BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Ten days after an Indiana University student vanished, police said Monday they plan to release enhanced security camera video in the hope the public can help identify the vehicles that drove through the area around the time the young woman was last seen.
One criminologist praised the move, saying the public often plays an important role in missing person cases by providing information officers might not otherwise obtain.
"If a case like this is solved, it's usually because of a very credible tip on the part of the public, someone who decides he or she wants to be helpful," said Jack Levin, a professor of sociology and criminology at Northeastern University.
But Levin and another criminologist also said that with each passing day the chances that 20-year-old Lauren Spierer will be found alive diminish. Homicides typically occur with hours of abductions, they said.
"Of course, if you're a parent you can't give up hope," Levin said. "There are too many cases where someone has been found alive even up to 18 years later, but these are rare."
Spierer was last seen walking home alone from a friend's apartment about 4:30 a.m. June 3, a few hours after she left a popular Bloomington bar with a different friend. Police Capt. Joe Qualters said one — and possibly two — vehicles are visible in video sequences police obtained from cameras near the place where the Greenburgh, N.Y., native vanished. Police want to talk to the drivers, and if it turns out the footage actually shows one vehicle circling through the area, that would be particularly interesting, he said.
"Did that individual drive around the block because perhaps they saw something? Did that individual drive around the block because perhaps they were responsible for something? We don't know," Qualters told reporters at a Monday briefing.
Police have not "made a leap" in thinking the vehicle or vehicles played a role in Spierer's disappearance, he said, but they hope releasing the images can aid the investigation.
While police have previously said they have 10 "persons of interest," including Spierer's boyfriend, Qualters said Monday the number is fluid, changing from day to day. Two of the last people to see Spierer — the friend she left the bar with and his roommate — have given police DNA samples, their attorneys said.
Levin said police, who have released little information in the case, are likely taking a two-pronged approach to the investigation, looking first at those who are statistically likely to be responsible, such as boyfriends, friends and others who knew the victim well. They're also likely focusing on the possibility that the perpetrator is a sexual predator who was a stranger to Spierer, he said.
But Kenna Quinet, an associate professor at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis who specializes in research on serial killers, said she would be surprised if the perpetrator was a sexual predator who just happened into Spierer's path because those people usually spend much time searching for and watching their victims. She said she believes Spierer may have been abducted by someone she knew or someone who lives nearby.
At any given time, there are about 100,000 missing person cases across the nation, with about a half of them involving adults, Quinet said.
Considering the circumstances leading up to Spierer's disappearance and the fact the police said early on they suspected foul play, "it doesn't bode well for a positive outcome," she said. "My heart sinks at this case."
The search for Spierer has drawn about 500 volunteers a day, and that number hasn't diminished even though the number of searches had been reduced to two a day from three, said Leah Aft, assistant director of IU's Helene G. Simon Hillel Center.
"We're always hoping for the best," Aft said. "We're looking for answers and we're hoping she's alive."