Authorities this week released images from Cesar Laurean’s house that show the fire pit where Lauterbach’s charred remains were recovered and a garage where they say the fugitive tried to cover up evidence of her murder. (ABC)

It’s a grisly story. While Laurean’s wife was at a Christmas party for his unit - he was busy doing something else. The evidence suggests Maria Lauterbach was hit in the head with a blunt instrument. She was eight months pregnant.

In addition to first-degree murder,

[T]he grand jury also indicted Laurean on charges of ATM card theft, attempted card theft, fraud and robbery with a dangerous weapon.

Hudson said preliminary findings from a second autopsy performed on Lauterbach’s body indicate that the slain Marine’s fetus had not been born alive before her death.

“In North Carolina, the killing of a viable but unborn child is not against the law,” Hudson said.

The FBI, which is overseeing the manhunt for Laurean, also released recent images of the fugitive. The photos show a tattoo of a phoenix rising from the ashes on the upper part of Laurean’s left arm, and what appears to be a human skull layered over another image on the upper part of his right arm.
(FBI)

Laurean is reported to be somewhere in Mexico; his family is there and a cousin saw him near Guadalajara last week. In Zapopan, Mexico, Laurean stopped at a liquor store owned by his cousin Juan Antonio Ramos Ramirez. Ramos said that Laurean told him that he was traveling “with some buddies for a few days.”

Hudson said, “It doesn’t surprise me a relative would have seen him — assuming he is telling the truth — because Laurean has family in Mexico.”

If Laurean is found in Mexico, Onslow County District Attorney Dewey Hudson will not be able to pursue the death penalty on the murder charge. According to the U.S. State Department, Mexico and the United States have a long-standing agreement not to seek extradition of suspects to face charges in the United States if they could face the death penalty.

Looks like he has it all figured out, although you can never trust the media when they depict military guys as crazy flipped out murdering psychopaths.

Recently they tried to do that in the New York Times…and a lot of people drew out the actual statistics that show that fewer military people are violent criminals than in the regular population. Fewer military people are on death row, fewer military people are in prison for various crimes. Military people generally are even more law-abiding than regular citizens.

Supposedly Laurean raped her in March. The media is all giddy about her making a rape charge against him. But…the murder happened in December - and she was 8 months pregnant. Somebody in the media - please do your math.