Fourth Day of Manhunt for Rapist/Murderer Laurean

Excerpts from FOXNews.com

Officials positively identified the burned remains Tuesday found in the backyard of a Marine on the run accused of murder as those of a 20-year-old Marine and her unborn child. Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach, reported missing on Dec. 19, died from a blunt force trauma to the head, according to an autopsy report.

The manhunt for Cpl. Cesar Armando Laurean, the suspect in Lauterbach's murder, stretches into its fourth day with a $25,000 reward and a national billboard campaign. "He’s probably where he wants to be and can move at a more slower, unattractive pace," Onslow County Sheriff Ed Brown told FOX News Tuesday. "So now it’s probably going to be the results of people in the community where he’s at recognizing he’s a stranger, or different, and comparing his photograph to those that he sees on TV and on the billboards."

Over the weekend, authorities recovered the remains of Lauterbach and her unborn child from a fire pit in Laurean's backyard in Jacksonville, N.C. Dr. Charles Garrett, the Onslow County medical examiner, said Lauterbach died from "traumatic head injury due to blunt force trauma."

Lauterbach's ATM card was found at a bus station in Durham, about 150 miles northwest of Jacksonville. Witnesses reported seeing his black four-door pickup truck in the Raleigh and Durham area, Brown said. Other witnesses said they thought they saw him Saturday night at a bus station in Shreveport, La.

The FBI and United States Marshals are involved in the search for Laurean, who is expected to be charged with murder when he is arrested. The first billboards with Laurean's photo went up in Columbus, Ohio, and others are expected in Tampa, Fla., and Las Vegas. "Laurean will be found", Sheriff Brown said later at a press conference.

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