But as far as we know, he was not there for long because he was seen on surveillance cameras of the apartment building that he and Lauren lived in. He was seen reentering the apartment building shortly after leaving with Lauren and he did not leave the building again until the morning after at 11 a.m. So as far as like suspects go, who could be involved, etc., etc., probably not David Rohn. He just happened to be like the vehicle that got her to the party.

From others at the party that night, they got more detailed information. It seems that both Lauren and Corey Rossman were visibly intoxicated while at Jay's townhouse. And at some point, they left Jay's and then they went two doors down to Corey's townhouse, where his friend and roommate Michael Beth confirmed that both Corey and Lauren were very drunk. But Corey told him that he still wanted to drink some more and that he and Lauren were going to walk the short distance to Kilroy's sports bar for a few more drinks. Corey told Mike he wanted to have three more drinks at the bar and then he would be feeling good. It's a very specific number. Not like, I want to have a couple

more drinks. Three more. Like, that's the goal. To to me that's the sign of somebody who probably does a lot of drinking because he knows exactly where three drinks is going to get him whereas somebody like me you know i drink but i'm like oh i'm just going to drink until i feel like it's too much and then i'll stop well maybe he should have taken your advice because three drinks more three more drinks sounds based on witness testimony like that's three drinks too many right exactly because they're already drunk at this point. They're already there. Yeah. They're already there.

And so they were at Jay's and just in this area of the townhomes for just roughly about an hour. And then at 1.30 in the morning, Lauren and Corey, they left his townhouse and they walked from North Morton Street to Walnut Street. So like I said, this is a college town. Everything's really close within walking distance. So it only took them three minutes to get there. Like from five North Town homes to Chestnut Street. Where the bar is a three minute walk.

And it's been discussed as to how Lauren was able to drink. You know at this bar considering she was underage. She was only 20. There's been speculations that she's used a fake ID. Or she had used a fake ID or she had used a fake ID before, but it is more likely that Corey purchased these drinks for her. And that is kind of what people who were at the bar that night claim. Like he was the one bringing, buying the drinks and he was bringing them to her. Now, Kilroy's Sports Bar was really popular with IU college students. I would say it

was probably the most popular, especially with the Coasties. And this is the name that the locals gave the wealthier students who came to IU from New Jersey and New York. And I think that this would certainly apply to Lauren and her friends who were all from the East Coast, and they all came from somewhat well-off families. Even though it's got the label of a sports bar, Kilroy's, it's more of a club feel. They have this cool patio that's set up to look like a beach. They put like sand on there and beach chairs. And this is where Lauren and Corey ended up. And at this point, it's believed Lauren kicked off her shoes because the sand, you know, she's, I think she had like flip-flops or sandals on. She kicks

them off because they're sitting in this sandy patio. And when the two of them left Kilroy's, just 45 minutes after getting there, Lauren was barefoot. She also did not have her phone, hence why her boyfriend Jesse got a Kilroy's employee on the phone the next day. So she leaves her phone and her shoes at Kilroy's. They're there for under an hour. I don't know how many drinks they had. I'm assuming Corey had under an hour. I don't know how many drinks they had. I'm assuming Corey had his three drinks. I don't know how many he bought Lauren. But while they were at the bar, Lauren was observed stumbling and needing Corey's assistance to walk. And when they left the bar, for some reason, they headed back to Lauren's apartment, which was even closer

than Corey's townhouse. It's just a one minute walk from Kilroy's to where Lauren lived. And she completed this one minute walk completely in bare feet. Yeah. And again, we don't have to be professional drinkers or even college students to realize you can kind of put two and two together here for someone to leave a bar and forget their shoes and their cell phone. You're feeling pretty good. You're feeling pretty good because I don't care if it's a one minute walk or whatever. It's not a comfortable walk to make. And you're forgetting what all young people never forget, which is their phone. That's like the number one thing, right? So at this point, it's safe to assume not only from what law enforcement has told us about the video surveillance and what it's depicted in that surveillance, but also just the fact that

she's literally leaving an establishment barefoot with no phone in hand. And I want to say we've all been there, maybe not to that point, but we've all been in situations where we're not thinking clearly due to intoxication. And this appears to be the situation with Lauren and Corey. First of all, I don't care how drunk I am. You'll never catch me barefoot in the damn streets. Never, not once ever. No. Yeah, exactly. No.

You're definitely in a rough spot at this point when you're, you know, walk around public barefoot. Well, I was reading online. Once again, there's like all of these like students at IU who are talking about this case and like Reddit and all of that stuff. And I guess it's not uncommon in this area to see people just stumbling around barefoot, like completely drunk because the bars are there. And then like the place where they live, it's all within like a three to five minute walk. So yeah, I guess, I mean, I literally saw somebody say like, it's not uncommon to see barefoot, drunk college students, just like stumbling

around in the streets. It reminded me of Austinxas and um i went with my husband and sarah tourney to like this i don't know this the street it was like you act like i wasn't no you weren't there the first time we went during the day man there was this poor girl in the street walking in the street like cars were beeping and stopping she didn't have her shoes on she was stumbling i was like oh no i walked over i'm like are you okay and then her friend came over her friend was drunker than she was and i was like where are these girls going like i followed them for five minutes and then they just they just went off down some alley and i was like i'm sorry i'm not following you in there my friend i'm not following you in there but i was like genuinely

worried but yeah that's that i imagine i think it was called six three or something. But when you when we yeah, when we were together, it was later that night and it was pretty much the same. Yeah, it was really bad. Me, I asked, you know, we won't go too deep into it. But I was like, Stephanie, I'm out. I'm like, I deserted me. Yeah.

I was like, yeah, no, your husband was with you. I was like, you got this right, Adam. Perfect, I'm out. Yeah, he bounced pretty quickly because he's an old man. But I danced that night, man. Oh, it was great. You did. You did.

Well, should we take a quick break before we talk about what happened at the apartment building? Absolutely. All right, let's do that. We'll be right back. All right, so when we went to break, Lauren and Corey left Kilroy's Sports Bar. She's barefoot. They walk the very short distance to the Smallwood Plaza apartments where she lives. And Lauren and Corey can be seen entering the elevator in the lobby and then traveling up to the fifth floor.

And this is where Lauren's apartment was located. But outside the elevator on the fifth floor, they ran into a group of some other students and an altercation followed which allegedly, according to law enforcement, was also caught on surveillance. So the guy that Corey had the altercation with, his name was Zach Oates and he was with two other friends and apparently all of these guys were friends with Jesse Wolf, Lauren's boyfriend. So Zach claimed that when he saw Lauren and Corey get off the elevator, he could tell that she was very drunk and he offered to help her, but apparently Corey responded, she's okay, I got it. At this point, Zach told Corey something like, you know, just get her to

bed, like get her home, at which point he claims Corey cursed at him and Zach didn't like this because allegedly he was concerned that Corey was trying to take advantage of Lauren. So he punched him in the face and this left Corey bruised and allegedly a bit disoriented. And then Lauren and Corey did something that it can't really be explained. They didn't go to her apartment, which was just 100 feet away from the elevator that they had gotten off on before, you know, Corey got punched in the face. They didn't go inside so that Lauren could get a new pair of shoes or, you know, just go to bed because she was so intoxicated. They left the apartment building and headed back out into the night again. Surveillance footage from the small wood apartment's lobby shows Lauren stumbling outside of the elevator and Corey helping to steady her. About a block away, a woman who was walking by, she noticed Lauren sitting on some steps, apparently resting, but then she said Lauren tried to stand up and she fell backwards and

hit her head on one of the concrete steps. So this woman asked Lauren, you know, do you need help? And Corey responded to the woman for Lauren saying that Lauren was fine and he would take care of her. Law enforcement claims there's more surveillance video of Lauren falling again shortly after this and apparently this was a very bad fall. She fell directly on her face and because she was drunk, she made no effort to break her fall using her arms. So her face smacked into the ground pretty hard. Yeah. So she's really drunk at this point. Let's double back for a second because I foreshadowed it earlier and you alluded to it, you hinted at it a little bit. Again, this is something that I think most of us have had some type of

experience with, especially if you lived on a college campus. Here is Lauren, who's in a committed relationship with her boyfriend, Jesse, right? And unbeknownst to Jesse's friends, the elevator door opens and here's their boy's girl. Drunk. Drunk. With another guy. With a dude, with another guy that they don't really, maybe they know, maybe they don't know too well, clearly. Maybe Corey's got his hands on her and he's like helping her yeah maybe he's just bracing her i'm doing air quotes here guy maybe he's bracing her but there's a reason he's following her back to the room and this is he doesn't and i'm not judging cory in any way this is a typical college guy but there's a reason i'm judging him yeah she's drunk you know you

shouldn't be doing that and he told she's drunk and he told people earlier he wanted to hook up with her and then he brought her to get more drinks after she was already drunk and then he brought her to her apartment okay so yeah i'm judging her he's trying him i mean i'm judging him he's trying to close the deal and so he's bringing her back to her apartment presumably to try and sleep with her his own words right he said it earlier in the night well jesse's friends who are also guys they know what he's up to see this and they know exactly what he's up to and i know you gave like a version of what happened if i were to guess it was a little more like hey uh what's going on here and cory not knowing that these guys are good friends of her boyfriend by the way we

don't even know you know we're presuming that cory knew la boyfriend, by the way, we don't even know, we're presuming that Corey knew Lauren even had a boyfriend. We don't know. He knew. But either way. He knew. Stop. You're probably right. But Corey, and I could see him saying this,

like, no, no, she's good. I got this. Yeah, like mind your own business, guy. And I think this kid, Zach, was probably like, I don't think he was like oh just get her back to her room he was probably like oh you got it how do you got it it seems like it seems like you don't got anything it seems like you got something and see what you got yeah that's what i'm saying like do you know she's there was more there was more of an exchange there for him

just to haul off and punch him um and i'm sure the video surveillance probably shows an exchange going on that escalated to this. Because it doesn't sound right, like that you just be like, oh, get her back to her room. And Corey be like, blah, blah, blah. And then it like turns into like literally punching someone so hard that they apparently lose their memory. You guys can judge me if you want. If I were back in college and I was standing at an elevator, probably had a few drinks myself and the elevator door opens and there's my good friend's girlfriend drunk off her ass with some

guy I really don't know with his hands all over. I'm going to be like, Lauren, what are you doing? You know, what's going on here? And then if the guy even opens his mouth while I'm trying to address Lauren, I'm going to say, hey, buddy, shut your mouth. I'm not talking to you. She's got a boyfriend. He's my buddy. I don't know who you are, but this right here is over. I'm taking her back to her room. You're going home either on your head or on your feet, your choice. And Corey probably said something like, you know, mind your business or something. And then it escalated. So I can totally see this being a situation where at that point zach and his buddy said uh cory whatever you were thinking is going to happen it ain't happening so a fight ensued and again we talked about this a little on the phone but i don't think anybody out

there uh who's watching this or listening to this probably isn't coming to some of the same conclusions we are about why they wouldn't continue to her apartment and there had to be a detour taken because clearly whatever Corey was planning wasn't going to work at that apartment because now her boyfriend was aware of it. Or I mean, his friends were. So now if you're Corey, you're thinking like, are these dudes going to text Jesse and then I'm going to bring her in the apartment and in the middle of whatever I'm trying to do

to her, her angry boyfriend. They're going to show up. Yeah. They're going to show up or they're going to text Jesse and then I'm going to bring her in the apartment and in the middle of whatever I'm trying to do to her, her angry boyfriend. They're going to show up. Yeah. They're going to show up or they're going to come back. So you can't go there because not only are you setting yourself up for failure, you could be in a situation where you're inside an apartment and there's five dudes and his boyfriend waiting for you. And the only way to get out was for you to jump down the fire escape.

So you don't want to put yourself into that corner. So he's like, Hey, you know what? Just got my head punched in now. Let's, you know, clearly these guys mean business. Let's go somewhere else. So this is important though. I agree. This is important. Not, this is important because again, we're now seeing a situation where it's very plausible, especially considering Jesse was probably still up watching the game or the game had ended and he was having some drinks or whatever. I would assume if my buddy saw my girlfriend out with another man and they just got into a physical altercation with that man, the next thing they're doing is calling me. I'd be curious to know if that's what happened,

right? That's why I'm asking because we don't know but i think it's reasonable to say that if these guys are willing to fight for jesse they probably gave him a text or call and said hey man i don't know what's going on but we just saw lauren going back to the room with another dude and she's drunk i think that's a reasonable thing for us to say and my question would be how did jesse react to that if he was awake when it came through but we're gonna assume that he probably was because he said he didn't go to bed till 2 30 and this is about the time they they get to the apartment right and guess what even if he's half asleep you get this information you're awake you're gonna wake up so that's why i'm asking these questions that's why we're like oh derek why

are you diving into this fight it's very important because it could we always talk about it means motive opportunity this would be a motive where it would be motive enough to get your sneakers back on and go out looking for Lauren and this guy. What transpires when you meet may not be what you originally intended, but that's why we have crimes of passion, right? So just something to think about, not accusing him of anything, but these are all the scenarios we have to consider. And this, I think this fight is extremely significant because we know for a fact at this point that someone close to Jesse saw Lauren with another man. In a very compromising position, I would say. Yes. And that's why I'm drilling in. And I also think that it's an indication to me

that Corey was not just bringing Lauren back to like sleep it off. He wasn't bringing her back to her apartment to take care of her. Because if that was the case, he would have said, okay, guys, like, I'm sorry, I offended you. Here she is. Here's her key. Make sure she gets in bed. I just want to make sure she got home safe. Instead, he's like, okay, we can't stay here. Let's go to my place. Right? Plan B, right? No one's going to, you know, they're not going to know where I live or what apartment I'm in. So yes, I completely agree. And again, I don't even, you know, that doesn't so much bother me as what it could mean for someone else if they ran into Lauren later, like a Jesse, you know, if he had encountered her, whether she was with someone or alone at this point, and you're going to get into

that. Could something bad have happened? Yeah, it's possible, of course, but we'll get there for sure. We're going to get there in this episode too, as far as where we're at right now, as far as Lauren's disappearance. And on the way from her apartment, she's falling. And these aren't just like little falls. I mean, I've been drunk sometimes where like the next morning I'll wake up and I'll be like, oh, my toe hurts. I must've stubbed it, you know, but she's falling on her face. She's hitting her head. These are bad falls. And he continues, you know, walking her and at times helping her physically to keep going towards his townhouse because at 2.48 a.m., Lauren and Corey are seen

entering a north-south alley off of 10th Street. Now, this was a narrow alleyway. There's very uneven ground, especially towards the end. So if you like go off 10th Street, you can cut through the alley to 11th Street. But when you get closer to 11th Street, there's like a sudden incline, you know, that leads like up to the street. And I guess people who are in this alley or, you know, spectators, I'm not sure if it was people or surveillance, but they said that both Lauren and Corey were visibly drunk, they were both stumbling, and at some point in this alley, Lauren dropped her purse and her keys. So this would be her car keys, her apartment keys, like all her keys. And they would be found the next morning by someone who was on their way to work. Lauren fell in this alley several times,

and at one point, Corey lifted her up and slung her over his shoulder in what they call a fireman's hold. So he could bring her the rest of the way to his townhouse, which was on the other side of that alley. So, I mean, he wants to get her there. He's cavemanning her back there at this point. Yeah. This is a problem, by the way. This is a major problem for me because I think most people can assume, even though he may not have drugged her or anything like that, try or or have an intention to have sex with her at that point is illegal and you can absolutely be charged with rape because you don't physically

or purposely have to drug someone or or force them to drink in order to afford to be a rape just knowing that the person is clearly not capable of making a rational decision and capitalizing on that is absolutely that's why i was judging him for even going back to her apartment with her. Right. You know? But I think I'm glad that you put this in here that he actually carried her. You might think, oh, how is that significant? It's extremely significant because if he was also equally as drunk as her, he would not

be capable of standing on his own and carrying someone over his shoulder. And he was. So he's in a lot better shape than the person who's falling on her face and not even bracing herself. And so that's why, again, this is very significant. Well, when Corey and Lauren get back to the townhouse, Corey's roommate, Michael Beth, was home. I guess he told the police he was like homeworking on like a term paper or something. I don't know how much I believe that. The semester was over. It's literally three o'clock in the morning, but apparently he was home working on a term paper or an exam. I don't know, but he said they were both very drunk, very drunk when they got there. In fact, he thought that somebody was breaking in

because I guess they were like quite loud. And Corey was so drunk that he threw up on the stairs on his way in. And all he was able to do was allow Mike to lead him to his room and put him to bed. Now, did he throw up because he was so drunk? Did he throw up because he'd gotten hit in the head so hard or a combination of both? We're not sure. But at this point, Mike is left alone with a very drunk Lauren. And this made him uncomfortable for many reasons because he, you know, he uses his head as opposed to his roommate, Corey, who's just like drunk girl. Yay. And Mike's like, this is weird. We don't really know each other that well.

She's not in the most lucid mindset. Like, I probably shouldn't be alone with her in this kind of situation. And Lauren told Mike, according to him, that she wanted to go back to her apartment with him and have some more drinks, but Mike didn't think that was a good idea. And when he couldn't convince her to like change her plans or crash on the couch or just go home and sleep, he called his neighbor and Lauren's friend, Jay Rosenbaum. And he was like, you know, take this girl. She's your friend. She's drunk. Like she needs to be taken care of. And Jay Rosenbaum said that when Lauren showed up at his door, she didn't look great.

She's obviously drunk, and she had a large bruise under her eye that she most likely sustained from one of her falls earlier. But when Jay asked how she'd gotten this bruise, she told him she couldn't remember. So it shows you she's very drunk. She's so drunk that she had these two big falls on top of many other falls, but she didn't even remember those falls or

she didn't put two and two together that those falls had caused this large bruise on her face. Yeah. So now we're talking about a girl who is not only extremely intoxicated under the influence of allegedly narcotics, but also could have a concussion. Maybe. Yeah. She hit her head on the cement step.

Yeah. So being able to consciously make her own decision or as we're going to talk about later walk home on her own um it would be and i feel like every single person who saw her that night would know that this is not a girl who can walk home by herself she should never be unattended no they should she should never be left unattended at this point that's important but i mean you don know. You don't know what she was doing. Like I've been with friends when they're like super drunk and I'm like, here, you know, just stay here or let me drive you home.

And they're like, no, you know, they're bludgeoned. They're like, no, I don't need your help. And they like start throwing hands and stuff and yelling. And you're like, whatever. Okay, you go, go. Because what are you going to do at that point? Like she's an adult. You can't control her.

You can't hold her there physically. But I'm going to talk about what happened next. But should we cut to our last break? Yep, let's do it. So Lauren gets to Jay Rosenbaum's townhouse at around three thirty in the morning, and Jay said he tried to convince Lauren to crash on his couch and like sleep it off, but she insisted that she wanted to go home. So Jay made two calls for Lauren using his cell phone, apparently trying to find a ride or someone who would help her get home. Law enforcement later claimed that both calls went to friends of Lauren's, both went unanswered and no messages were left. So we can't really be sure who made the calls. Jay on behalf of Lauren or Lauren herself using Jay's phone because she'd lost hers. One of the calls was made to David Rohn, who was the guy who lived in her apartment complex and he had brought her to Jay's earlier. But apparently he was probably sleeping by this time because he didn't answer the phone.

They never really say who the other call was made to. I wonder if it was Jesse. Considering Jay knew Jesse, knew that Jesse was Lauren's boyfriend, that is something that I've always wondered why they haven't revealed who that second phone call was to. Yeah, I will say this. And again, we don't know. And when I was reading the script, I saw this. If I had to guess, I would say it was Jay that made the calls. And the only reason I would say that would be because of the condition of Lauren. I don't know if she would be able to even open a phone or dial a number or even go through his contact list. So at some point, whether it was Lauren saying, hey, Jay, let me make these calls and Jay pressing the numbers for her or hitting the contact for her, I don't know if she would have been in a condition to operate that phone at that point

and actually contact the right people. That's the only reason why I lean towards, if I had to take a guess, I would say Jay only because of the condition that Lauren was in, which we know to be true based on video footage that is unbiased, objective, and shows her in a condition that she's she can't even walk never mind you know operated to a cell however i think she would have had to have given jay david's number he would have had jesse's number and known it because they were friends but i don't i don't recall there ever being like a serious connection between david and jay besides the fact that david was there with lauren so she would have had to have given Jay David's number.

So she would have had. Yeah, it's possible. Yeah, or maybe he had the number in because they had met up one night or something. I mean, whatever it may be. But again, if we're just, you know, we don't know. And it is important because was Lauren calling because she didn't feel comfortable with the situation.

You know, I think that's a reason to bring it up. Like maybe she didn't feel comfortable being there and she wanted to get out of there maybe jay wanted her to stay we don't know we don't know because she's gone we haven't been able to speak she's gone yeah so jay's jay's the only jay's the only information he's the only outlet to hear this from and if somehow he was involved with her disappearance he could tell us whatever he wanted so that's that's that's what's unfortunate about this is we don't have another side to that story. Well, Jay Rosenbaum claims the last time he saw Lauren, she was walking away from his townhouse barefoot, without her keys, without her purse, without her cell phone. He claimed that she was at the intersection of 11th Street and College Ave,

and she was headed south on College. And then it's believed that she intended to walk the short two blocks back to her apartment, but she never made it there, and no one has ever seen her again. But here's the thing. Lauren's parents, Rob and Charlene, they definitely think that these guys know more than they're saying, and they claim that although there was multiple surveillance cameras along Lauren's route, the one she would take to go home, none of them captured her making this walk. And they've often wondered if Lauren ever left five North townhomes alive. And here's another thing that I just found out today. Apparently, there's, you know, this is a pretty high-end, like, townhouse complex.

Like we said, they're built for, like, the rich coasties. They've got surveillance cameras at five North townhomes, but apparently they weren't working that night or there was no footage of Lauren even entering or leaving five North townhomes. So the standard response that I see online is that these surveillance cameras happen to be malfunctioning that night. So there's no... Of course. Always the case. But is that true? I don't know. However, if you look at it, though, like I said, this townhome complex thing, it's located right in the center of everything. It's a three-minute walk to Kilroy's. So there's restaurants, there's bars all over the place. There's surveillance

cameras all along the route that Lauren would take home, but none of them captured her walking home. So even if something happened to her at some point during her walk from Jay's townhouse to her apartment, you'd think that at least some surveillance cameras would have picked her up, and then you could have a better idea of figuring out where she'd gone missing when the surveillance cameras stopped seeing her, but none of them did. Yeah. This is where this is the one of those cases where you would love to just sneak into the evidence room and have all the files for like, just give me 10 minutes because this is what I'm going to. If I only got 10 minutes, that's what I'm going to.

Because the question I would have is, do we have surveillance anywhere along the route that shows her in close proximity to Rossman's house? You know, like getting their Rosenbaum's house, you know, like getting, getting their Rosenbaum's house, I should say. Right. When we, when he, she's close to being there, if the cameras weren't working at that location, but at least they had, they had the surveillance cameras of her going through the alley with Corey, which is just right around the corner from his townhouse.

So walking from her apartment to the townhouse, they have basically that whole route. They see them walking there. Mike Beth says they got there, right? Right. And Jay, by the way, hasn't denied that. Jay said that she was there too. Yeah. So we can assume she got there, but there's no sign of her leaving. Right. So if we have corroborating video footage to show she arrived there and if the parents are right, because we haven't heard this from the police, but if the parents are right and we assume that they've been told things that the public hasn't, there's no evidence of her leaving or going that route. There's a couple things you can take from that, but I think the obvious thing would be is Jay telling the truth,

right? Is Jay telling the truth? And clearly by them putting that out there, they don't feel that he is, as you've already said but i again to be devil's advocate this is why i brought up earlier you know jay is telling the truth for a second i'm just to say there's a blackout spot where just coincidentally the cameras hadn't picked her up yet and someone approached her who had an axe to grind um or would just took advantage of a girl they saw walking by herself completely uncape incapable of taking care of herself. Because it would be obvious. Because there is a couple scenarios. It would be obvious if you were just driving by and you saw her, you would know.

Here's an easy target. Here's an easy target. Like literally push her in the car. And I don't want to dive into theories here, but there's a lot of conclusions that can be drawn from the lack of video surveillance showing her leaving. But there are multiple possibilities here. It's not as clear cut as some of the other cases we've worked where there's a small,

there's such a small margin where it's like, no, this is, there's like one of two scenarios. There's a lot of things I can think of from reading up on this and even just talking about it now that could have happened. And if we find out down the road, they did occur.

I would not be surprised at all. If it didn't, if it didn't involve Jay at all. So just something to keep open-minded about. But I do think it's interesting that the parents decided to put this out there because they're probably getting upset with the fact that nothing's been done yet. They clearly feel that Jay and we're going to go into some other stuff in part two, but there's more to this story for sure. and it's uh it's actually actually are we getting into that part tonight i'm trying to remember i mean we are because we're recording

both of these at the same time because we'll be in national next week but no we're not getting into that in this part we're going into it part two yeah right so i'll save it i'm starting to give too much of the too much of the too much of it away but there's a lot more to this obviously that makes it even more makes you raise an eyebrow even more because obviously her parents aren't over here like oh you guys aren't telling the truth you're hiding something just simply because lauren wasn't seen on surveillance leaving the townhouse like there's other factors for why they think that that these kids these boys these young men whatever you want to call them i keep wanting to say boys because they act like so immature but they they were young men they're they're boys and they're young men but they are you know compared to us they're pretty young so excuse me speak for yourself hey listen

were you 40s younger than me yeah but young at heart more more than you yeah hey listen i i you know i'm not even old enough to be a cop you You're not old enough to be a retired cop, Derek. Okay. Yes. Yes. Yes. That's it. That's it. Sorry. Don't get it twisted. Corrected. Yeah. So where we stand right now, we can go over it again, but what we're going to do on this series, as Stephanie just said, we are heading to Nashville next week. So what we're doing tonight, you will see us wearing the same clothing. We're not going to change clothing for you guys. We're not doing a wardrobe we just this is part one where we go over

the case yeah no wardrobe changes on crime weekly yet it's not in the budget um we are gonna you just heard part one and so it's kind of the the case itself laid out to the point where the last person to allegedly see lauren yes this is the last time we see her she's walking away allegedly from Jay Rosenbaum's house I don't know how he saw her get all the way to the one street and how she knew where she was turning like what did he sit there and just stare as she walked away if you're gonna sit there and

stare while she walks away why don't you just walk her home to make sure she gets there safely but okay Jay he saw her walking and then she was gonna turn or he was under the impression that she would turn maybe because that's the road she would take to get home. He's the last person to see her alive. This is the last time she's seen alive.

And that's where we are. Right. So now part two, we're going to go over what had the aftermath, what happened after, you know. Investigation. The investigation, Lauren being seen alive. Now for you guys, that'll be next week but for us it's literally going to be in about five seconds after we finish this one so we're going

to record part two and then part three we'll go over some things but we're also going to start diving into our theories as far as what we think could have happened what's the most plausible so and there's a lot of theories too because the family the spears family they hired a very well known investigation private investigation firm. Kind of like what Derek's doing. All right. They hired. A little bit like that.

They hired Bo Dietl. He's a very well-known name. I guess he's kind of like this private investigator, but he's also like. Way cooler name than Derek Levasseur. I don't know. I don't know. Bo Dietl. I don't like it.

Bo Dietl. You won't forget it. Bo Dietl. You will not forget it. I won't. I can even see it written in my head because I kept messing up the I and the E when I was writing it. I didn't know which one came first, but they hired this firm and the private investigators, one of them in particular, spent a lot of time with this case and he formulated from his investigation and talking to people and spending a lot of time in this case and he formulated from his investigation and talking to people and like spending a lot of time in Bloomington, he formulated several theories.

So we will go over those in the final part and then we'll go over probably which ones we think are the most likely. Yep. We're going to get into it. We appreciate you guys checking this out. This is a very fascinating case, one that we wanted to take our time with. And that's why we could have done the three hours we're going to do in two hours and just made it two parts, but that's not what we do here at Crime Weekly. So we wanted to expand on every area where we could. So weigh in on the comments, definitely head on over to the podcast. We haven't been pushing it a ton because ultimately we want you guys to go there organically, but I will say this, we want more people to hear this.

The channel's growing. So if you have an opportunity, please head on over to whatever podcast platform you use. If you're listening to this and make sure you give us a rating. I have been seeing a lot of the comments. We appreciate it. We got about 2,500 ratings on there right now, but I know we have over 50,000 listeners on almost every episode in the 30 day period. So there's a lot more of you guys out there and we need you. We need you to grow the channel. Um, the more people we have listening to it, the more we're able to do, we want to upgrade equipment in this, in the, in our quote

unquote studios. There's a lot of plans we have for the channel and we're going to need your guys help to do it. And all it really takes is just going over, leaving a review, preferably five stars. And, uh, it's going to help us move up on the algorithm, move up on the charts for true crime and help get more ears listening to this or more viewers watching. And that's what we really want. We want people not only for ourselves, but also for these cases, because the chances of finding someone who knows something or this entices them to come forward increases with the more listeners or viewers that we have.

Yes. And we will see you back here next week for part two. We're going deeper. I mean, we're going to see you in like five minutes, but you guys are going to see us in a week. In the same clothes. We'll probably. So don't judge us next part.

When you see us in the same clothes, like damn, Stephanie and Derek are really hard. They're like recycling their clothes. I don't care. But we will probably go live while we're in Nashville too, because we'll be together. So we can go live on Instagram and do like a Q&A. So if you guys have questions for us, go on to Instagram and let us know or Twitter or on the website and leave a speak pipe and just let us know what questions you have. And we will in nashville and we'll have a couple of drinks nothing like nothing like cory rossman had but we'll have a couple and we'll answer your questions and we will see you

no no cocaine no no clonopin either mingya derek will be answering the questions stephanie will be passed out we'll see you next week. Thank you for being here. Bye. Bye.