Opening arguments to begin in trial of former Marine accused of killing pregnant colleague

Opening arguments to begin in ex-Marine’s trial

GOLDSBORO, N.C. — Opening arguments were scheduled to begin Thursday in central North Carolina in the trial of a former Marine accused of killing a pregnant colleague in 2007.

Attorneys were set to lay out their cases in the trial of Cesar Laurean in Goldsboro, one day after attorneys agreed on a jury of seven women and five men. Laurean attorney Dick McNeil said his client is ready for the trial to get started.

“We’re hopeful and confident that the right results will be reached,” McNeil said.

Laurean is a former Marine at Camp Lejeune who is charged with killing 20-year-old Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach of Vandalia, Ohio, and burning her body in a firepit in the backyard of his home in December 2007. He has pleaded not guilty.

The trial was moved about 55 miles from Jacksonville, home of Camp Lejeune, to Goldsboro due to extensive pretrial publicity.

Laurean and Lauterbach were personnel clerks when she told officials that he raped her. She later recanted a claim that he impregnated her, and DNA tests later revealed Laurean was not the father. Lauterbach was about eight months pregnant when she died.

Authorities had been searching for Lauterbach after she disappeared when Laurean’s wife turned over a note in which Laurean claimed Lauterbach had slit her own throat. That prompted an international manhunt for him that ended when he was arrested in April 2008 in western Mexico and extradited last year.

Prosecutors have agreed not to seek the death penalty so Mexico would consider returning Laurean to the U.S. He faces life in prison if convicted.