The Disappearance of Lauren Spierer: An Interview with Journalist and Author Shawn Cohen

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[00:00:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Content Warning. This episode contains discussion of extreme intoxication, violence, and murder.

[00:00:39] [SPEAKER_01]: I was in high school when my parents sat me down to talk about a girl named Lauren

[00:00:43] [SPEAKER_01]: and what happened to her.

[00:00:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Lauren was a few years older than me, having left for college in 2009.

[00:00:51] [SPEAKER_01]: She grew up in Scarsdale, New York, a short drive from where I grew up.

[00:00:54] [SPEAKER_01]: She went to a school I was very familiar with, Edgmont High School.

[00:00:59] [SPEAKER_01]: They made up part of a sort of amalgamated varsity swim team, Sleepy Hollow, Edgmont,

[00:01:05] [SPEAKER_01]: and Irvington.

[00:01:06] [SPEAKER_01]: My swim team swam against them.

[00:01:09] [SPEAKER_01]: It was 2011, probably sometime during the summer.

[00:01:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Lauren Spearer had only just gone missing.

[00:01:16] [SPEAKER_02]: She left her apartment in Bloomington, Indiana after midnight on Friday, June 3, 2011.

[00:01:21] [SPEAKER_02]: Witness testimony and surveillance cameras captured some of her movements in the early

[00:01:26] [SPEAKER_02]: morning hours.

[00:01:27] [SPEAKER_02]: She went to a friend's apartment, a friend named Jay Rosenbaum.

[00:01:31] [SPEAKER_02]: She and Rosenbaum's neighbor, Corey Rossman, walked to a place called Kilroy's Sparks Bar.

[00:01:37] [SPEAKER_02]: She became very intoxicated, visibly so, to the point she lost her shoes and her phone,

[00:01:44] [SPEAKER_02]: to the point where she didn't even seem to recognize individuals she knew.

[00:01:48] [SPEAKER_02]: At some point, the surveillance footage spools out.

[00:01:51] [SPEAKER_02]: The best witnesses, the witnesses who have no reason to lie, fade from view.

[00:01:58] [SPEAKER_02]: The only ones left are people like Rosenbaum, Rossman, and Rossman's roommate, Michael Beth.

[00:02:04] [SPEAKER_02]: They have stories about what happened that night.

[00:02:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Their stories often get repeated in the press as concrete facts.

[00:02:12] [SPEAKER_02]: But they're just stories, just tales about what they saw or didn't see.

[00:02:16] [SPEAKER_02]: It's often inaccurately reported that Lauren was last seen at half past four,

[00:02:21] [SPEAKER_02]: walking away from Rosenbaum's apartment.

[00:02:24] [SPEAKER_02]: That Rosenbaum stood on his balcony and watched her at the intersection of 11th

[00:02:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Street and College Avenue as she headed south.

[00:02:32] [SPEAKER_02]: But all that comes from Rosenbaum.

[00:02:34] [SPEAKER_02]: He has her drifting southward into that June night.

[00:02:38] [SPEAKER_02]: His word is that she got out of his apartment building.

[00:02:42] [SPEAKER_02]: But the real question is, did Lauren walk out of there?

[00:02:46] [SPEAKER_02]: Did she make it out alive?

[00:02:49] [SPEAKER_01]: Reflecting back on 2011, I know my parents were following the case through the local

[00:02:53] [SPEAKER_01]: news in Westchester County.

[00:02:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Led by the journal News, the press in my home county stayed on this story.

[00:03:00] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't remember much about what exactly my parents told me then.

[00:03:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Probably something about being very careful when I went to college,

[00:03:07] [SPEAKER_01]: about being safe with alcohol, about ensuring that I was around trusted people when going out

[00:03:12] [SPEAKER_01]: to parties, about making plans with friends and ensuring no one was left behind or left

[00:03:17] [SPEAKER_01]: in a vulnerable state.

[00:03:18] [SPEAKER_01]: The sorts of things most parents tell their college-aged daughters.

[00:03:23] [SPEAKER_01]: I've thought about Lauren Spear a lot since then.

[00:03:26] [SPEAKER_01]: This case haunts me.

[00:03:28] [SPEAKER_01]: What her parents and sister have gone through haunts me, even more so as I've

[00:03:33] [SPEAKER_01]: gotten older and moved to Indiana.

[00:03:35] [SPEAKER_02]: I myself lived in Bloomington for a time years ago.

[00:03:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Like Lauren, I attended Indiana University.

[00:03:42] [SPEAKER_02]: I've seen that school change over time.

[00:03:45] [SPEAKER_02]: Perhaps I just wasn't in that scene, but it seemed like the partying, drinking, and

[00:03:49] [SPEAKER_02]: drug culture increasingly came to the forefront by the 2010s, long after I left.

[00:03:55] [SPEAKER_02]: That scene plays a part in Lauren's story.

[00:03:58] [SPEAKER_02]: But we're not the only ones who found this story haunting.

[00:04:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Sean Cohen was one of the first reporters on the case.

[00:04:05] [SPEAKER_01]: He broke the story of Lauren's disappearance.

[00:04:08] [SPEAKER_01]: He's published update after update, strengthening the public's understanding of the case

[00:04:12] [SPEAKER_01]: and what happened that night.

[00:04:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Recently, he came out with a book on the case, College Girl Missing.

[00:04:20] [SPEAKER_01]: This book is a must-read for anyone who wants to dig into the case.

[00:04:24] [SPEAKER_01]: It dispels misinformation and moves the story forward.

[00:04:27] [SPEAKER_01]: It deals with the rumors, frankly, the highly speculative rumors about serial killer Israel

[00:04:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Keyes' connection, or lack thereof, to the case.

[00:04:37] [SPEAKER_01]: It features the story of Lauren's boyfriend at the time, Jesse Wolf.

[00:04:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Sean even got some of the young men at the center of this case on the record.

[00:04:45] [SPEAKER_01]: College Girl Missing is a compelling look at a case that has long haunted both Bloomington,

[00:04:50] [SPEAKER_01]: Indiana, New York's Westchester County, and beyond.

[00:04:54] [SPEAKER_01]: My name is Anya Kane.

[00:04:56] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm a journalist.

[00:04:57] [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm Kevin Greenlee.

[00:04:58] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm an attorney.

[00:04:59] [SPEAKER_02]: And this is The Murder Sheet.

[00:05:01] [SPEAKER_02]: We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews, and deep dives into

[00:05:06] [SPEAKER_02]: murder cases.

[00:05:08] [SPEAKER_02]: We're The Murder Sheet.

[00:05:10] [SPEAKER_01]: And this is The Disappearance of Lauren Spearer, an interview with journalist and author Sean

[00:05:16] [SPEAKER_01]: Cohen.

[00:06:01] [SPEAKER_01]: I guess to start out with Sean, just a very basic question, can you tell us a bit about

[00:06:05] [SPEAKER_01]: yourself, your professional background, things like that?

[00:06:08] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, so my name is Sean Cohen.

[00:06:10] [SPEAKER_03]: I graduated from journalism school in 1992, so it's been quite a while, from Northeastern

[00:06:16] [SPEAKER_03]: in Boston.

[00:06:17] [SPEAKER_03]: And I worked for the school paper and then for a community paper in New Hampshire.

[00:06:22] [SPEAKER_03]: And I've been working ever since in journalism.

[00:06:25] [SPEAKER_03]: It's now been over 30 years.

[00:06:27] [SPEAKER_03]: I went to work for the Journal News, which covers the area where I grew up in New York.

[00:06:32] [SPEAKER_03]: And that's where I, you know, when Lauren Spearer disappeared.

[00:06:37] [SPEAKER_01]: One of the images that stuck with me from your book was the idea of Lauren's room unchanged

[00:06:44] [SPEAKER_01]: with, you know, Harry Potter stuff, Hello Kitty stuff, her trophies.

[00:06:48] [SPEAKER_01]: And sort of this young woman who unfortunately was taken and, you know, has not gotten to

[00:06:54] [SPEAKER_01]: grow up and become an adult and whatnot.

[00:06:57] [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm just curious, can you tell us a bit about Lauren Spearer, the girl at the center

[00:07:02] [SPEAKER_01]: of this story and just sort of what you were able to learn about who she was as a person?

[00:07:07] [SPEAKER_03]: She was a really spirited young girl who, you know, had a lot of friends.

[00:07:14] [SPEAKER_03]: She was communicative.

[00:07:15] [SPEAKER_03]: She was more of an expert extrovert, I guess.

[00:07:18] [SPEAKER_03]: And a lot of people were really drawn to her.

[00:07:20] [SPEAKER_03]: They said that, you know, when she's around that, you know, you just can't help but be

[00:07:24] [SPEAKER_03]: drawn to her.

[00:07:25] [SPEAKER_03]: And she was very friendly and also generous with her friends.

[00:07:29] [SPEAKER_03]: She'd do things like, you know, if a friend was moving or she was off when she was off

[00:07:33] [SPEAKER_03]: to college, she'd make a picture book for her friends, kind of documenting their relationship.

[00:07:39] [SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, she'd get like little gifts for her friends, roommates.

[00:07:46] [SPEAKER_03]: She, in high school, you know, started to have some issues with drinking.

[00:07:52] [SPEAKER_03]: And in college, you know, she had some obviously pretty serious issues.

[00:07:59] [SPEAKER_03]: But even in the midst of, you know, some of her struggles, people around her, she had

[00:08:06] [SPEAKER_03]: very close friends who loved her.

[00:08:08] [SPEAKER_03]: And she was still a really, you know, wonderful person to the people she was with.

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[00:09:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Can you take us back to that day at the Journal News, you know, the bat phone rings as you

[00:09:58] [SPEAKER_01]: described it in the book?

[00:09:59] [SPEAKER_01]: You get word that a college girl has gone missing in Indiana with connections to Westchester.

[00:10:05] [SPEAKER_01]: How you came to break this story?

[00:10:08] [SPEAKER_03]: I was working a weekend shift rotation.

[00:10:12] [SPEAKER_03]: It was me and one of the reporter and the phone rings.

[00:10:14] [SPEAKER_03]: Yes, we called it the bat phone in the middle of the room that stood up on a pedestal and

[00:10:18] [SPEAKER_03]: actually a landline.

[00:10:21] [SPEAKER_03]: This guy, Frank Morante, called kind of a nervous young guy who turned out to be from

[00:10:28] [SPEAKER_03]: Lauren's school in the Scarsdale area and worked with her at a boutique clothing shop.

[00:10:36] [SPEAKER_03]: Lauren Spear had gone missing a while, like a day earlier.

[00:10:40] [SPEAKER_03]: Her parents asked Frank Morante to call media.

[00:10:45] [SPEAKER_03]: So the first office he called was the Journal News, which was Lauren's hometown paper.

[00:10:50] [SPEAKER_03]: So I had a conversation with him and we put a story up that afternoon.

[00:10:55] [SPEAKER_03]: And that was really the start of a lot of public attention on the case.

[00:11:01] [SPEAKER_03]: And within the next day, everyone was covering that story.

[00:11:07] [SPEAKER_01]: So with the Lauren Spear case, there's kind of a divide, it feels like, between what

[00:11:11] [SPEAKER_01]: is concretely known about the circumstances of her disappearance, what happened that night

[00:11:16] [SPEAKER_01]: before she vanished, and then kind of later on what people say happened or what may have

[00:11:23] [SPEAKER_01]: happened.

[00:11:23] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I guess to start off with, can you tell us a bit about the circumstances leading

[00:11:28] [SPEAKER_01]: up to her disappearance that have been pretty well documented and vetted before things become

[00:11:34] [SPEAKER_01]: murkier?

[00:11:35] [SPEAKER_03]: So early on when I hit the ground in Indiana, the police really weren't saying much of

[00:11:40] [SPEAKER_03]: anything.

[00:11:40] [SPEAKER_03]: They weren't identifying the people she was with.

[00:11:43] [SPEAKER_03]: They weren't giving very specific circumstances of the events leading up to her

[00:11:48] [SPEAKER_03]: disappearance.

[00:11:49] [SPEAKER_03]: What is known and what I've learned and what the family and their investigators have

[00:11:55] [SPEAKER_03]: learned, and also the police, is that Lauren was in her off-campus apartment building that

[00:12:04] [SPEAKER_03]: evening, Smallwood Plaza, with friends.

[00:12:08] [SPEAKER_03]: And she decided to go up the street to a pregame party where there's this guy that she had

[00:12:15] [SPEAKER_03]: just met a couple days earlier named Corey Rossman.

[00:12:18] [SPEAKER_03]: Lauren was also talking about the possibility of getting together with her boyfriend, Jesse

[00:12:23] [SPEAKER_03]: Wolfe, that night.

[00:12:24] [SPEAKER_03]: But she went up the street and met up with Corey.

[00:12:26] [SPEAKER_03]: So the two of them went out.

[00:12:28] [SPEAKER_03]: After the pregame party, they stopped by his house, and then they went to a bar called

[00:12:32] [SPEAKER_03]: Kilroy's, and there was more drinking there.

[00:12:35] [SPEAKER_03]: And then they headed back to her apartment complex, Smallwood.

[00:12:40] [SPEAKER_03]: And in the hallway outside of her door, Corey was confronted by these four guys who

[00:12:48] [SPEAKER_03]: entered, you know, got off the elevator and Corey got punched to the ground.

[00:12:53] [SPEAKER_03]: And Lauren at that point was pretty out of it.

[00:12:56] [SPEAKER_03]: She wasn't even communicating with people who she knew in that group.

[00:13:01] [SPEAKER_03]: Corey ended up taking her out of the apartment complex and up to his townhouse, which was

[00:13:08] [SPEAKER_03]: a few blocks up the street, and had to carry her a lot of the way because she was unsteady

[00:13:14] [SPEAKER_03]: with her feet.

[00:13:15] [SPEAKER_03]: She had no shoes, and she collapsed onto the ground and hit her face and also the back

[00:13:20] [SPEAKER_03]: of her head on the staircase.

[00:13:22] [SPEAKER_03]: So she was in bad shape when Corey brought her into his townhouse.

[00:13:27] [SPEAKER_03]: And then at that point is where it gets murky because the only narrators of what happened

[00:13:33] [SPEAKER_03]: in those townhouse complexes, there were four individuals.

[00:13:36] [SPEAKER_03]: There was Corey and his roommate, Mike Beth.

[00:13:39] [SPEAKER_03]: And then two doors down, there was Jay Rosenbaum, who hosted the pregame party, and one of his

[00:13:45] [SPEAKER_03]: out-of-town visitors that weekend named David Blesnack.

[00:13:49] [SPEAKER_03]: So four individuals.

[00:13:52] [SPEAKER_03]: And they were approached by authorities.

[00:13:54] [SPEAKER_03]: And that's where it gets, as you say, murky.

[00:13:58] [SPEAKER_01]: What are some of the things that they claim happened to Lauren and where she went from

[00:14:03] [SPEAKER_01]: there?

[00:14:04] [SPEAKER_03]: The claim is, you know, among that group that Corey, after going into the apartment complex

[00:14:11] [SPEAKER_03]: with her, his roommate Mike Beth was awake.

[00:14:14] [SPEAKER_03]: And Mike Beth's story is that Corey, he helped Corey up to his room and Corey threw

[00:14:20] [SPEAKER_03]: up on the ground and then went upstairs and collapsed and fell asleep.

[00:14:27] [SPEAKER_03]: Corey's claim through his lawyer is that he has no memory of that night at all.

[00:14:31] [SPEAKER_03]: Not of being punched, nothing at all that happened that night.

[00:14:34] [SPEAKER_03]: So he's been, he took himself out of the mix just through his lawyer.

[00:14:38] [SPEAKER_03]: So he has nothing to say.

[00:14:40] [SPEAKER_03]: Mike Beth shows a version that once Corey was up in bed, Mike is sitting there with

[00:14:46] [SPEAKER_03]: Lauren and Lauren is, in his words, wanting to continue partying.

[00:14:51] [SPEAKER_03]: And he says that he brought her over, called and then brought her over to Jay Rosenbaum's

[00:14:57] [SPEAKER_03]: townhouse, which was just two doors away from there.

[00:15:02] [SPEAKER_03]: Jay Rosenbaum, the claim is that his buddy David Blesnack was up in the sleep by that

[00:15:10] [SPEAKER_03]: point.

[00:15:12] [SPEAKER_03]: So Jay's story is that yes, Mike brought Lauren over and that he tried to convince

[00:15:19] [SPEAKER_03]: her to sleep over and that Lauren still wanted to party.

[00:15:23] [SPEAKER_03]: And he ended up saying, OK.

[00:15:27] [SPEAKER_03]: And she walked home, according to him, and left his apartment at about four, four thirty

[00:15:34] [SPEAKER_03]: in the morning.

[00:15:36] [SPEAKER_02]: I think you've said that you probably couldn't have done this book without the support of

[00:15:41] [SPEAKER_02]: Lauren's parents.

[00:15:43] [SPEAKER_02]: How did you build up a relationship of trust with Robert and Charlene?

[00:15:47] [SPEAKER_03]: So I'd never met them or knew of Lauren before this happened.

[00:15:52] [SPEAKER_03]: Once we broke news on her disappearance, it was about a day and a half later that I

[00:15:57] [SPEAKER_03]: flew into Indiana and I met, you know, and kind of going around this new territory for

[00:16:02] [SPEAKER_03]: me, I met the Spears, Charlene and Robbie are Lauren's parents.

[00:16:07] [SPEAKER_03]: And I started working the streets and where Lauren had started off her evening talking

[00:16:15] [SPEAKER_03]: to friends and friends of friends.

[00:16:16] [SPEAKER_03]: I kind of pieced together what happened.

[00:16:18] [SPEAKER_03]: And I also got a source to tell me about some video in Smallwood.

[00:16:24] [SPEAKER_03]: One of the last moments Lauren was seen was being helped out of her apartment complex

[00:16:32] [SPEAKER_03]: by Corey Rossman.

[00:16:34] [SPEAKER_03]: So I reported on that video and, you know, showing Lauren going up the street with this

[00:16:40] [SPEAKER_03]: guy she had just met, not her boyfriend.

[00:16:42] [SPEAKER_03]: And I reported on some of the drugs that were in play.

[00:16:45] [SPEAKER_03]: And the Spears, when I spoke to them in those early days, were very upset with me.

[00:16:51] [SPEAKER_03]: And they wanted, you know, what happened up until the moment she disappeared, they thought

[00:16:57] [SPEAKER_03]: was not fair game.

[00:16:59] [SPEAKER_03]: And so they wanted the investigation left to the police.

[00:17:02] [SPEAKER_03]: But over time, they took note of my coverage and I was kind of leading the pack, I guess,

[00:17:07] [SPEAKER_03]: in breaking news and naming the persons of interest, the last people she was with that

[00:17:12] [SPEAKER_03]: night.

[00:17:13] [SPEAKER_03]: And over time, the Spears grew from frustration and being upset with me to one of like, okay,

[00:17:21] [SPEAKER_03]: well, this is the guy who's breaking a lot of the news.

[00:17:24] [SPEAKER_03]: And they started to talk to me a little bit.

[00:17:27] [SPEAKER_03]: And then I think over at about the one year mark, when I was back in Indiana, and they

[00:17:33] [SPEAKER_03]: were there, we sat down and I did an interview with them where we talked about what had happened

[00:17:41] [SPEAKER_03]: to that point.

[00:17:42] [SPEAKER_03]: And I think at that point, we started to grow to appreciate each other in a new way.

[00:17:49] [SPEAKER_03]: And that kind of evolved over time, even after we all went back to New York.

[00:17:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it seems like to kind of speak to some of the complexities of a journalist covering

[00:17:59] [SPEAKER_01]: a crime case that can conflict with family's wishes, but ultimately with so few answers

[00:18:04] [SPEAKER_01]: all this time later, you know, what you've been able to uncover through your investigation

[00:18:10] [SPEAKER_01]: is just incredibly valuable and getting people on the record, especially in this book.

[00:18:14] [SPEAKER_01]: But I want to actually hone in on the video for a second.

[00:18:18] [SPEAKER_01]: Just, you know, in terms of what that showed, and also zooming back, you know, in terms

[00:18:26] [SPEAKER_01]: of other videos or lack of videos, is there any evidence that Lauren Spear actually left

[00:18:34] [SPEAKER_01]: as Jay indicated that she did?

[00:18:38] [SPEAKER_03]: No, there is not a shred of evidence that Lauren ever made out of the townhouse is

[00:18:42] [SPEAKER_03]: alive.

[00:18:44] [SPEAKER_03]: And there is some bad reporting out there, you know, by a couple outlets that just kind

[00:18:50] [SPEAKER_03]: of makes the sweeping comment like the last time she was seen was walking out of the

[00:18:55] [SPEAKER_03]: apartment.

[00:18:56] [SPEAKER_03]: But there's no evidence of that.

[00:18:59] [SPEAKER_03]: That's Jay's word.

[00:19:01] [SPEAKER_01]: Would there have been video cameras nearby that should have picked her up if she was

[00:19:06] [SPEAKER_01]: really walking away at that time?

[00:19:08] [SPEAKER_03]: There were no video working video cameras on the block where the townhouses were.

[00:19:15] [SPEAKER_03]: Jay Rosenbaum claims that he after she walked out, she walked up to the corner of College

[00:19:22] [SPEAKER_03]: Avenue, which is was about two and a half blocks up from her apartment complex.

[00:19:27] [SPEAKER_03]: So he saw her walk to that corner, he claims.

[00:19:29] [SPEAKER_03]: And then from there, she would have gone downhill a couple blocks and a camera would

[00:19:37] [SPEAKER_03]: have caught her up, caught up with her about a block down.

[00:19:41] [SPEAKER_03]: So there really wasn't too far she could have gone with without being caught on surveillance.

[00:19:48] [SPEAKER_03]: And there is no surveillance of her at that point.

[00:19:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Not to narrow in on it too much, but it's almost as if that if there was some random

[00:19:56] [SPEAKER_01]: perpetrator who grabbed her, the window of time for that to have to have happened

[00:20:00] [SPEAKER_01]: with no one seeing it is basically a block.

[00:20:03] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[00:20:03] [SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, the police in reviewing the surveillance footage, the only thing that

[00:20:12] [SPEAKER_03]: they came up with that they felt like, hey, this might be something, you know, within

[00:20:16] [SPEAKER_03]: that couple block radius was an image of a white truck.

[00:20:22] [SPEAKER_03]: And they put that out in the media and they later kind of got egg on their face because

[00:20:28] [SPEAKER_03]: the timestamp on the video that they had collected was wrong off by a bunch of hours.

[00:20:34] [SPEAKER_03]: So they retracted that tip.

[00:20:38] [SPEAKER_03]: You know, they had reached out and they actually found that individual was the driver and he

[00:20:42] [SPEAKER_03]: was just running an errand through the area during daylight.

[00:20:46] [SPEAKER_03]: So there were no other images put out there.

[00:20:50] [SPEAKER_03]: And that's a strong indication that, you know, there is absolutely no evidence that

[00:20:55] [SPEAKER_03]: she made it out alive.

[00:20:58] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think that's really important to drill down on because I know people still bring

[00:21:01] [SPEAKER_01]: up the white truck to us as if it's a real lead when it was debunked.

[00:21:06] [SPEAKER_01]: And as you said, there are outlets that have said that she was last seen walking out.

[00:21:10] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, to this day, you have some bad reporting that remains on websites.

[00:21:15] [SPEAKER_03]: You know, it's frustrating to the family.

[00:21:17] [SPEAKER_03]: It's annoying to me.

[00:21:19] [SPEAKER_03]: But I think that was a big part of the service of this book was there were a lot of, you

[00:21:25] [SPEAKER_03]: know, true crime, crime sleuths who went out there and posted on social media, Reddit

[00:21:32] [SPEAKER_03]: boards, lots of people who really don't have journalistic credibility.

[00:21:37] [SPEAKER_03]: I went through a lot of down a lot of the rabbit holes that some of the individuals,

[00:21:43] [SPEAKER_03]: you know, who were spreading that online did.

[00:21:45] [SPEAKER_03]: But the book is well vetted.

[00:21:48] [SPEAKER_03]: I feel comfortable with all the details in there.

[00:21:51] [SPEAKER_03]: And hopefully that could be like a new starting point for the reporting.

[00:21:55] [SPEAKER_03]: I took it a long ways and, you know, you could see me kind of focusing on what is actually

[00:22:02] [SPEAKER_03]: known versus just pure speculation.

[00:22:05] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I appreciate that.

[00:22:06] [SPEAKER_01]: You kind of also talk through your process and sort of how you went about getting information,

[00:22:10] [SPEAKER_01]: getting different sources.

[00:22:11] [SPEAKER_01]: It's very helpful to kind of add that clarifying agent to it.

[00:22:16] [SPEAKER_01]: And I want to ask you, you know, all these years later, this remains unsolved.

[00:22:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Do you believe police dropped the ball on this?

[00:22:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Or was this just a difficult case that was always going to be hard to close?

[00:22:28] [SPEAKER_03]: They certainly soft pedaled early on when maybe there could have been an opportunity to

[00:22:35] [SPEAKER_03]: pressure these kids to speak up.

[00:22:39] [SPEAKER_03]: During the early press conferences, they wouldn't name the individuals.

[00:22:43] [SPEAKER_03]: They did a very delicate after, you know, a bunch of days, they did some gentle finger

[00:22:49] [SPEAKER_03]: wagging saying, well, not everyone's being as cooperative as we would like.

[00:22:53] [SPEAKER_03]: But they didn't drill down and they weren't aggressive.

[00:22:56] [SPEAKER_03]: They didn't go into the apartments to do thorough.

[00:23:01] [SPEAKER_03]: They went into the apartments, but they didn't bring in a whole team to do a complete forensic

[00:23:07] [SPEAKER_03]: evaluation of some of the places she could have been that night, the cars that could

[00:23:12] [SPEAKER_03]: have been used to transport her at some point.

[00:23:15] [SPEAKER_03]: Early on, this wasn't considered a crime.

[00:23:18] [SPEAKER_03]: It was a missing persons case.

[00:23:19] [SPEAKER_03]: So there was a search for her.

[00:23:21] [SPEAKER_03]: I don't think that they did a very good job of learning what happened up until the moment

[00:23:27] [SPEAKER_03]: she left.

[00:23:28] [SPEAKER_03]: And I think it all kind of helps inform what could have happened next.

[00:23:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Actually, I want to follow up on that.

[00:23:36] [SPEAKER_01]: Do you have a sense, having done all this reporting and investigating the investigation,

[00:23:40] [SPEAKER_01]: essentially, of why they weren't more aggressive from the start?

[00:23:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Was it just because it wasn't considered a crime yet?

[00:23:48] [SPEAKER_03]: No, I think that there's a real challenge when you have young men with high-powered

[00:23:54] [SPEAKER_03]: lawyers, wealthy families, students, the police in a university town where the university

[00:24:02] [SPEAKER_03]: is kind of the lifeblood of the community.

[00:24:05] [SPEAKER_03]: They have sensitivities to the school and also reputations of individuals that certainly

[00:24:12] [SPEAKER_03]: they weren't wanting to speak out of line or to ruffle feathers or to risk damaging

[00:24:20] [SPEAKER_03]: the reputation of students during legal action.

[00:24:25] [SPEAKER_03]: So that became a real problem.

[00:24:29] [SPEAKER_02]: And of course, it wasn't just the police who was doing some investigative work on this

[00:24:33] [SPEAKER_02]: case.

[00:24:34] [SPEAKER_02]: Can you tell us about Bo Diddle?

[00:24:36] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, so it was August.

[00:24:38] [SPEAKER_03]: So she vanished in early June.

[00:24:42] [SPEAKER_03]: A couple months later, the family had by that point grown frustrated with the lack of

[00:24:47] [SPEAKER_03]: progress and still no closer to finding Lauren.

[00:24:51] [SPEAKER_03]: And the fact that those young men had lawyered up and weren't talking to authorities, they

[00:24:57] [SPEAKER_03]: hired Bo Diddle and associates out of Manhattan, basically retired NYPD detectives who work

[00:25:04] [SPEAKER_03]: near Penn Station.

[00:25:06] [SPEAKER_03]: And Bo Diddle, who's the leader of that, was the president, had a team that he and

[00:25:15] [SPEAKER_03]: the team basically went to Indiana and started digging into the case.

[00:25:19] [SPEAKER_03]: The Spears hired them.

[00:25:20] [SPEAKER_03]: And the idea was to bring a new energy and vigor to be more aggressive in getting information.

[00:25:26] [SPEAKER_03]: And the family ended up conducting their own shadow investigation of the case.

[00:25:33] [SPEAKER_01]: What did that result in?

[00:25:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Did they get more answers from that process?

[00:25:38] [SPEAKER_03]: They did.

[00:25:39] [SPEAKER_03]: Interestingly, a lot of the people they spoke with had never spoken with the police.

[00:25:46] [SPEAKER_03]: And these were people who were in the mix that night, whether they were with Lauren

[00:25:52] [SPEAKER_03]: at a dinner gathering she was at or upstairs at another student's apartment where there

[00:25:58] [SPEAKER_03]: was more drinking and drugs.

[00:26:01] [SPEAKER_03]: I was surprised when I started reaching out to some of these individuals, how many of

[00:26:05] [SPEAKER_03]: them hadn't spoken with detectives.

[00:26:08] [SPEAKER_03]: And I asked them if they'd even been contacted.

[00:26:13] [SPEAKER_03]: A couple of them had spoken with them in a really basic manner but not actually been

[00:26:20] [SPEAKER_03]: interviewed.

[00:26:21] [SPEAKER_03]: It's more like police just walking around, hey, have you seen her?

[00:26:24] [SPEAKER_03]: Do you know anything?

[00:26:25] [SPEAKER_03]: But not the sit-down kind of interviews that get you real information.

[00:26:29] [SPEAKER_03]: And then the Deedle and associates, they were able to come up with dozens of people

[00:26:36] [SPEAKER_03]: who had something to say about what happened that night and pieced it together.

[00:26:42] [SPEAKER_03]: But ultimately, yes, they came up short as well.

[00:26:46] [SPEAKER_01]: And can you tell us about the Speer family's attempts to get answers through the legal

[00:26:52] [SPEAKER_01]: system, through more of a civil suit against some of these young men?

[00:26:57] [SPEAKER_03]: Yes.

[00:26:59] [SPEAKER_03]: So when the private detectives were going around, they managed to get some sit-down

[00:27:07] [SPEAKER_03]: with Jay Rosenbaum and also with Mike Beth.

[00:27:10] [SPEAKER_03]: They tracked him down and they got some statements out of them.

[00:27:14] [SPEAKER_03]: And they were unable to get Corey.

[00:27:17] [SPEAKER_03]: They didn't get David Blesnack.

[00:27:20] [SPEAKER_03]: Jesse was not fully cooperative either.

[00:27:23] [SPEAKER_03]: Jesse Wolfe, Lauren's boyfriend.

[00:27:25] [SPEAKER_03]: So at the two-year mark was when they decided to sue them, the boys, several of them, for

[00:27:34] [SPEAKER_03]: causing the death of Lauren Speer.

[00:27:37] [SPEAKER_03]: So this was their effort to put the kids under the grill, get them in to give sworn statements

[00:27:44] [SPEAKER_03]: and to also go after for the family to go after discovery materials, collect cell phone

[00:27:53] [SPEAKER_03]: records and do the kind of questioning and search for evidence that police really didn't.

[00:28:02] [SPEAKER_03]: So they brought them to court and suddenly the gloves were off and then there was this

[00:28:07] [SPEAKER_03]: legal battle between the family, which to that point had been somewhat reserved but

[00:28:15] [SPEAKER_03]: now was actually accusing these kids.

[00:28:18] [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.

[00:28:19] [SPEAKER_01]: And can you tell us how that ended?

[00:28:23] [SPEAKER_03]: It ultimately got thrown out of court.

[00:28:27] [SPEAKER_03]: The bottom line is there was no evidence of what happened ultimately to Lauren Speer.

[00:28:33] [SPEAKER_03]: There was no evidence at that point that she was deceased.

[00:28:37] [SPEAKER_03]: So it was pure speculation and that was kind of the sad thing is that it remains purely

[00:28:47] [SPEAKER_03]: speculative and circumstantial until you actually get hard evidence.

[00:28:51] [SPEAKER_03]: And that's what they were going after.

[00:28:53] [SPEAKER_03]: But then they're ultimately told by the court, well, you don't have that so you can't go

[00:28:57] [SPEAKER_03]: forward.

[00:28:58] [SPEAKER_01]: It's a really sad catch-22.

[00:29:01] [SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[00:29:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Where are these four boys, now men, today?

[00:29:07] [SPEAKER_01]: And can you tell us about actually tracking some of them down to speak to them for the

[00:29:12] [SPEAKER_01]: book?

[00:29:13] [SPEAKER_03]: Several of them are in the New York City area.

[00:29:15] [SPEAKER_03]: They're well off into their careers.

[00:29:17] [SPEAKER_03]: I think that they'd be in their early 30s right now.

[00:29:19] [SPEAKER_03]: I reached out to all them and particularly I was wanting to start by talking to, say,

[00:29:27] [SPEAKER_03]: Lauren's roommates and her closest friends and find out everything I can from the private

[00:29:31] [SPEAKER_03]: investigative files.

[00:29:32] [SPEAKER_03]: And I went and found some new witnesses.

[00:29:36] [SPEAKER_03]: So I did basically a couple years of reporting on the case and then ultimately went after

[00:29:42] [SPEAKER_03]: the last people to see her alive so that ultimately I got Corey Rossman and Jay Rosenbaum

[00:29:50] [SPEAKER_03]: talking.

[00:29:51] [SPEAKER_03]: And I also learned, I got my hands on Corey's cell phone records and learned that Corey

[00:29:57] [SPEAKER_03]: at about three o'clock in the morning while Lauren was collapsed on a curb, Corey picks

[00:30:03] [SPEAKER_03]: up his phone and makes a phone call to a girl from his hometown.

[00:30:07] [SPEAKER_03]: And I also learned that that was captured on video, him standing and making that phone

[00:30:14] [SPEAKER_03]: call.

[00:30:15] [SPEAKER_03]: A former Bloomington police detective told me this, that this was one of the absolute

[00:30:20] [SPEAKER_03]: last images they had of the two of them together.

[00:30:24] [SPEAKER_03]: That's why I went after the phone records the way I did and figured out exactly who he

[00:30:29] [SPEAKER_03]: called and went after that individual.

[00:30:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that was that was impressive.

[00:30:34] [SPEAKER_01]: And running down the witnesses in this as you documented the book and people can read

[00:30:40] [SPEAKER_01]: that to get more information.

[00:30:42] [SPEAKER_01]: What was the reaction from Lauren's boyfriend at the time when you reached out to him?

[00:30:49] [SPEAKER_03]: So Jesse Wolf left town within days of her disappearance or her parents flew into Bloomington

[00:30:56] [SPEAKER_03]: and they swooped him out within days.

[00:30:59] [SPEAKER_03]: I continued to reach out to him through Facebook Messenger and asked him all these questions

[00:31:06] [SPEAKER_03]: and we'd go back and forth where he'd rant and defend himself and talk about cooperating,

[00:31:16] [SPEAKER_03]: but without being really specific.

[00:31:18] [SPEAKER_03]: He never gave me a sit down interview, though, to go back and forth in person or even over

[00:31:24] [SPEAKER_03]: the phone.

[00:31:25] [SPEAKER_03]: When I reached when I started working on the book, that was about seven years later, I

[00:31:30] [SPEAKER_03]: reached out to him again and he wouldn't talk to me.

[00:31:35] [SPEAKER_03]: He'd rant at me, but nothing really substantive.

[00:31:40] [SPEAKER_03]: And he'd ask for like ten thousand dollars to be interviewed.

[00:31:44] [SPEAKER_03]: And then he asked for one hundred thousand dollars to be interviewed.

[00:31:47] [SPEAKER_03]: And he told me that he has a lot to say.

[00:31:49] [SPEAKER_03]: But, you know, hey, you have to put down the Benjamins, as he put it.

[00:31:53] [SPEAKER_03]: And so I ended up flying out to Colorado, where he's living, to try and confront him

[00:32:00] [SPEAKER_03]: in person.

[00:32:01] [SPEAKER_03]: And I ended up meeting up with his brother, Alex, in a California pizza kitchen.

[00:32:07] [SPEAKER_03]: And we sat down for a couple of hours and he was helpful in helping explain, I guess,

[00:32:14] [SPEAKER_03]: from their perspective what Jesse was going through with Lauren around that time and how

[00:32:20] [SPEAKER_03]: Jesse reacted in the immediate aftermath that maybe raised some eyebrows.

[00:32:28] [SPEAKER_03]: So I learned a lot, even though I didn't speak directly with Jesse in any real way.

[00:32:34] [SPEAKER_03]: And then Jesse's parents also, I made some contact with them and they ranted at me.

[00:32:42] [SPEAKER_03]: So it's the idea is that in their rants, do they say anything interesting or substantive

[00:32:47] [SPEAKER_03]: that could be helpful to push this case forward and be insightful?

[00:32:52] [SPEAKER_03]: And so that's why the rants, I endured the rants to try and find some real information

[00:32:58] [SPEAKER_03]: out of that.

[00:33:00] [SPEAKER_03]: And sometimes I did.

[00:33:01] [SPEAKER_03]: For instance, at about the, you know, a couple of years in, when I had reached out to Corey

[00:33:08] [SPEAKER_03]: Rossman, he left a message in his office and he calls me, he steps out and he makes an

[00:33:15] [SPEAKER_03]: angry phone call to me where he rants and I ask him a couple of questions.

[00:33:20] [SPEAKER_03]: For instance, I said, well, you know, your lawyer says you don't have any memory of what

[00:33:25] [SPEAKER_03]: happened that night.

[00:33:26] [SPEAKER_03]: And his defensive comment was, well, that was my lawyer talking, you know, as if, you

[00:33:35] [SPEAKER_03]: know, he didn't stand by what his lawyer said that he actually had memory, but he wasn't

[00:33:39] [SPEAKER_03]: going to share it with me.

[00:33:40] [SPEAKER_03]: So little things that you say in anger that, you know, maybe are, you know, deserve some

[00:33:46] [SPEAKER_03]: real scrutiny open up little doors.

[00:33:49] [SPEAKER_03]: And I think, you know, ultimately at the, you know, toward the end of this, when I got

[00:33:55] [SPEAKER_03]: Jay and Corey talking in a real way, it wasn't just through the anger, you could also hear

[00:34:02] [SPEAKER_03]: some very specific things that they were saying about that night and their memories.

[00:34:06] [SPEAKER_03]: You know, maybe their statements evolved over time.

[00:34:12] [SPEAKER_01]: I feel like at the heart of this case, there's just like a number of, you know, young men

[00:34:16] [SPEAKER_01]: who might be argued to have behaved somewhat callously and uncooperatively in, you know,

[00:34:23] [SPEAKER_01]: the disappearance of a young woman at the very least.

[00:34:26] [SPEAKER_01]: And I guess, what are your thoughts on that?

[00:34:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Like how this all came together?

[00:34:32] [SPEAKER_01]: And I guess just that kind of wall of silence at the heart of this kind of preventing the

[00:34:37] [SPEAKER_01]: family from getting answers.

[00:34:40] [SPEAKER_03]: I found it very interesting, I mean, to understand why there was this wall of silence in the

[00:34:47] [SPEAKER_03]: early days of this investigation.

[00:34:50] [SPEAKER_03]: And it wasn't just the boys, the last people to see her, to be with her that night.

[00:34:55] [SPEAKER_03]: It was also, you know, even her roommates and closest friends.

[00:35:00] [SPEAKER_03]: So I think that all the years later, when the Spears agreed to cooperate and let me

[00:35:07] [SPEAKER_03]: view their investigative files, and I started reaching out to some of these same individuals

[00:35:12] [SPEAKER_03]: again, at that point, they'd somewhat matured and looked back on that night and said, and

[00:35:21] [SPEAKER_03]: decided that it was important to share everything that they know, to speak out much more candidly.

[00:35:26] [SPEAKER_03]: And they look back on themselves in those days saying, well, we were trying to protect

[00:35:33] [SPEAKER_03]: reputations of ourselves and also Lauren, and we're afraid to speak out because, you

[00:35:39] [SPEAKER_03]: know, hey, there are police in the mix.

[00:35:42] [SPEAKER_03]: So there were a lot of reasons why there was this wall of silence.

[00:35:45] [SPEAKER_03]: And I did break it open for a bunch of them.

[00:35:49] [SPEAKER_03]: And they were, in the end, wanting the false story told.

[00:35:57] [SPEAKER_01]: And then one thing I wanted to ask you about is it's kind of a canard in true crime.

[00:36:03] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think it's very inaccurate for the record that people can't keep secrets, especially

[00:36:10] [SPEAKER_01]: groups of people can't keep secrets.

[00:36:12] [SPEAKER_01]: And somebody will always spill something or brag or whatnot.

[00:36:16] [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm curious, having looked into this story, what are your thoughts on that sort

[00:36:21] [SPEAKER_01]: of cliche?

[00:36:25] [SPEAKER_03]: That's without evidence.

[00:36:27] [SPEAKER_03]: There are a lot of people just kind of, yes, exactly what you said.

[00:36:31] [SPEAKER_03]: Or can't imagine that these young men could maintain silence all these years, say something

[00:36:39] [SPEAKER_03]: to, you know, say a little bit more that maybe they're telling the truth here.

[00:36:45] [SPEAKER_03]: And in fact, she did walk out and it's completely unfair what they've had to go through.

[00:36:51] [SPEAKER_03]: So there's that.

[00:36:54] [SPEAKER_03]: And I honestly, you know, the important thing is to focus in on what they did say happened.

[00:37:05] [SPEAKER_03]: And I think there are four of them were in the mix in that final hour.

[00:37:14] [SPEAKER_03]: It's hard to imagine that one of them could be involved in her disappearance without all

[00:37:21] [SPEAKER_03]: of them knowing about it.

[00:37:23] [SPEAKER_03]: So then the question becomes, if the four of them or three or four of them were in the

[00:37:29] [SPEAKER_03]: mix and know what happened, if one of them speaks up, then they essentially all go down.

[00:37:37] [SPEAKER_03]: So there's a strong incentive to remain silent if it's not a good thing.

[00:37:41] [SPEAKER_03]: If in fact they were involved, and I talked to a public defender, prominent public defender

[00:37:49] [SPEAKER_03]: in Bloomington who was saying just that, that, you know, yes, there's a lot of suspicion

[00:37:57] [SPEAKER_03]: that they're keeping a secret.

[00:37:59] [SPEAKER_03]: And the way to understand that is if they were to share that information now, it could

[00:38:04] [SPEAKER_03]: destroy their lives.

[00:38:07] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, if there's the proper incentives, I think people can do anything.

[00:38:09] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's one of those things where I feel like if nobody could ever keep a secret about

[00:38:15] [SPEAKER_01]: a murder, we wouldn't have any unsolved cases.

[00:38:18] [SPEAKER_01]: So or at least we have probably a lot fewer.

[00:38:21] [SPEAKER_02]: And I thought it was interesting that some people, including some of those people you

[00:38:25] [SPEAKER_02]: interviewed, pointed the finger at Israel Keyes, who happens to be conveniently dead.

[00:38:32] [SPEAKER_02]: Can you talk about that and what you make of that?

[00:38:35] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that was surprising to me that Jay Rosenbaum, who was the last person to report

[00:38:43] [SPEAKER_03]: seeing her and Corey Rossman, who was out with Lauren that night, that both of them

[00:38:49] [SPEAKER_03]: pointed the finger at Israel Keyes.

[00:38:51] [SPEAKER_03]: They said, I strongly believe that Israel Keyes did it.

[00:38:55] [SPEAKER_03]: And he's a serial killer who traveled around targeting individuals, leaving kill kits and

[00:39:02] [SPEAKER_03]: turning off his cell phone and, you know, kind of going off the map and then killing

[00:39:09] [SPEAKER_03]: somebody.

[00:39:10] [SPEAKER_03]: He killed himself, I believe, in prison.

[00:39:13] [SPEAKER_03]: So he can't be directly questioned about that.

[00:39:18] [SPEAKER_03]: But what I learned from sources is that, you know, Bloomington police looked into that

[00:39:24] [SPEAKER_03]: possibility just like others, you know, with assistance later on, but from the FBI.

[00:39:29] [SPEAKER_03]: And his cell phone was checked and there was no indication he was anywhere near that region

[00:39:36] [SPEAKER_03]: that night.

[00:39:37] [SPEAKER_01]: What do you make about the fact that, like, kind of frankly, what seems like very online

[00:39:42] [SPEAKER_01]: true crime sleuthing, you know, kind of, I don't know, I feel like I do hear about Israel

[00:39:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Keyes a lot in the Lauren Speier case.

[00:39:49] [SPEAKER_01]: And is there a limitation to some of the speculation online as far as helpfulness for an

[00:39:54] [SPEAKER_01]: actual ongoing case like the Speier case?

[00:39:56] [SPEAKER_03]: When there was another guy, Daniel Messel, who was convicted of killing a woman in

[00:40:03] [SPEAKER_03]: Bloomington area a few years later, there was a prosecutor who came out and said, well,

[00:40:09] [SPEAKER_03]: you know, I suspect that Daniel Messel was involved with her death and said that there

[00:40:15] [SPEAKER_03]: was this, you know, zone that he could have been working around that time.

[00:40:21] [SPEAKER_03]: And that was just one person's words, but it spread.

[00:40:25] [SPEAKER_03]: And same thing on the Israel Keyes front.

[00:40:28] [SPEAKER_03]: People could say anything they want, but they don't have access to real evidence from

[00:40:33] [SPEAKER_03]: the investigators.

[00:40:34] [SPEAKER_03]: They don't have cell phone records.

[00:40:36] [SPEAKER_03]: They don't understand, you know, just like me, I don't have the records to show where

[00:40:42] [SPEAKER_03]: the phone may have been pinging one individual or, you know, to completely evaluate each

[00:40:48] [SPEAKER_03]: individual and discount them.

[00:40:50] [SPEAKER_03]: But the police, you know, did go down all those rabbit holes, as did the private investigators.

[00:40:55] [SPEAKER_03]: Ultimately, you know, it comes down to evidence.

[00:41:00] [SPEAKER_03]: There's opinions and people could say what they want, and it's dramatic and it makes

[00:41:04] [SPEAKER_03]: for good copy.

[00:41:06] [SPEAKER_03]: But, you know, ultimately, you know, it falls apart.

[00:41:10] [SPEAKER_03]: I think that over the years, the Speier case has kind of found itself back in the news

[00:41:16] [SPEAKER_03]: when something happens elsewhere and people say, hey, could that be the case that, you

[00:41:21] [SPEAKER_03]: know, maybe that killer or that suspect could have been involved in Lauren's case?

[00:41:25] [SPEAKER_03]: Just like when bones would be found anywhere in Indiana or in the region, there would be

[00:41:32] [SPEAKER_03]: a round of attention saying this could be, you know, Lauren Speier and made for a round

[00:41:38] [SPEAKER_03]: of attention on the case.

[00:41:40] [SPEAKER_03]: And then other theories would kind of get thrown into the mix, like could this person

[00:41:45] [SPEAKER_03]: have been involved?

[00:41:46] [SPEAKER_03]: So lots of attention on what could have happened.

[00:41:49] [SPEAKER_03]: But I was kind of shocked that at the 10-year mark, a lot of papers were still citing my

[00:41:55] [SPEAKER_03]: coverage from the year one mark.

[00:41:57] [SPEAKER_03]: There was like nothing new that had actually been reported.

[00:42:00] [SPEAKER_03]: It was just pure speculation and things that turned out to not be the case.

[00:42:05] [SPEAKER_01]: What do you make of the overall theory that a perpetrator happened to grab Lauren in the

[00:42:13] [SPEAKER_01]: perfect window of time that may or may not even exist, depending on what you believe

[00:42:19] [SPEAKER_01]: about Jay's statements?

[00:42:21] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, what is the likelihood of that in your mind, that this is actually some sort

[00:42:27] [SPEAKER_01]: of outside perpetrator who happened to see a vulnerable girl out that night?

[00:42:31] [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, it's unlikely, but something happened.

[00:42:34] [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, she didn't actually disappear.

[00:42:37] [SPEAKER_03]: Someone was in the mix and there are three theories.

[00:42:40] [SPEAKER_03]: There's that she died in the apartment complex, in the townhouse complex, never made it out

[00:42:45] [SPEAKER_03]: and that the boys covered it up.

[00:42:47] [SPEAKER_03]: Another is that Jesse Wolfe, her boyfriend, who claims he went to bed around 1.30 that

[00:42:53] [SPEAKER_03]: morning and his roommate said he saw him up until about 2 in the morning.

[00:42:58] [SPEAKER_03]: But could it be that Jesse went out looking for her and happened upon her?

[00:43:04] [SPEAKER_03]: Without being noticed or detected on any surveillance cameras.

[00:43:10] [SPEAKER_03]: That's like theory two.

[00:43:11] [SPEAKER_03]: And then theory three is that someone on the prowl, they couldn't have known that Lauren

[00:43:17] [SPEAKER_03]: would be coming down at 4.15 in the morning if indeed she made it out of that townhouse

[00:43:21] [SPEAKER_03]: complex.

[00:43:23] [SPEAKER_03]: But that lightning, whatever the major one-in-a-million thing is that a particularly sneaky person

[00:43:33] [SPEAKER_03]: comes in and swoops her up before she would have been caught on surveillance camera and

[00:43:38] [SPEAKER_03]: right after Jay says he saw her.

[00:43:43] [SPEAKER_03]: Anything could have happened, but I leave that to the readers, I guess, to assess whether

[00:43:52] [SPEAKER_03]: they find that credible.

[00:43:53] [SPEAKER_03]: The Spears themselves, Lauren's mom and dad believe or strongly suspect that she never

[00:44:00] [SPEAKER_03]: made it out alive.

[00:44:01] [SPEAKER_03]: But at the same time, they give the caveat that we don't know for sure.

[00:44:10] [SPEAKER_02]: I believe you mentioned that at one point or maybe multiple points, you took personal

[00:44:14] [SPEAKER_02]: vacation time to report on this case.

[00:44:18] [SPEAKER_02]: What was it about this case?

[00:44:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Why did it become so important to you personally?

[00:44:24] [SPEAKER_03]: The first few years of after she disappeared, I was working for the journal news and I do

[00:44:31] [SPEAKER_03]: stories like anniversary stories or when that case went into the courts at the two-year

[00:44:38] [SPEAKER_03]: mark, I covered that.

[00:44:41] [SPEAKER_03]: I think that over the years after I ultimately moved on from the journal news and went to

[00:44:48] [SPEAKER_03]: the New York Post, and I did maybe one story while I was at the New York Post on the case,

[00:44:54] [SPEAKER_03]: but it was not too substantive.

[00:44:57] [SPEAKER_03]: The fact is that it takes a lot of time to make real progress in the reporting.

[00:45:03] [SPEAKER_03]: You can't just make a phone call to an individual and expect they're going to share a lot

[00:45:07] [SPEAKER_03]: of information that they didn't share before.

[00:45:10] [SPEAKER_03]: It takes a really methodical, thorough approach, and you really need to understand how all

[00:45:18] [SPEAKER_03]: the pieces could fit together.

[00:45:20] [SPEAKER_03]: So after I had somewhat of a debacle ending at the New York Post, I suddenly had a

[00:45:29] [SPEAKER_03]: time to work on the case again in a real way.

[00:45:35] [SPEAKER_03]: So that's when I sat down with the Spears and they agreed to cooperate, and then I sat

[00:45:41] [SPEAKER_03]: down in the private investigative offices and spent days and weeks going through all

[00:45:47] [SPEAKER_03]: the files and then took it from there.

[00:45:50] [SPEAKER_03]: It takes a lot of time.

[00:45:53] [SPEAKER_03]: So yeah, and then a couple of years later, I went to work full-time again with the Daily

[00:45:59] [SPEAKER_03]: Mail on a Sunday, and I still am on their exclusives team.

[00:46:03] [SPEAKER_03]: So I travel around the country and stuff, but I use every day of my vacation time and

[00:46:11] [SPEAKER_03]: some weekend time, et cetera, just traveling and working the story.

[00:46:17] [SPEAKER_01]: What questions for you linger about what happened to Lauren and what information could come

[00:46:23] [SPEAKER_01]: out that you feel could break this case wide open?

[00:46:26] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, what needs to happen in order to possibly lead to more progress in the case?

[00:46:33] [SPEAKER_03]: If she indeed never made it out of those townhouses that night, you had at least four

[00:46:38] [SPEAKER_03]: people in the mix.

[00:46:41] [SPEAKER_03]: As I had mentioned, you got Corey Rossman and his roommate Mike Beth, and then two doors

[00:46:46] [SPEAKER_03]: down, you have Jay Rosenbaum and his friend who was visiting David Blesnack.

[00:46:51] [SPEAKER_03]: David Blesnack was in town visiting Jay, and David was with another guy named Alex Ferber

[00:46:58] [SPEAKER_03]: who came into town with him.

[00:47:01] [SPEAKER_03]: Alex stayed elsewhere that night.

[00:47:03] [SPEAKER_03]: So you have five people who could have discussed that night or likely did discuss what

[00:47:09] [SPEAKER_03]: happened up until the moment of her disappearance.

[00:47:14] [SPEAKER_03]: They have had – there's a good chance that they've had confidants early on and over the

[00:47:21] [SPEAKER_03]: years, whether it's a spouse, an ex-spouse, girlfriend, parent.

[00:47:27] [SPEAKER_03]: There are various – could have been a therapist, a lawyer.

[00:47:32] [SPEAKER_03]: If indeed she never made it out of that townhouse complex, it's reasonable to think that

[00:47:39] [SPEAKER_03]: there's more than just those four boys who know what happened.

[00:47:44] [SPEAKER_03]: And it only takes one of them to make a phone call to authorities and for something to break

[00:47:51] [SPEAKER_03]: where suddenly the suspicions become much more real and the cards fall.

[00:48:01] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm curious, as you dug into this case, how has it affected the communities of both

[00:48:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Bloomington, of course, where she went missing, as well as her home county of Westchester?

[00:48:18] [SPEAKER_03]: For the book, I went in my trips to Indiana.

[00:48:22] [SPEAKER_03]: I sat down with a cousin I have who goes to school there in a local coffee shop.

[00:48:32] [SPEAKER_03]: He was telling me about – this was like in November – and he was telling me that

[00:48:36] [SPEAKER_03]: in the first few months of school for that semester, there were three students who had died

[00:48:44] [SPEAKER_03]: in various ways – a suicide, a substance abuse.

[00:48:50] [SPEAKER_03]: Just lots of bad things still happen around campus.

[00:48:55] [SPEAKER_03]: What happened to Lauren Spear, while everyone knows about the case, a lot of people are

[00:49:00] [SPEAKER_03]: focused on that there continue to be a lot of tragedies involving young people that

[00:49:09] [SPEAKER_03]: maybe are more on the minds of kids there.

[00:49:13] [SPEAKER_03]: Everyone around there, though, is very familiar with the case and still, particularly the

[00:49:19] [SPEAKER_03]: community members who participated in the search.

[00:49:23] [SPEAKER_03]: When my book came out in late May, I went to Bloomington and went to a bookstore and

[00:49:32] [SPEAKER_03]: sat for an hour and talked to people.

[00:49:35] [SPEAKER_03]: There was a question about the case.

[00:49:37] [SPEAKER_03]: It was a packed house of people who were still very passionate about what happened, giving

[00:49:45] [SPEAKER_03]: their hearts to the Spears, wanting answers.

[00:49:48] [SPEAKER_03]: The book became pretty much an instant bestseller around there, where I still have a lot of

[00:49:54] [SPEAKER_03]: people around there reaching out, telling me what they did back then and offering their

[00:49:58] [SPEAKER_03]: prayers now.

[00:50:00] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm amazed that 13 years later, how much attention there still is on the case, at least

[00:50:05] [SPEAKER_03]: in the community.

[00:50:07] [SPEAKER_03]: In Westchester, Charlene and Robbie Spear still live in the same house where Lauren

[00:50:12] [SPEAKER_03]: grew up.

[00:50:14] [SPEAKER_03]: Lauren's older sister, Rebecca, who doesn't live in New York, but she's married and has

[00:50:21] [SPEAKER_03]: two kids.

[00:50:22] [SPEAKER_03]: They come over.

[00:50:24] [SPEAKER_03]: So the family itself is experiencing still somewhat of a dual reality of trying to remain

[00:50:32] [SPEAKER_03]: in the present but also trapped in that night.

[00:50:34] [SPEAKER_03]: A lot of people who know them, it continues to be a really heart-wrenching thing to just

[00:50:44] [SPEAKER_03]: see how they've been forced to continue on without having these answers about their own

[00:50:51] [SPEAKER_03]: daughter.

[00:50:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:50:54] [SPEAKER_01]: As someone from Westchester, I followed the case over the years.

[00:50:58] [SPEAKER_01]: The thing that has always affected me the most is just what her family has gone through.

[00:51:03] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, possibly through the selfishness of others or just some horrible chance taking

[00:51:08] [SPEAKER_01]: place.

[00:51:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Their daughter was taken away and they don't know anything or they certainly don't have

[00:51:13] [SPEAKER_01]: the answers they need and they can't bring her home and how that must weigh on them.

[00:51:17] [SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to say we've done a lot of different coverage of crimes around Indiana.

[00:51:21] [SPEAKER_01]: One thing that always struck me was this.

[00:51:24] [SPEAKER_01]: This is from 1977.

[00:51:25] [SPEAKER_01]: This is a veteran crime reporter, Larry Incolingo, speaking to a local paper in Indiana about

[00:51:32] [SPEAKER_01]: a number of murders and disappearances that happened of young co-eds around the Bloomington

[00:51:37] [SPEAKER_01]: area.

[00:51:38] [SPEAKER_01]: He said,

[00:51:38] [SPEAKER_01]: There's something missing in our investigative process here where all these girls can disappear

[00:51:42] [SPEAKER_01]: and never be found.

[00:51:43] [SPEAKER_01]: It makes me sick.

[00:51:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Christ, I feel these kids are entrusted to us, this community, by some implied contract

[00:51:49] [SPEAKER_01]: when they come down here.

[00:51:50] [SPEAKER_01]: We've got to be responsible somewhere.

[00:51:53] [SPEAKER_01]: This is in 1977.

[00:51:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Given what happened to Lauren and given some of these tragedies that still happen at IU,

[00:52:02] [SPEAKER_01]: where is the responsibility?

[00:52:04] [SPEAKER_01]: What needs to happen to be keeping these kids safer in this town and also any other Polish

[00:52:10] [SPEAKER_01]: town?

[00:52:12] [SPEAKER_03]: That's another big reason why I chose to work on this book is because what happened

[00:52:18] [SPEAKER_03]: with Lauren is the dynamic there is still present at IU today and at colleges, particularly

[00:52:28] [SPEAKER_03]: party schools around the country.

[00:52:31] [SPEAKER_03]: So there's a lot to understand what happened to Lauren and why there was this her behavior

[00:52:37] [SPEAKER_03]: and that of her friends was somewhat normalized.

[00:52:44] [SPEAKER_03]: How shocking things in retrospect were part of their everyday norm.

[00:52:50] [SPEAKER_03]: I think focusing in on the Lauren Spear case, there's a lot that can be learned.

[00:52:56] [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.

[00:52:56] [SPEAKER_01]: Listen, Sean, thank you so much.

[00:52:58] [SPEAKER_01]: This has been a great conversation.

[00:53:00] [SPEAKER_01]: We really appreciate you sharing your insights with us.

[00:53:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Before we go, is there anything you wanted to add that we didn't ask about?

[00:53:06] [SPEAKER_03]: At some point, obviously, I had to finish the book.

[00:53:11] [SPEAKER_03]: And it was somewhat frustrating to not actually rack the case.

[00:53:19] [SPEAKER_03]: But I'm hoping that all the attention on the case right now, again, it became a best

[00:53:24] [SPEAKER_03]: seller and there are tens of thousands of people who are focusing in on the details

[00:53:30] [SPEAKER_03]: of what happened that night.

[00:53:32] [SPEAKER_03]: And you could kind of see certain questions that haven't been answered, whether it's by

[00:53:36] [SPEAKER_03]: the last people to see her or certain things that, you know, what did police do?

[00:53:43] [SPEAKER_03]: Why aren't they sharing information?

[00:53:45] [SPEAKER_03]: Being a little bit more forthcoming, could that be helpful?

[00:53:49] [SPEAKER_03]: The attention on this book, I'm hoping, could become a new starting point in the case.

[00:53:57] [SPEAKER_03]: We now have a lot more information than people knew back in 2011.

[00:54:04] [SPEAKER_03]: So I want to continue working on this case and I plan to.

[00:54:09] [SPEAKER_03]: And I'm hoping that lots of other reporters still get it.

[00:54:12] [SPEAKER_03]: I know there's a lot of other things that are very urgent going on in this country, but

[00:54:17] [SPEAKER_03]: there are certainly reporters who could and maybe should continue to focus on this particular

[00:54:25] [SPEAKER_03]: case and ask the hard questions, try and demand answers.

[00:54:29] [SPEAKER_01]: I really hope so, too.

[00:54:30] [SPEAKER_01]: I hope people take up the baton.

[00:54:32] [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm just going to say also, I hope that our listeners read this book.

[00:54:36] [SPEAKER_01]: It's really well written.

[00:54:37] [SPEAKER_01]: It's really fascinating.

[00:54:38] [SPEAKER_01]: It's a great book.

[00:54:38] [SPEAKER_01]: It has so many details in it that we didn't get to cover and everyone should read it.

[00:54:44] [SPEAKER_01]: But also just so they can be armed to maybe combat some of the misinformation about this

[00:54:49] [SPEAKER_01]: case through sloppy reporting or kind of ridiculous speculation online and just kind of keep the

[00:54:55] [SPEAKER_01]: focus where it needs to be on the facts, not on what could be hypothetically based

[00:55:00] [SPEAKER_01]: on no evidence.

[00:55:02] [SPEAKER_03]: One thing we didn't get into is the contradictions of the young men in those last moments, what

[00:55:09] [SPEAKER_03]: they said to authorities.

[00:55:13] [SPEAKER_03]: That's something that I was able to lay out in the book to a pretty good extent.

[00:55:22] [SPEAKER_03]: It's a hard thing to do in a simple news article or in a matter of a few minutes.

[00:55:28] [SPEAKER_03]: So I'm hoping that people could have a much more thorough discussion of what happened,

[00:55:34] [SPEAKER_03]: not just the she disappeared at the end of the night and she was out with this guy and

[00:55:37] [SPEAKER_03]: that guy.

[00:55:38] [SPEAKER_01]: But essentially what you're saying is that in their conversations with police versus

[00:55:43] [SPEAKER_01]: things they said later, there were changes in the stories.

[00:55:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Things did not add up.

[00:55:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Things did not match each other.

[00:55:48] [SPEAKER_01]: Things did not make sense.

[00:55:50] [SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[00:55:50] [SPEAKER_03]: And I can give you a for instance, if you'd like.

[00:55:55] [SPEAKER_03]: Lauren Spear, before she ended up at the townhouses, we know that she had collapsed on the pavement,

[00:56:03] [SPEAKER_03]: that she was having a hard time focusing.

[00:56:07] [SPEAKER_03]: She wasn't communicating.

[00:56:08] [SPEAKER_03]: She wasn't saying a word when approached by even by an individual she knew.

[00:56:14] [SPEAKER_03]: When she ended up in the townhouses, Mike Beth says that she was communicative and

[00:56:20] [SPEAKER_03]: wanting to continue partying.

[00:56:23] [SPEAKER_03]: And Jay Rosenbaum said the same thing.

[00:56:26] [SPEAKER_03]: So you could weigh what we knew about Lauren in the moments before she ended up in the

[00:56:32] [SPEAKER_03]: townhouses.

[00:56:33] [SPEAKER_03]: And then you weigh the question of could she have been that communicative and still wanting

[00:56:39] [SPEAKER_03]: to continue partying?

[00:56:41] [SPEAKER_03]: Would she have essentially gotten a second wind at that point?

[00:56:45] [SPEAKER_03]: What the likelihood is of that.

[00:56:48] [SPEAKER_03]: Another one is Jay Rosenbaum gave three sets of comments to the private investigators during

[00:56:56] [SPEAKER_03]: his first interview.

[00:56:59] [SPEAKER_03]: He said that Lauren walked out his front door and then he watched her walk to the near the

[00:57:06] [SPEAKER_03]: corner and then he went to bed.

[00:57:07] [SPEAKER_03]: In a second interview, he said that he watched her walk to the corner, but he stepped up to

[00:57:14] [SPEAKER_03]: his Juliet balcony to watch her walk down the street.

[00:57:17] [SPEAKER_03]: And he said he may have seen a dark figure at the corner.

[00:57:21] [SPEAKER_03]: In a third interview with the private investigators, he said she walked up to the corner and he

[00:57:28] [SPEAKER_03]: definitely saw a dark figure come up very close to her.

[00:57:31] [SPEAKER_03]: So it just kind of when I spoke with him, he talks about, you know, hey, that person

[00:57:37] [SPEAKER_03]: was Israel keys.

[00:57:38] [SPEAKER_03]: That's what I believe the evolution of the statements.

[00:57:41] [SPEAKER_03]: You just kind of have to it's important, I think, to lay that all out in the book.

[00:57:49] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's that's pretty outrageous.

[00:57:51] [SPEAKER_03]: A lot of people essentially weigh the credibility of what people are saying.

[00:57:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:57:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, listen, Sean, thank you so much.

[00:58:00] [SPEAKER_01]: This has been a great interview.

[00:58:01] [SPEAKER_01]: We really appreciate you taking the time.

[00:58:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Busy schedule to do this with us and just want to again commend you on this amazing

[00:58:07] [SPEAKER_01]: work.

[00:58:08] [SPEAKER_01]: It's just a really good book.

[00:58:09] [SPEAKER_03]: All right.

[00:58:10] [SPEAKER_03]: Thank you so much.

[00:58:11] [SPEAKER_03]: I appreciate it.

[00:58:11] [SPEAKER_03]: Great talking to you.

[00:58:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks very much to Sean for talking to us.

[00:58:15] [SPEAKER_01]: We'll include a link to College Girl Missing in our show notes.

[00:58:18] [SPEAKER_01]: Again, it's a must read for anyone who is interested in this case.

[00:58:23] [SPEAKER_02]: Thanks so much for listening to the Murder Sheet.

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[01:01:07] [SPEAKER_01]: After you purchase, they ask you where you heard about them.

[01:01:09] [SPEAKER_01]: Please support our show and tell them we sent you.

[01:01:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Enhance your every day with Vya.