Spierer parents cover city with new posters

At 10 a.m. Sunday on the corner of Eighth Street and College Avenue, less than a block away from Lauren Spierer’s last confirmed sighting, Charlene Spierer hugged her daughter’s friends in a tearful back-to-school reunion.

By noon, only two hours into the seven-hour postering event, more than 125 people had distributed stacks of missing person posters and fliers.

The Spierers had a new poster designed to garner more attention for their daughter’s case since IU’s 40,000-plus students have returned from summer vacation.

“We’re now at the point they’re all back,” Robert Spierer said. “We’re hoping there’ll be more information about what happened. We desperately need it. That’s what we have to work off of.”

Almost 10,000 posters were distributed throughout Bloomington, and volunteers picked up piles of pastel sidewalk chalk to write “#findlauren” or “findlauren.com” on sidewalks.

However, the Spierers, who flew home to New York for their older daughter Rebecca’s birthday, nearly didn’t make it to Bloomington for Sunday’s event.

They caught one of the last flights out of LaGuardia International Airport before Hurricane Irene hit the East Coast.

“Thankfully, we had a morning flight and made it out,” Robert Spierer said.

Throughout the day, Charlene Spierer continued to push for someone to come forward and reiterated her commitment to finding her daughter.

“All you have to do is look at her face on the posters,” she said. “She deserves every bit of effort we can give her.”

Junior and Lauren’s former roommate Blair Wallach, who has been home in New Jersey since early May, met with a group of friends armed with three stacks of posters, tape and a map to post fliers.

Wallach and Lauren have been friends since they were nine years old.

“It was the worst news I could’ve gotten,” Wallach said. “There’s no words to describe it, hearing your best friend is missing.”

Although Wallach couldn’t make it back to IU during the summer, her mother came to search for Lauren.

She said she’s been trying to spread the word about Lauren’s disappearance through her Twitter and Facebook accounts. She also tweeted at the @NewsOnLaurenS
Twitter account.

“Hopefully, it’ll get someone to speak,” Wallach said. “The truth will come out, and we will find her.”

Lauren’s group of friends echoed Wallach’s statement.

“It makes us feel better to keep doing things like this and make sure everybody knows,” junior Ilana Portner said.

In addition to advocating for their daughter, the Spierers wanted to remind returning and new students to take extra safety precautions.

“Don’t think that this can’t happen,” Charlene Spierer said. “This could happen to anybody on any campus.”

The Spierers reminded anyone who may know anything about the disappearance of their daughter to call Bloomington police at 812-339-4477, email helpfindlauren@gmail.com or mail an anonymous tip to Find Lauren at P.O. box 1226, Bloomington, Ind., 47402.

“There’s just so many people to reach out to,” Robert Spierer said. “We’re begging.”
Before Charlene Spierer left to greet more volunteers, she had one last message for her daughter.

“We love you, honey,” she said. “We’re not going anywhere.”