Lauren Spierer, a vivacious 20-year-old with a flair for fashion, should be clad in cap and gown next month celebrating her college graduation with classmates at Indiana University. Instead, Spierer’s parents are left agonizing over her whereabouts after the young woman disappeared in 2011 without a trace from the streets of downtown Bloomington.
For two years, the family has been tormented by false leads, dashed hopes and what they say is an unwillingness to help from people who were last seen with their daughter. The recent discovery of still-unidentified human remains in a remote area of Indiana became the latest reminder of their continuing anguish.
“We’re experiencing a terrible strain,” Spierer’s father, Robert, told FoxNews.com. “We miss Lauren terribly and the not knowing makes it all the worse for us. We think about her every day and we talk about her every day. It’s not any easier today than it was two years ago.
“It’s hard for us with all of Lauren’s classmates graduating in May,” he said. “It’s emotionally hard knowing she should be there.”
Spierer, a fashion merchandising major who had just completed her sophomore year, was last seen early the morning of June 3, 2011, on the intersection of 11th Street and College Avenue in Bloomington, according to one of the woman’s acquaintances and college classmates.
That acquaintance, identified as Jay Rosenbaum, claims he watched Spierer walk from his building toward her off-campus apartment complex some three blocks away around 4:30 a.m. the morning she disappeared. Rosenbaum’s last reported sighting of Spierer followed a night of partying among a group of college friends and acquaintances.
Nearly two years later, Bloomington police continue to actively investigate the case, but no arrests have been made to date — and several leads have led nowhere.
On Monday, a coroner in neighboring Brown County told FoxNews.com that human remains found last week in a rugged area are being examined for identification.
Brown County chief deputy coroner Earl Piper said the partial remains were discovered on private property by two women looking for mushrooms and were there for “probably a couple of years.” He could not confirm whether the remains were male or female. Piper said some clothing was found among the bones, but declined to describe it.
The remains were found on a ridge that is “quite a hike up” from a rural road, Piper said. The area is approximately 19 miles from the Indiana University campus in Bloomington.
Piper said an anthropology team examining the bones should have results by early next week.
“They’re looking for any traumatic injuries,” he said. “They need to establish the cause of death first and then they will work to make an identification.”
Robert Spierer has said that his daughter, who took medication for a heart condition, could have been drugged at Kilroy’s Sports Bar, a popular college hangout with an outdoor sandy area designed to look like a beach. Authorities reported that Spierer left her shoes and cellphone behind there.
“She could have been given something in her drink, unknowingly, that made her almost incapacitated,” Spierer
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