Please, help FindLauren

It reads like the start of a good mystery novel.

The beautiful young girl smiling on her way out of her apartment, off to meet her friends for an evening out on the town. A group meets up, hangs out for a bit, then decide to move on to a friend’s apartment. She wants to run past her place first, so a friend walks back with her – it’s getting late, after all.

Something happens there in her building, and they decide to just head on to the friends. There, she visits for a while, then it’s time to return home. It’s after 4am, she’s tired. She says goodbye to her friends and heads out, walks down the street, and vanishes.

The college community she lives in searches, her parents fly in to help hunt, surveillance videos are scrutinized, but she’s just gone. Gone.

Only, it’s not a novel. It’s not fiction. It’s real life, and it’s my little college town. The press conferences are held by people I’ve met. The streets are ones I’ve walked late at night, and early in the mornings.

I’ve shared bits and pieces of her story in these other posts, including sharing code for the button in my sidebar and the banner at the top of my page.  Here’s a more detailed timeline of what we know, and don’t know, about the disappearance of Lauren Spierer:

Friday, June 3rd at approximately 4:30am, Lauren Spierer was last seen turning a corner walking back to her apartment. She is reported missing later that day.

Saturday, June 4th, information is released publicly as police use K9 units to search the city. By Sunday, her parents are meeting with the police to determine what steps to take next. Posters go up all over the city.

Over the days that follow, the police embrace the press, holding daily press conferences, keeping Lauren’s name and image in the forefront of our minds. Search warrants are served, computers are seized, videos are obtained. Police can confirm that Lauren was at her apartment building prior to going to the friend’s apartment, but that she did not enter her own unit.  They can also confirm, based on video information, that she walked with another individual from her building towards the friend’s apartment building.

We’ve posted information about a white truck, thought to have circled the block around the time Lauren vanished. That truck has since been identified and dismissed as having any involvement.

Locally, we share each little tidbit of information, hoping, praying, that one of them with be the Something Small That Could Be Big. Praying that today will be the day that they do, in fact, #FindLauren.

I’ve watched press conferences and wept at the pain in her parent’s voices. They just want their little girl home. I’ve listened as they have pleaded with the person or persons who know what happened to their daughter, I’ve watched them struggle to speak of a Father’s Day without her there. As a mother, I cannot begin to wrap my mind around the anguish they are facing. To just not know.

Now, my friends, I’m asking you to help me. To help the Spierer family. To help Lauren.

If you blog, or tweet, or Facebook, please take a look at this list of easy ways you can help share Lauren’s name and face. Just sharing her information one time could bring the break the police need to bring Lauren home.

If you are local, or even regional, and  want to help in the search effort, there is information available here. It is my goal to find a day this week to leave the kids with my mom so that I can head out and search personally. If you cannot come here to Bloomington, consider donating to the search effort directly – funds are used to cover the costs of the flyers, billboards, etc that have gone up throughout the area.

If you have ANY information that might be helpful, please contact Bloomington Police at 812-339-4477 or call 800-CRIME-TV. Tips can be left anonymously. Further, there is a $100,000 reward being offered by Lauren’s parents. The statement “Anything Small Could Be Big” is to reiterate that no matter how insignificant it may seem to us, it could be the piece of the puzzle that makes the image clear.

To get continuous updates on the search effort for Lauren Spierer, follow @NewsOnLaurenS on twitter. Additional information can be found at www.FindLauren.com

Please, help us bring Lauren home, and uncover the truth of what happened that June morning.

 

Her daddy and her mom would be grateful.

So would our entire community.