HI - Lauren Crossan, 18, dies in fall from hotel balcony, Maui, 12 Jan 2004

[Babcat]

No way!!

Struck WHAT during the fall?

She most likely parties with the boys and gets good and drunk because she isn't used to drinking often. She's ready to call it a night and calls the room to tell her chaperone she is on the way back to her room. The boys get pissed because she is getting ready to leave and neither of them got "lucky"... so one of them rapes her... but her autopsy shows no signs of rape because alcohol is a depressant and relaxes the body. (Also ...more than one third of known sexual assaults show no physical proof of anything other than sexual intercourse.) Muscles that would normally tighten up and result in injury would be less likely to do so if she is drunk... especially if a pillow is held over her face to prevent others from hearing her scream and lack of oxygen makes her pass out for a few minutes.

She comes to, and starts fighting and screaming again. This time one of them gets scared and hits her in the head with an object, such as a lamp etc. Or perhaps she gets away for a moment and one tackles her and she strikes her head on a desk or nightstand as she goes down. She is knocked out cold, and unresponsive. Both boys now completely panic because they are in deep doodoo ...or maybe they even think she is dead. They might be able to convince the police she had sex voluntarily, but she is unlikely to voluntarily strike herself in the head. But if she fell off the balcony ...hmmm ...that would explain the head injury ...right? Most likely such a long fall would destroy her skull and render the first injury undetectable.

So the young criminal flunkies make the decision to cross the line to the ultimate final level. They hoist her unconscious body atop the balcony and push her over. Since it has to look like an accident and the hotel can now tell where her phone call to her own room had come from (if she used the room phone and didn't use a cell phone) ...they leave her clothes in the room, maybe even folded nicely as if she had voluntarily removed them. Then the boys either fall asleep, or pretend to, and play stupid the next morning.

 

[Toth]

I like your style, but think there are some problems.
I too wonder about that phone call: she said she would be right there and I think that is what the boys did want to hear.
However, I think at best they would simply have told her it was too late to say 'no' and that she could simply stare at the ceiling until they were through with her. I do not see any sudden plan to drop her off the balcony even the boys had been drinking.
Her clothes were on the floor but were not neatly arrayed and that is troubling because even drunk girls with intense desires tend to take good care of their clothes particularly if they are going to be heading back to their room and possibly encountering a chaperone or a sister or friends.
This case is troubling.
I wonder if the sex was consentual, but have to rely on the reports that there were no obvious indicia of forcible sex.
I wonder if the voice indicated severe intoxication over the phone? Calm manner could be someone carefully fighting to avoid revealing her intoxicated state.
Most men who are going to do anything that is improper would just want the sex, not some weird thrill of watching a naked girl take a dive. Presumably they had other, more normal, things they would have preferred to do with a naked 18 year old girl's body than throw it out the window.

 

[Toth]

Also ...more than one third of known sexual assaults show no physical proof of anything other than sexual intercourse.

You got one of them citation thingies for that? It would still be rape if the woman decided to stop resisting. In a case like that, there might not be obvious signs. Perhaps situation like that contribute to the one third?

 

[Babcat]

Hi Toth,

I read everything I could find on this on the net (instead of going to bed, so tomorrow will be a late morning ) and there are BIG problems with this case.

I personally think the biggest problem with this case is the ME. His original report states that there is "no sign of ANY sexual contact." Apparently the ME was unaware of the claim by one of these boys that he DID have "consensual" sex with Lauren. So there is one big detail he apparently missed. Even consensual sex with condom use will be evident mere hours after the act. And somehow I just don't see one of these boys fabricating sex with a girl who has just been found naked underneath his hotel window in a crumpled heap.

So... what else did this idiot miss? It must have been accidental or she would have cleared the building? Not if she were deliberately dropped over the balcony... conscious or unconscious. And that wouldn't be any accident.

And what is wrong with these investigators?? If they are indeed dealing with two innocent young men who really do not know what happened to this girl, did the police fail to impress upon them the importance of their full cooperation? Why are these boys back in CA while the Hawaiian police continue to search for the source of the alcohol consumed by these three kids that night?? What's wrong with this picture?

If you were clueless about this death, and scared because you are being questioned, and you knew...
1) you were suspected of second degree murder...
2) a girl you last saw naked in your bed was found dead... and still naked... eighty feet directly below your room...
3) her clothes and purse were still IN your room...
... ahem ...now, tell me you wouldn't be singing like a canary about everything the police wanted to know.

These boys were there on vacation. They knew NO ONE there, according to the one boy's father... nobody to whom they owed some sort of long term loyalty. The boys were nineteen and twenty, both underage to drink in Hawaii, just as the girl was. They both made statements to the police claiming that all three of them were drinking. (Hell... one was quick to offer up the "consensual sex" story even though the ME down the hall was telling the police no such sexual contact had even taken place!) And during this time, no one thought to ask these boys where they got the alcohol? I don't believe that for a minute. A statement was even made by one of the investigators that Lauren had not consumed her alcohol as "cocktails". If they KNOW that is the case, why are still looking for the SOURCE of her alcohol, and making the boneheaded assumption it was a DIFFERENT SOURCE than that used by the underaged boys?

Are we supposed to believe the boys REFUSED to tell the police where they had obtained the alcohol, a misdemeanor, when they couldn't have had any close personal relationship with this "source"? Are we to believe they would put their credibility in doubt, while answering to a MURDER CHARGE, for someone they couldn't have even known more than a few hours? And the boys did not say in their statements that they had been drinking earlier in the evening before meeting Lauren. They didn't say that Lauren told them she had also been drinking earlier in the evening. They said "we were drinking" referring to themselves and Lauren. Was Lauren walking around in the hotel, just hours after arriving from New Jersey, with a bottle of Jack in her pocket when she bumped into these two stellar gentlemen who coincidently had bottles stowed on their person? I don't think so. And even if that ridiculous story were believable in the least... are we to then believe the boys pass out in the room, and Lauren, still naked from consensual sex, manages to collect every bottle, every glass, every can that could possibly indicate alcohol was ever in that room and discards the containers OUTSIDE the room?? Now they have her walking around naked in the hallways of the hotel somewhere. And no one notices the nude woman in the hall? And she manages to pull off this stunt even though she is so disoriented from drunkeness that she accidently falls from a balcony, just minutes afterward, where the railing stands five feet tall.

 

[Toth]

I do think the ME may have unwisely adopted a 'finding' that is least damaging to the tourism industry. A drunken girl falling is sad but not particularly bad for tourism, a girl being murdered on vacation in Hawaii is bad for tourism.

One point: its is GOOD that the ME did not know of the consentual sex statement. His findings should not be tainted by knowledge of witness statements.

 

[Babcat]

Toth,

You are right... he shouldn't be privy to statements made by the boys before he does his examination. My remark about him being apparently unaware that his finding directly contradicted the truth was simply a quip meant to be sarcasm. I was pointing out that if the ME is seeing no signs that any sex occurred... and at the same time one of these boys is spilling that potentially damaging tidbit to police... it is an indication that this ME missed something that should have been obvious. And if he missed that, then all of his findings are tainted, IMO. His ability to make the right assessments is very much in question right now. It is not stated anywhere that this is a forensic pathologist serving as ME. It may be very questionable whether this ME has the qualifications to give an opinion on whether or not this young girl struck the building on the way down, or whether any of her injuries could have happened before the "fall".

Most MEs are NOT qualified to make those assessments. They conduct autopsies and tell whoever needs to know HOW the person died. It takes further qualifications to forensically piece together the events of an act. He can say there is an injury consistent with blunt force impact located at point X. But is he qualified to say that this injury is consistent with striking the building on the way down and consistent with NOTHING ELSE? This ME goes even further to surmise that had she jumped or been pushed she would NOT have struck the building... something that even a qualified forensic pathologist cannot say with certainty. This wreaks of cover-up to protect the hotel and the reputation of the area.

 

[CurrerBell]

Excellent questioning, Babcat and Toth. I'm not at all satisfied with the way this case has been hastily concluded and hushed up. There has to be more here than we've been told so far.

 

[Toth]

Tourism is big there... and the official finding is one that favors the tourism industry. Coincidence? Perhaps.

I find it strange that the police are not searching for the providers of the alcohol, only the ABC guys.

If that one guy who fessed up to having had sex with her used a condom, there might be some reason for the M. E.'s opinion.

I don't think its really going to be resolved. There is no one who wants the case to be continued, the hotel and the tourism industry generally want it to end.

It does seem a bit extreme to throw a girl who says 'no' off the balcony. Anyone inclined to doing anything improper would be more interested in getting some than in punishing the naysayer. And is sure seems strange that if they had tossed her off the balcony that they would leave her clothes and purse there and just sleep it off until the cops knocked on the door.

Could she have been disoriented? Its hard to stumble and fall over a railing. If anything happened she probably was ontop of that railing for some reason. However, despite what you may think about jet lag and alcohol, its not too likely that an 18 year old girl was traipsing along a hotel balcony's railing in the dead of night while naked. And if she got up to greet the dawn then she would have slept most of it off and merely been hungover. So if it happened in the dark, just how long were those two boys sleeping if off?

 

[Toth]

His ability to make the right assessments is very much in question right now.

Not by the Hawaiian Board of Tourism and Trade its not! An accident can happen anywhere. Such a tragedy. But a murder of an 18 year old girl who had just arrived at a Hawaiian Resort Hotel would be a very bad event to take place. Real bad for business. So I think a great many people on the Islands feel that he made the right assessment.

 

[Toth]

You are right, the rather wimpy investigation into the alcohol seems to indicate that they don't really want to find out anything about the alcohol.

Also it does seem strange that the girl's clothes would be on the floor but all the booze containers would be discarded and discarded elsewhere. Now we don't know for certain what was consumed and what containers were involved, alot of conventions involve free flowing alcohol from various rooms. There might not have been any 'bottles' brought back to the room.

But it sure seems to be a dumb stunt to pull: get up on a railing while naked but when not even the boys in the room are watching you? Was she trying to get out of the room?

 

[Jade]

My heart breaks for her parents.
I feel kinda bad speculating but do things like acid or ecstasy show up hours after consumption? Maybe acid & heights is an urban legend more often than reality [Art Linkletters daughter?]. Both of these drugs are popular with all types.
The call to the chaperone must have been a cover up. Who is going to call to say "I just met a hot guy and plan to get drunk" ? I have a teenager and I know some innocent looking girls are anything but innocent.
The no signs of sex may depend on how you define sex. They are much more creative these days and sex isnt always intercourse.

This also reminds me of a article I read on I think it was Gloria Vanderbilt's son who at first seemed to have committed a suicide jump from a balcony but may have been sleep walking.

 

[Toth]

I believe Art Linkletter's daughter died as a result of a bad acid trip and more properly the ignorance of how to deal with someone on a bad trip.

I'm quite sure the girl would not have said 'I'm going to swill a whole lot of booze and be very creative in certain matters'.

Somnambulism is rather rare but usually does not involve lack of perception of dangers. Climbing over a ninth floor balcony and climbing over an obstacle that was in your way might however be viewed somewhat similarly.

 

[Babcat]

Sleepwalking?? That is an interesting twist I hadn't considered. I have two nieces, one on my side and one on my husband's side, that were sleepwalkers. It can be a very real and dangerous problem for kids (and adults I hear) who are affected by it.

My sister's daughter, at the age of four, actually wandered from her upstairs bedroom, down the steps, through the house, and out the back door into the yard. Once there she preceeded to attempt to climb a four foot chain link fence, managing to get to the top before freezing in fear and screaming one blood curdling scream after another! It was 3:52 am... my sister says she will never forget the terror of waking to the distant sound of her four-year-old screaming and the image of the digital clock next to the bed. She thought her child was being abducted from the home. My niece, who was very verbal and communicated quite clearly at that age, remembered only "waking up" at the top of the fence and being terrified of how she could possibly have gotten there. She is twenty now and still remembers the event clearly. It may have been the scariest incident of her sleepwalking, but it wouldn't be the last.

The other niece, (my husband's brother's daughter) is one of identical twins. Her sister never had an incident of sleepwalking. I think that is curious. However this twin was the smaller, and weaker twin at birth, and also suffers from a hearing loss her sister does not have. I don't know if that is at all related to her sleepwalking. But when she was five, in 1991, we were visiting them in Pittsburgh. The girls had been in bed for hours when she walked out of her bedroom right past all of us adults talking in the kitchen late at night and straight to the steep stairway that led to the basement. No one realized, at first, that she was actually asleep. Her mother thought she had gotten up to get a drink in the kitchen. Only at the last minute did my brother-in-law realize she was going to tumble right down those steps and he caught her before she did. I thought my heart would stop. She was still not awake after he jerked her away from the stairs! He had to shake her somewhat to wake her up and she became very combative and talked nonsensically for a moment. When she actually became fully awake she started crying. It was bizarre... just like my sister's girl.

I'd love to know whether this girl who fell from that balcony has a history of sleepwalking. It could explain how it happened. But I still find it odd that she would call the chaperone and say she is on her way, only to change her mind and stay the night without calling back. Maybe she thought the chaperone would go to bed once she knew the girl was on her way to the room. I think it is odd that she wouldn't think they would look for her, though.

 

[Lilybug1]

She is young, she voluntarily went to their room, it was undoubtedly for sex.
I doubt anything happened. If she changed her mind, the two men might simply have told her ''too late to say no, now'' but they would have been unlikely to throw her off the balcony. And I can't quite imagine that even a slightly inebriated 18 year old girl not knowing its best to just lie there and stare at the ceiling while waiting for them to finish with her than to go traipsing around a hotel balcony.
Its very disturbing, but I don't see it as suicide and I can't quite see two young men tossing her out the window without having had sex with her first. Can't see any reason for tossing her out the window anyway. Hotels have cameras police would know which room she was in, the two boys are registered at the hotel. Doesn't seem a sensible murder plot.

I have to say that this post is eerily reminiscent of the idea of that a girl asked for it she dresses or behaves a certain way. I whole-heartedly disagree with the notion that bc she voluntarily went to the room it was for sex. She may have been interested in one of them, but I hardly think she signed on for a gang-bang. I maybe she wanted to continue the party upstairs, continue hanging out, drinking or even kiss/hook up with one of the guys (and stop short of having sex). Or maybe to have sex - but you really can't know that just by the fact that she went to their room. I often find that the people who make these statements are older and have been long removed from the dating scene. Going with someone into their apt. or room does not mean you're going to have sex and find that most young people actually udnerstand that to think otherwise can result in criminal behavior.

Also, that statement that she should been smart enough to lie there and wait until they were done with her absolutely disgusting. Maybe she was smart enough to yell or try to get out of there. After all, if she did lie there and let them be done, and then she reported the rape. I imagine some would find it incredible that she didn't try to escape, run or yell. And they panicked and cornered in the balcony and then threw her over when she wouldn't give in. I sure it wasn't part of the plan and they would preferred to have their way with her, but maybe she didn't just lay back and take it as they expected.

I find it really unbelievable that they fell asleep with a young naked girl in their room and well she was bored bc they were sleeping instead engaging in the threesome she was looking forward to, so she decided to jump off the balcony to spite them. I don't know think so.

 

[rift]

Stumbled on this case and thought i would update. 2004 the chaperone was charged with harassment after leaving notes and flowers on Lauren's grave after being told not to visit her resting place.
http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2004/May/29/ln/ln16a.html

In 2008 the chaperone was sued and Lauren's family/estate was awarded close to $700,000.
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-06-16-3432910243_x.htm

RIP Lauren.

I don't post often but felt a need to update after researching. If anything is against TOS please delete...

 

[Throwawaythis]

Stumbled onto this. I know the family of this girl and unfortunately they are all very heavy drinkers. Seems to run in the family. Therefore I know for sure the woman who was blamed for this had absolutely no shot at controlling what the girl did. The story is very likely true to the way the news has it, I could definitely see an accident like this happening.
Such a shame. RIP.