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Thursday, March 28
The Indiana Daily Student

6th press briefing: Spierer search continues, persons of interest comply

Missing: Lauren Spierer

Lauren Spierer’s mother Charlene said she wakes up every day and asks herself what do I want to accomplish today.   

“I want to say to the person who has Lauren or has harmed Lauren: Shame on you! In relationship to that, the person who knows this person who’s not coming forward with the information, I beg you to come forward.”

She also spoke to her daughter at Sunday morning’s press conference saying, “Lauren, I love you with all my heart and soul…I am here for you 100 percent. I will never leave you. I love you with all my heart, and I need you back.”

She also told her daughter that she doesn’t want her appearance of despair to mean that she’s not as strong or as determined as ever.

Sunday is the tenth day that 20-year-old IU student Lauren Spierer has been missing. America’s Most Wanted aired Lauren’s case Saturday night.

Although it only lasted a few minutes in the hour-long show, the Bloomington Police Department received between 30 to 40 tips from 9 p.m. when the show aired to 3 a.m. Sunday morning. BPD Capt. Joe Qualters said they expect tips to continue to come in for at least 24 hours after the show aired.

“We are very hopeful we’ll finally get that phone call to find Lauren,” Qualters said.
Qualters also said that every person of interest BPD has interviewed has been compliant, but there are still persons of interest that BPD has not spoken with.

He said police are still in the information gathering stage, and they want to broaden who they talk to. As for the persons of interest that BPD has not spoken with, Qualters said they have indication that those people will come to them.

“We’ve had our doors open for those individuals to come,” Qualters said. “There is nobody we can prevent from leaving this county. We cannot compel people to come back to us. For those that we haven’t spoken to, we believe they will come talk to us.”

The Texas EquuSearch has also joined the efforts to find Lauren. The group is a national search group with the vision “to return those missing back to their loved ones,” according to its website. Qualters said they have a lot of technical equipment they can bring to the search, and they will determine what level they can help.

The U.S. Marshals Service was also in town earlier this week, Qualters said, conducting a sex offender search. The sweep is complete and everyone investigated was compliant and no one was taken into custody.

Lauren’s family has set up a website, www.findlauren.com, that they will keep updated. Robert Spierer also announced that the community searches for Lauren will only be at 11 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. with no 2 p.m. search starting Monday.

Robert Spierer encouraged volunteers to come to the search headquarters at Eighth Street and College Avenue at any time of the day if the search times do not work for them.

Lauren’s father also wanted to remind the public that there is a $100,000 reward to find their daughter.

“Anything small could be big. Speak up and help us find Lauren,” he said as he does every day.

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