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.
[9] Bloomington police used video surveillance footage and witness statements to create a timeline of Spierer's whereabouts before her disappearance.
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.
[18] 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.
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 miles (32 km) north of Bloomington.
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.
[25] Regarding Spierer's level of intoxication, her friends and Wolff told police that she used drugs in addition to alcohol on the night leading up to her disappearance.
Wolff's mother alleged that Spierer was asked to leave the summer camp where she met her son and Rosenbaum years earlier because of drug use.
[31] In 2017, Brown County prosecutor Ted Adams reported he believed Daniel Messel could be connected to Spierer's disappearance.
[33] Spierer's parents filed civil lawsuits against Rossman, Rosenbaum, and Beth for their involvement with their daughter leading up to her disappearance.
The suits accused the defendants of negligence, alleging they supplied Spierer with alcohol after she was already "visibly intoxicated", then neglected to assure she returned safely to her apartment, which likely led to her death.
[34] The family stated they hoped the lawsuit would lead to the defendants admitting more information about what occurred the night of Spierer's disappearance.
As part of the suit, they subpoenaed private cell phone and academic records spanning 134 days before and after the night Spierer disappeared, a move the defendants’ lawyers labeled a "fishing expedition".
Without evidence to prove these theories, it would be impossible for a jury to determine if whatever happened to Spierer was a natural and probable consequence of her intoxication, without any other intervening acts that would break the causal chain.
[43] The HLN show, Real Life Nightmare, detailed the Lauren Spierer case in an hour-long episode called "Night of No Return" in 2019.